Well the end of the season is upon us. We did receive and inch or two of snow last night, enough to make things look nice but not to be fooled, trail have not been maintained and there are several bare spots that will be back shortly with the warm weather on its way in for the weekend. The trails in Bingham are more or less closed at this point. On Monday, we had to shut ITS 87 down due to a looging operation needing to move into the Jack Pine Rd area of ITS 87 at the Rt 16 crossing 5 mi outside of town.
This means you will see the following locations posted no snowmobiling:
The Solon Dam will show that ITS 87 is closed in Bingham. This means that if you are to unload there, you will have to take a right 3.2 mi up the tracks on to ITS 84 east/Frank Savage Rd. From this point you will only have access to the Sunshine trail that goes through the first 11 wind towers and the Iron Gate Rd Loop back to ITS 84 Mahoney Hill Rd.....that's it! That being said we have not been grooming and did have some high winds over the weekend so riders should use extreme caution and be prepared for hazards.
At the top of Mahoney Hill when taking a left off Pat Cassidy rd to take the connector trail back to ITS 87 is closed and ribboned off.
At the Austin Stream Bridge on the Dead Water Rd and to the right coming south Townline Rd have been marked extemely well that the trail is closed south and there is no access into Bingham.
The trail is also closed at the Rt 16 crossing at the Townline and T-Rd crossing, as well as ITS 87 crossing on RT 16 for those that ignored both closeures on the north end.
It is a bitter sweet ending to a short season, but we need to respect the landowner rights and requests and let them do their jobs.
Best options for riding at this point is to trailer to Jackman where the riding is still in good shape! However to our knowledge, Jackman, Long Pond and Pittston Farms are the only clubs still maintaining their trails regularly, as the Forks and Coburn Summit riders have called it quits. Not sure if Rockwood is still up and going but best suggestion is to give the Birches a call.
On behave of the Valley Riders Snowmobile Club we would like to thank all the riders that have supported our club this season as well as adjoing clubs! Without you we could make this all possible!!! Our new map this season was a big success despite only having a couple of weeks to travel south of Solon on quality conditions, we were able to distribute 4100 maps out of 5000. Every single penny of dontations collected for the maps, went to the respective club that the rider picked it up at. This was made possible by the help from Cathleen Burnham who produced the map at no charge for the Valley Riders, who worked with several adjoing clubs to produce a regional map for the Bingham system south as far down as Fairfield and Mercer. We still have maps left at our shop for anyone interested in having one ahead of time for next season.
Think snow....only 9 months to go!