Unsung heroes of the trails

Two questions are asked during stops along snowmobile trails, according to Kent Schueller, one of Ozaukee County’s trail bosses and a longtime partaker of the hobby.

“Where’d you come from and how are the trails?” he said.

One directly relates to the other, since snowmobilers flock to nicely kept trails.

That’s where the unsung heroes of one of the area’s favorite winter activities come in: the trail groomer operators.

Schueller, of the Town of Fredonia, along with a handful of others take it upon themselves to ensure the Snow Runners LTD snowmobile club’s trails are smooth.

They take care of the club’s 61 miles — 46 in Ozaukee County and 15 in Sheboygan County. Ozaukee County has more than 120 miles of trails.

Grooming trails plays a more vital role than people may realize, and not just to snowmobilers. Businesses near trails rely on it.

“You produce nice trails, you draw people who want to ride on nice trails, they support local businesses,” Schueller said.

A trip up north, he said, between meals, hotels and gas, can run $500 per person.

“The economic impact is huge,” Schueller said.

“Millions (of dollars),” trail boss Jeff Clasen of Grafton said.

Businesses sponsor clubs through ads on trail maps, “and we hope our people patronize them,” he said.

The Wisconsin winters that many people lament help open up more than 25,000 miles of snowmobile trails statewide, by far the most groomed trails in the country, Clasen said.

“That’s revenue we wouldn’t have if it wasn’t white outside,” he said.

Grooming the trails is not an entirely thankless job — payment often comes via a thumbs up from snowmobilers the groomer operators see along the way — but it’s not an easy one either.

The best times to groom are from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. when traffic is light. Someone has to get the groomer from a shed on Dan Gasser’s farm on Highway LL in the Town of Belgium, get it started and hit the trail.

Groomer operators get out “whenever we have a chance,” Austin Leider of Belgium said.

“It’s a struggle. We all work full time,” Clasen said.

They average about five to six hours per shift.

“We don’t want to get in this thing and do a joy ride for an hour and a half,” Schueller said.

Groomer operators don’t always finish where they start. They often call each other and decide to meet at a certain point where one takes over for another.

Sometimes, they’ll even swap vehicles. The groomer driver finishing his shift will hop in the next guy’s vehicle and drive back to get his own car.

“There’s a lot of phone calls. We try to coordinate the night before,” Clasen said.

Grooming trails before weekends is a priority since that’s when most snowmobilers are active.

The odd hours can be a drag and garner unpleasant facial expressions from spouses as their loved ones leave the house, but Scheuller said his wife noticed the difference between smooth and rough trails during a recent snowmobile excursion, which justified his crazy winter schedule.

“Bumpy trails ruin it,” he said. “I’ll park it and go home and watch TV.”

While snowmobile clubs get along — Ozaukee County has five clubs, and the Snow Runners is contracted to take care of one of the small club’s trails — they are committed to having a smoother trail than one another.

“There’s this unspoken competition between clubs,” Clasen said, adding he went out to groom on Sunday morning, Feb. 21. He knew a meltdown was coming but he wanted smooth trails for that last day of snowmobiling.

“It’s that passion,” he said.

The club’s groomer is a farm tractor suited with a special kit the club purchased to turn it into a trail groomer. The Snow Runners’ 17,000-pound machine is 19 years old, and is only driven about 35 hours per year.

This year the groomer racked up about 100 hours in one of the best seasons in recent memory. Trails were open nearly one month straight due to heavy snow and cold weather.

In at least one area up north, grooming runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The groomer acts as a road grader, taking in snow, packing it down and then pressuring the snow to set it. The process leaves two edges that catch snow from the wind. Snowmobiles travel in the roughly 10 feet in between those edges.

In fresh snow, groomers will travel at 3 to 4 mph. Once a trail is established, speed increases to 9 mph.

To do all 61 miles of the club’s trails takes about 13 hours.

Not many club members drive the groomer. The list includes Schueller, Clasen, Leider, Gasser, Jeff Klos and Dan Mueller.

“You can’t have just anybody in these machines,” Clasen said. “There is an art to this.”

Leider, who works as a heavy equipment operator, is one of the newest operators. The others grew up on farms and know how to run machinery.

Six to eight inches of snow are required before trails are ready for grooming, but work needs to be done on the trails before the groomer hits them.

Hours are spent leveling plowed fields so the groomer doesn’t bounce around, and the club pounds in several hundred stakes and signs to mark the trail.

Sometimes, they build bridges to handle the groomer’s weight over small creeks or install culverts, often with help from community members.

In addition, clubs work with 109 Ozaukee County landowners who allow trails to go through their property, and another roughly 50 in Sheboygan County. A banquet with raffles and prizes is held each year as a thank you.

“We need to keep our landowners happy,” Clasen said.

Educating them about their liability — they are not responsible for what happens on a trail despite the fact that it’s on their property — is important, Schueller said.

Clubs regularly check in with landowners of any ownership changes and check the global information system (GIS) maps every three years.

Determining when to open or close trails is another tedious yet vital element. Trail bosses talk to each other and then call the trail coordinator. Clasen handles some of the social media and website notifications, including the Travel Wisconsin site that lists conditions of all the state’s trails.

“It’s a lot of work,” he said.

A few things make the labor pay off.

Snowmobiling can provide an escape.

“Just the freedom of it. You can go 10 mph and go at your own pace or go 70 mph with safety in mind,” Schueller said. “Safety, safety, safety. We can’t preach that enough.”

Schmidt said he enjoys “hanging out with the guys.”

Snowmobiling allows for some camaraderie that other hobbies don’t.

“Guys will be pulled over and hanging out on the side of the trail. You see that a lot,” Schueller said. “You can’t do that on a road.”

Out in the wilderness, the trails allow access to waterfalls and landscape only seen from a snowmobile. And riders come across a variety of wildlife. Deer will run the trails, and turkeys, coyotes and wolves aren’t uncommon. Clasen once saw a cougar.

Seeing the hobby passed on to the next generation provides gratification.

“You see families out there, parents with the little one in front. That makes it all worth it,” Schueller said.

The Snow Runners, Clasen said, are looking for new and young members.

For more information, visit www.snowrunnersltd.net.