Category: Meetings

January 19th, 2023. 6:00 PM MST.

Location: 3C Guiding shop

Minutes recorded by secretary: Mitch Helling

Treasurer: Sunny Madden

President: Cameron Chimenti

Vice President: Justin Madden

USFS Liason: Matt Burkhart

Business Liason: Keith Tupper

Social Media Director: Heather Tupper

Attendance: 13 people in person, a few online. Thanks for coming out!

Membership Update: 22 single members, 24 family members, 7 premium business members, 7 associate business members for a total of 59 as of January 19th, 2023. 

Treasurer Update: $9207.60 in checking, $704.74 inbound from Paypal (paid membership dues), and outstanding check for WSSA dues of $1200. For a net total of $9212.34 assets.

WSSA Awards: We’ll donate the awards money to the ACCESS program to support public access.

State Trails Update: 

Grooming has been ongoing, along with safety shelters in place. 

The State’s snow cats have new GPS trackers on them, and State Trails has had issues linking them to their website, so current grooming status that we’ve had in years passed was not operational until recently. Josh Millek told us they’re working on fixing this earlier this season, and it now appears to be working: https://wyoparks.wyo.gov/index.php/home-trails 

Safety Shelters: 

Safety shelters need more fire starter. Nelson specifically. Cameron has some at the shop, Zach said he’ll bring it up this weekend. 

Josh & Forrest are talking with the USFS Brush Creek Ranger District about getting a safety shelter at Lake Marie. Reefer trailer would be sensible, since we can fill part of it with firewood offsite, and it’s on the highway (easy to tow). We would need to coordinate with WY-DOT on the timing of pulling a trailer like this in place just before the road shuts down. If USFS won’t go for a reefer, could do one like the Nelson & Quealy on a skid. The Club would need to provide the skid frame & framing (either pay to have it built or build it ourselves–we have several fabricators in the group). One complication with this option is that we can’t cut firewood on-site, since WY-130 is a scenic byway and that means firewood must be cut 300’ or farther away. Not a huge deal, a few pickup loads will do it. 

Keith brought up the idea to add a hut in the Sierra’s. Something to bring to State Trails attention. With no club over there, we’d likely need to step up to maintain it.

Updated vinyl (with current business memberships) for inside the safety shelters is in progress. Hasn’t been printed yet, Cameron will check on this and ensure it happens.

Label the donation boxes inside the huts as donation boxes. Sharpie would work to label for now. 

Beacon Check Signs: 

Chains End, Albany, and Lake Marie signs are up. Mitch will take Greenrock sign up Friday or Saturday morning.

WSSA Update: 

Fun Days is March 3rd, 2023 in Alpine, WY. All the hotel rooms are booked out. 

WSSA Scholarships are due February 1st to Shannon Glandt. https://snowmobilewyoming.org/scholorship/

WSSA website now provides a central place to join all the state clubs: https://snowmobilewyoming.org/join/ 

Still looking for a secretary + treasurer to take over. Pays $500/month year round if you’re approved & hired on. If interested, reach out to Sunny Madden: wssasunny@gmail.com    

Miscellaneous: 

Black 2004 Skidoo Rev broke down December 11th near NO trail. Owner attempted to retrieve the machine but it was gone (or buried?). They probed the spot it was left but were unable to locate it. Anyone know anything? No one had any intel at the meeting, group figured it’s buried. Cameron said there’s approximately 6’ on the mountain on average and that it would be very tough to find a buried sled.

WY-DOT camera at Green Rock is currently not working. 

Parking Lot: State Trails has been working with the Denver (Region 2) Recreation folks for a parking lot, trying to go over the Laramie District since we’ve tried that angle for 20+ years and gotten effectively no where. We may consider reaching out to state legislature, let them know USFS is stonewalling us on an issue rooted in supporting the local economy & recreation. 

Facebook: 

Advertisements on the club’s group page from businesses will be deleted if they are made by non member businesses. This is only fair to the businesses that are active, paying members.

