Snowmobile Club Gets New Groomer
By Amy Polk

Les Cheneaux Snowmobile Club volunteer groomers gather around the club's newest groomer (right) and an older one. Volunteers and a club member's daughter include (back row, from left) Robert "Dobby" Holland, Kayla Merchberger; (standing, from left) Tom Huff, Mark Merchberger, Jim Charles, Tony Autore, Mike Hamburg, Jack Otsot, Soap Bickham, Jim Brewer, Marshall Bean, and Stu Volkers.

Les Cheneaux Snowmobile Club will have its first chance to test a new trail groomer this month now that the area finally received some fresh snow. The new groomer, a 160 horsepower Piston Bully "Trail Bully," arrived the first week of December but has sat quietly at the clubhouse awaiting snow. With the addition of the new groomer, the club will maintain three machines to groom 108 miles of trails.

Getting a new groomer is a periodic event for the club, but this year's purchase is the first time the club has not had to finance a portion of the cost. The state paid for the new tractor and an 8.5-foot LaCrosse drag to smooth the trail. Les Cheneaux Snowmobile Club member Robert Holland said the state now provides 100 percent (up to $165,000) of the cost of a drag and tractor. He estimated the club's grooming package will cost nearly that much with a $144,000 groomer, drag, and taxes.

Dobby Holland conducts a brief session on how to use the new groomer on a frigid Saturday morning, January 13, at the Les Cheneaux Snowmobile Clubhouse in Cedarville.

"It's a pretty significant savings to clubs with grooming programs, because we don't have to come up with the money," Mr. Holland said.

Prior to this year, the state provided 75 percent the cost of the machinery if members raised 25 percent. Before that, the state 60 percent and local clubs contributed 40 percent.

Mr. Holland said members would have to have raised about $25,000 this year to buy a new groomer, and the club is already overextended from borrowing money for the clubhouse expansion and the last groomer it bought.

The state will also replace the groomer after it accumulates 3,000 hours of use. This is better for local clubs, Mr. Holland said, because clubs where there is more snow will put many more hours on a machine than those where there is less snow.

"It would only take us 2.5 to three years to put 3,000 hours on a groomer in the U.P., whereas downstate, it could take up to six years to reach 3,000," Mr. Holland said.

The Les Cheneaux Snowmobile Club uses heavy duty machinery to navigate through rough terrain and cedar swamp, and the groomer needs to have a track, Mr. Holland said.

The club's 15 to 18 volunteer groomers maintain the trails between DeTour in the east and two miles west of I-75 on the west end. The groomers travel as far north as Pickford, where the Kinross Parks and Recreation Service picks up grooming responsibilities. The Straits Area Snowmobile Club takes over from Les Cheneaux on the west end of the trail system, and south of M-134.

Volunteers gathered at the Les Cheneaux Snowmobile Clubhouse in Cedarville for training on the new machine Saturday, January 13.