New Sign System To Aid Snowmobile Trail Rescues
By Paul Gingras

Standing at the Cheeseman Road and Railroad Grade snowmobile trail in St. Ignace, (from left) Mackinac County Undersheriff Darrell Sadler, Mackinac County 9-1-1 Coordinator Bryce Tracy, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians Police Chief Fred Paquin, Mackinac County Sheriff Scott Strait, and Les Cheneaux Boy Scout Peter Duman represent the multiple-agency effort to install signs along the county’s snowmobile trails to help locate trail users in an emergency. Mr. Duman, a Cedarville resident, installed 30 signs in Clark Township as part of his Eagle Scout project, and laminated and bound 40 map books for the county. The group is standing on eastbound Snowmobile Trail Two, which runs all the way to Curtis.

Emergency responders in Mackinac and Chippewa counties are asking snowmobile trail users to look for new trail locator signs, which have been installed to make it easier to rescue injured riders. As of Monday, December 11, more than 90 percent of the 322 trail markers were up in Mackinac County, and the rest will be in place by the end of the year, said Sheriff Scott Strait.

The markers follow a military grid system and include the name of the county they are in and a two-letter, four-number code that riders can The numbers on the signs will give to emergency services in case of an emergency. The codes will enable police, firemen, and ambulance crews to pinpoint the scene of an accident with greater precision than ever before, said Bryce Tracy, Mackinac County 9-1-1 coordinator.

If a snowmobile trail user has an emergency, he or she should find the closest one of these signs to tell emergency services dispatchers his location along the trail. Trail signs are not mile markers, but correspond with a military grid system that pinpoints the location on a digital map.

not make sense to riders, Mr. Strait said, nor are they sequential like mile markers on roads. They were developed strictly for responders. A sign will have a code such as FR 7581. The first two letters identify a 100 kilometer (approximately 62 mile) grid. The four-digit number

identifies a one kilometer square within the grid. Global Positioning System (GPS) readings are recorded for each sign, but even without GPS coordinates, Mr. Tracy said, pinpointing a one kilometer square area to search dramatically increases responders’ ability to quickly find an accident scene.

“The bottom line is that we want people to look for these signs,” and note the numbers as they are riding, Mr. Strait said.

The reason mile markers were not used, he added, is that portions of snowmobile trails are on private land, so as permission to run trails on private property changes, trail routes change, altering their length. Mile markers would have to be updated continuously, but the military style grid system signs do not.

Prior to the development of the new marker system, it was sometimes difficult to locate someone who had been hurt on Mackinac County’s 300 miles of designated snowmobile trails.

Snowmobilers who get hurt, or who are helping a member of a riding party who has been hurt, can simply call 9-1-1 and give a sign code number. The dispatchers and county police have digital maps that correspond to the signs which enables coordinators to direct responders to the closest entry point to the trail where an accident occurs.

Responders have bound, laminated copies and police even have computer software that includes topographical maps.

The system is designed so that all rescue agencies have copies of the same information.

Forty map books should be in the hands of all primary response services by January 1.

In the past, emergency responders had to contend with calls in which people said things like, “I’ve been in an accident. I’m on Trail Two!” They seldom remembered significant landmarks that would help responders find the quickest route to them, however, and Trail Two runs from St. Ignace to Wisconsin, Mr. Strait explained.

“Its like saying, ‘I’ve been in an accident, and I’m on US-2,’” he added.

Even if a victim tells police he left St. Ignace one hour ago, without knowing how fast he was traveling, police had little idea how far down the trail he was. They would find themselves wasting valuable time searching large portions of trails.

Searching within a one kilometer grid improves this scenario, Mr. Tracy said.

A team of four responders and a rescue sled usually respond to trail emergencies. The sled has skis and wheels and has room for an injured person, medical technicians, and medical gear, Mr. Tracy said. Each area has its own e m e r g e n c y responders, generally a combination of EMS workers and firemen.

Sheriff Strait emphasized that the trail markers will only be posted on official s n o w m o b i l e trails, designated on maps available from local snowmobile clubs.

The trail marking project was funded by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. It was developed through a year and a half of collaborative work between Mr. Tracy, Chippewa County Office of Emergency Services Director Tim McKee, Chuck McCready of No Boundaries Maps

and Graphics, Inc., based in Sault Ste. Marie, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, local snowmobile clubs, and Boy Scouts from Troop 140 in Cedarville, who helped bind the map books and install signs. One scout, Peter Duman of Cedarville, did extensive work on the project and used it to earn Eagle Scout status.