We have 7400+ followers of our Facebook page, with 5500+ of them “members” of our Facebook group. Cameron’s going to make a quick video to inform the group that being a member of our Facebook group doesn’t constitute actual membership of the club. Joining the club & paying dues constitutes club membership, and this is what matters from an organizational perspective for things like working towards having a parking lot put in & interacting with governmental entities like USFS. If even 1% of the Facebook group members actually joined, we would double our actual club membership!

Next Meeting: 

Thursday, February 16th, 2023 at 6:00 PM MST. The plan is to be in the 3C Guiding shop again, and online via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84967175275

I’ll email out a reminder the week of. This event is also posted on our Facebook page.

Both safety shelters are in. Quealy has a donation box mounted. Striker plate was loose (door was stripped). Keith got some bigger screws and got it secured. Members Kevin & Mitch stocked Quealy with firewood (12/15/22) with help of 3 riders from Cheyenne. The locked Job Box in there is low on fire starter and matches (for replenishing the ammo can).

We need to get the beacon check signs out at Albany and Greenrock. The Chains End sign is up, as is the one at the base of Lake Marie. The business names on them are outdated: Cameron will work with the vinyl shop to create updated banners with the current partnerships named. 

Safety Shelter at Lake Marie would be great. Permanent one at Quealy would be great too, but maybe a third portable one would be more feasible. Upkeep could be an issue for a permanent structure. Justin will touch base with Forrest (at State Trails). One idea for a relatively cheap/simple portable safety shelter for Lake Marie location is a reefer trailer. State Trails is not confident that USFS would go for us putting a reefer trailer at Lake Marie. This should be discussed with WY-DOT as they’re another interested party (with respect to opening the highway in the spring). 

Note there’s no where in Centennial that sells trail stickers. Make sure to grab your permits in Laramie or Albany before heading up. 

State Trails has all the trails marked and has been grooming. It’s been thin, creating some challenges for trails (especially leaving Greenrock on U trail and going around Brown’s Peak on O Trail), but this recent storm cycle has helped with coverage. Note that State Trails put new GPS devices on their Snow Cats this year, and they’re having issues linking them to their website that shows grooming status. They’re working on it. 

Treasurer’s Update: $10985 in checking. Cameron (president) is correcting our account at the bank to make Sunny Madden the treasurer. Sunny hasn’t been elected but will serve in this role until we hold elections again. Big thanks to Sunny for doing this!

WSSA is looking for a secretary & treasurer (1 role), and a VP. The secretary/treasurer position is paid, $500/month. Sunny is hoping to transition out of that role by Fun Days 2024. 

WSSA Scholarships due Feb. 1st to Shannon Glandt at WSSA. Emails sent out previously (10/26/22). Reach out if you need it again or didn’t receive the information. This is for active club members or their dependents, for attending higher education. 

Fun Days first weekend in March, 3rd-5th. Top or the Rockies club is hosting in Alpine. Can register online on that club’s site (https://ridealpine.com/). There’s also a link off the WSSA site. Meet & greet Friday night, rides Saturday (along with XC skiing & an art thing). Rev it Up Girls are hosting a ladies ride Friday. Saturday night is the banquet. Sunday is the WSSA business meeting. 

Sunny updated the WSSA website so you can join most of the clubs in the state through the WSSA website. One current issue with this is if you join a bunch of clubs you’ll pay the WSSA fee each time. They’re working on fixing that so a person can pay the state-level fee once, and then pay only the club portion of the membership fee to join additional clubs. 

Charity reports: track charitable hours & donations. This gets sent to American Council of Snowmobilers so we know how much snowmobilers contribute to the community. Makes for great PR for the motorized/snowmobile community.

We’re thinking of doing a spring ride & bbq again this year. We’ll discuss specifics at future meetings. Usually held on a spring day, during a snowstorm(ha!). 

Meeting Minutes

11/17/22

6:05 PM start

             Good attendance. ~20 people in person. A handful online (Zoom).

