Hello High Country Snowmobilers,

We have been getting a few snow showers on the high peaks and the air is getting starting to get chilly. It means it is time to fire up our regular snowmobile club meetings.

New Meeting Location:

With the closure of Q4U we have been searching for a new venue to host the monthly meetings and are going to give the Bakers Brewery in Silverthorne a shot this year. The Bakers Brewery is located right off the I-70 exit in Silverthorne, on the hill above and behind the Wendys. If you are heading north on Hwy 9, take a right at Wendys, make a right at the stop sign and Bakers Brewery will be up the hill, on your left, (in the old Village Inn building).

As in years past, we will be holding the club meetings on the second Tuesday of each month, at 6:00pm. The first meeting will be this Tuesday evening.

Club News:

I apologize for the timing of this e-mail, (so close to the first meeting); but I have been delaying putting this e-mail off for a few days because I have some bad news to report. I am sorry to say that last week we lost the founding father of our club and one of its most active members, Ron Lewark. There will be a celebration of Ron’s life, next Saturday, October 13th at 1pm at the Elks Lodge in Silverthorne. If you can make it, please join Donna and the entire Lewark family as we share memories of this amazing man.

In lieu of flowers of gifts, the Lewark family asked that donations be made in Ron’s name to either the Summit County Elks Lodge, the Colorado Pilot’s Association or the High Country Snowmobile Club.

Ron was instrumental in helping the club with our next piece of big news.

State Parks Capital Grant:

Since the time we wrapped up last year’s season and now, the club’s board of directors and grooming committee has been busy. Just about the only good thing to come out of last season’s dismal snowfall was the extra grooming money left over in State Park’s snowmobile budget. We applied for and were awarded a $32,000 grant from Colorado Parks and Wildlife to update the snowcat we use for grooming at Spring Creek.

We have been shopping for new snowcats all summer and a little over a week ago, Ron and I traveled to Wyoming to negotiate the purchase of a 2011 Prinoth Bison X snowcat. The new cat will be replacing our 2002 Bombardier BR 275. We plan to sell our BR 275 for about $20,000, take the grant of $32,000 and use $10,000 of our club’s fundraising savings to fund the $62,000 purchase of the Bison X.

We are very excited to have this opportunity to upgrade to a 7-year-old snowcat. A huge Thank You! goes out to the club’s board members, Rachel and Julie, our grooming committee of Ron and Ross, and the club’s business members that wrote letters of support for our grant application.

Kickoff Party and Club Events:

Carolanne has been busy planning the annual kick off party for this year and was most recently combing the snow show for donations. We are teaming up once again with Dan Gardiner from Boondockers to host the Summit County Premier of Boondockers 15. We are trying to schedule the event on Saturday December 1st, so our long-time guest of honor Matt Entz can attend. We already have some donations for the event, BCA will once again be involved and we’ll be coming the streets for additional donations.

In an attempt to replenish our club’s savings after this groomer purchase, we hope to make this year’s party the biggest and best in our club’s history. We’ll be in touch as soon as we confirm the venue for the event.

We are also planning a lot of other events for this winter, we’ll have our monthly club rides, weekend and multi-day trips to exotic snowmobile destinations, maybe even an avalanche class or two.

Snowmobile Raffle Tickets:

At the CSA meeting this morning, I picked up 500 snowmobile raffle tickets for CSA’s annual Artic Cat M8000 raffle. Tickets are $5 each, and the proceeds are split with CSA and the local clubs. We usually raise about $800 a year for the club selling these tickets, CSA’s portion also goes helps pay for the club’s liability insurance. Tickets are due back to CSA in the beginning of December, so we will have plenty of time to sell these 500 tickets and maybe even an extra 500.

Please stop by the club meeting this Tuesday to pick up your tickets or get in touch with me and I can give you some tickets to sell.

Thank you,

Rich Holcroft
President, High Country Snowmobile Club