GEORGE HILL Memorial February 1, 2025
WINTERFEST February 22, 2025
Greetings and Happy New Year!
If you are anything like me, you have been spending an inordinate amount of time looking at weather reports, waiting for that “big time” snow to arrive. Well, the “big time” snow has not arrived, but snow has arrived. Just enough to get our grooming season underway.
Our groomers are now up and running on both the Eastside and Westside making our trails in good shape so each of you can have a great Priest Lake snowmobile experience. We have found amazing snow up high, along with many trees we had to remove from the trails. Lower elevation we found some areas with little snow, especially around the southeast side of the lake. But once you gain elevation you will discover great snowmobiling conditions. I’m optimistic that issue will be corrected soon with the help of Mother Nature.
As a point of clarification, I wish to remind everyone that under Idaho Code, side-by-sides (tracked UTV’s) are allowed to use the groomed snowmobile trails providing they have a current Idaho Snowmobile Registration, are less than 80 inches in width, and have an unladen weight less than 2000 pounds. With the introduction of side-by-sides to our trail system issues arise concerning our trail safety. Side-by-sides use up to half the width of the trail and we want to encourage safe driving practices by having the side-by-sides drive on the right edge of the trail, allowing for a safe area for snowmobiles to pass in the opposite direction.
Many of our snowmobilers use our groomed trails as a means to get off trail for a greater snowmobiling adventure. In certain conditions, especially in deep and soft snow, the side-by-sides on these alternate trails can cause large ruts which lead to an unsafe impassable access to these areas. For that reason, I would encourage the side-by-sides to stay on the groomed trails in most conditions.
If all snowmobilers including side-by-sides, snowmobiles and snow bikes avoid driving in a manner that damages our groomed trails, this will make for an enjoyable safe experience for all of our snowmobile community and the Priest Lake Groomers.
On a daily basis you can find our current Groomer Report on priestlakegroomers.org,
You can also find a quick link on our website to order your Idaho Snowmobile Registration. SELECT 9A as your riding area to support the Priest Lake Groomers.
Join our Facebook GROUP here for updates and comments.
Thank you Facebook.com/PriestLake for creating this group.
Happy trails to you,
Larry Bryant, Chairman
Priest Lake Groomer Advisory Board