Wyoming State Snowmobile Association (WSSA) Updates: 

Scholarship applications are open for WSSA.

WSSA dues have increased (website currently lists $20 for non-business members). We will need to consider raising SRSC membership dues to keep pace.

WSSA Fun Days is in Alpine WY this year, March 3rd-5th, 2023.

Assorted:

Cameron now has equipment to print T-shirts. We could print club shirts and sell them to raise some funds. Need to supply shirts & come up with a design.

Off trail riding is open! Please pay attention to the 12” snow depth rule to avoid resource damage (and a bad image for snowmobilers) as well as a ticket.

We’ve got a cooler for a giveaway. (big thanks to Jed @ Borderline Powersports for the continued support!). We’re going to use this to do a membership drive: join by January 1st 2023 to be eligible to win this cooler. It will be a drawing among all current/paid members. 

Current membership counts: 16 single memberships, 17 family memberships, and 7 business members that are paid/current. Please remind your fellow riding buddies to join or renew.  

New banners are going into the huts to explain who keeps them maintained, and provide a way for people to donate (Paypal/Venmo QR code system). Business member’s names should be added. Separate “No-Smoking” signs should be put in the shelters too. The “Be 307 Aware” program should have signs in each shelter as well. One had it last year but both should have it. Will reach out to the “Be 307 Aware” program person to see if they have signage we could put in them.

Side Note: The “Be 307 Aware” program is to use radio channel 3-07 if you’re in trouble. SAR Teams will monitor that if there’s an active search for you. SAR teams do not continually monitor this frequency. Please don’t use this for your regular comms. Consider this a backup plan for when your InReach battery is dead (you do carry a satellite communicator, right?) and as a way to communicate with SAR while they’re working to locate you. 

From the program’s Facebook page: “The 307 Channel on FRS and GRMS capable radios can help search and rescue teams get you home safely if you are lost or injured.

Program the radio to UHF 462.6125 Privacy Code 85.4 or Channel 3 and Privacy code 07 (307).”

Donation boxes for the safety shelters are ready. Need to install them. This is so people can slip cash into a secure location to help us cover expenses on hut upkeep.

Beacon signs need updated with current business memberships. Jed at Borderline wanted his sign on the East side of the range if it ever became available, and with TNT changing hands that’s an option now. Let’s make that happen.

State Trails Updates:

No trail maps printed by State Trails this year. Costs shot up for this. If you have old ones, keep them. Also note you can download a geo-referenced PDF map from the State Trails website, and upload that into various mapping apps on your phone, which will work without cell service as long you have location (GPS) on. This can show exactly where on the mountain you are located. Apps like CalTopo (my personal preference) & Avenza work for this. https://wyoparks.wyo.gov/index.php/snowmobile/snowmobile-maps-trails

State Trails meeting was 1^st Friday in November. Talked a lot about parking at Green Rock. State Trails took it to USFS regional recreation supervisor in Denver: they’ve said it looks like there’s a need for a parking lot, but it has to come from our district supervisor (Laramie District). Laramie district has been less than enthusiastic about moving on this (for over 20 years). There’s a regional Great Divide Outdoor Collaborative (note Dave Wright, owner of Albany Lodge, is the motorized representative for our region) that our USFS District Supervisor has said needs to make a recommendation to put a parking lot in. WY-DOT is on board: they want parking off the highway. Note that the USFS re-permitted the existing gravel pit off Sand Lake Road (location of proposed new lot), so that spot will be enlarged as people pull gravel out during summer: this could be good to help establish it as winter parking. WY-Highway Patrol and Sheriff’s office are on board with a lot too.

The contract for Tic’s Parking was renewed, so that lot will continue to be plowed (paid for by State Trails).

State Trails could apply for a permit to put signage in for parking directions at Greenrock. Try to maximize what we’ve got (busy weekends are a mess, largely due to high traffic volume, partly due to poor parking choices).

There’s a lot of grant money available for Recreation. Land Managers haven’t done much with this so it’s being made available for groups like ours. Maybe a permanent safety shelter @ Quealy? 

State Trails is going to do electronic sticker sales for OSV registration (next year?). This will be significantly faster to get the data in the State’s hands about how many stickers were sold, where they’re coming from, etc. etc. It will also be possible to buy online (like Colorado), but still go inside retailers to do it.

Snowmobiling Survey results are in, there’s hundreds of millions of dollars generated. State Trails recently did this. Big Horns & Snowies flip flop year to year on which attracts the most money. There’s an OHV survey as well.

Treasurer Update: 

$8858.39 as of October 31^st, 2022 in our checking account, $394.77 in Paypal from recent memberships & donations (transfer to checking in progress) for a total of $9253.16. 

Next Meeting Items:

Next Meeting is December 15th, 2022 at 6:00 PM at the 3C Guiding shop in Laramie, WY and on Zoom (use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84967175275)

Current officers. When are elections? Should we pursue a 501.C(3) non-profit status? Need an FEIN for filing taxes (now that PayPal reports our transactions (membership dues) above $600 to IRS). Need officer info to re-register with Secretary of State (WY).

December 17, 2020

Our December meeting was held via Zoom. This enabled members from outside of Laramie to easily join in the conversation. We would like to continue offering this option going forward.

Avalanche Beacon Signs

This season we will have 4 signs on the Snowy Range.  Two signs will go in at the main Y of Brooklyn Lake Rd and WY-130 and one above Albany Lodge. The fourth sign will go on 130 just after the Chain’s End parking area. State Trails has one to go to the Sierra Madres. If any members ever find a sign not working, email us or send a Facebook message and we’ll get on it.

State Trails Update

Forest’s State Trails update: Trails Program Manager. Season started slow this year, but got 30”two nights ago (trail crew reported) and trail grooming started right up. WY-130 is all dry, no snow on it, not groomed. Quealy safety shelter is going in on Monday December 21st, Nelson Park goes in soon after. Staking of trails is occurring as there’s enough snow to do so. All trail junction signs are up. Top of T-trail before the trees is pretty bare. South part of the forest(Mullen Fire): it was tough to get USFS to allow the State Trails in and replace permanent signs, but they’ve been at it for ~3 weeks via chained up trucks and snowmobiles, and to cut out roads/trails.

WSSA Updates

WSSA scholarship applications are coming up soon for those members that are attending post-secondary education. Otherwise no new update from WSSA. Reach out if you want details on WSSA scholarships, pretty easy money for education!

Fun Days in March in Cody, WY. Still trying to make Fun Days happen despite Covid-19. More details to follow.

ACSA (American Council of Snowmobile Assocations) calendars for $20. Can win up to $360,and then $500 goes back to the club that sold the winning calendar/raffle. Cameron will have some of these at the 3C Guiding shop for sale.

Next Meeting: January 21, Zoom info will be sent via email and posted on Facebook.

Hope this email finds everyone well and ready to start thinking about snowmobiling again.  Our first meeting of the year will be this Thursday September 12th.  We will be returning to Firehouse #3 in West Laramie.  The meeting will start at 6 and we have several things to get scheduled and discuss.  Below is a list of some items for discussion.  If you can not make the meeting and would like to add any comments please reply to this email and we will be sure to add those to the discussion on Thursday.

We have rescheduled the February Club Meeting for Wednesday, February 27th at 6:30 pm. We will meet at the Laramie Plains Civic Center, in the Conference Room. The address is: 710 East Garfield Street, Suite 110, Laramie, WY 82070. We hope you can make it!

Quick reminder we’ll have our January meeting this week on Wednesday night (1/16) at 6:00pm.  Hope you can make it, but we realize many of you are located elsewhere or busy.

Thursday April 19th will be our final meeting for the season. Dinner will start at 6:00 pm at Fire Station #3 in West Laramie. The meeting will start at 6:30 pm.