Plenty of snow and few highway closures contributed to a record number of snowmobilers on the local sledding hills this winter.
This year, Sicamous’ groomed sledding areas saw about double last year’s number, from 7,838 to 15,779, while club memberships also saw a nice boost from 339 to 391.
“The club is really growing and the sport is actually really growing, not just our numbers but Revelstoke, Valemount, Golden, everybody’s numbers are way up,” said Eagle Valley Snowmobile Club executive director Gord Bushell. “So it’s really good for the sport.”
Bushell says this year’s excellent snow conditions were a contributing factor to this season’s success, as well as the work of the club and in attending snowmobiling shows in Edmonton and Saskatoon over the past decade.
“We’ve got a lot of people coming from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta,” said Bushell.
The strong season has had a positive spin-off for local business. Bushell notes some hotels have started doing improvements, “so you can see they’ve had a good season.”
However, this year’s numbers also give the club leverage to be able to further promote the importance of snowmobiling to the province’s tourism industry. For example, Bushell says they will help in lobbying the forestry industry in order to regain access to sledding areas that have been closed for logging.
“Working with our MLA, we need to focus on trying to work with the logging companies,” said Bushell. “We only need the trails for four months and there’s eight months left. If we could get them to log on those trails that we have management agreements on, that we groom – Queest, Owl Head and Eagle Pass – if we can get them to log on those all summer long or in the spring and the fall, and be out of there by Christmas time, we’d have a full four months. It will take the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Forests working together to do that. It would benefit both industries if we could do that.”
With more people visiting the local hills, Bushell also saw an increase in the number of search and rescue operations in the local sledding areas. One of those operations was in response to an avalanche that resulted in the death of a club member.
“It’s been a tough year…,” said Bushell. “Because of the numbers, it’s becoming a popular area, and search and rescue is getting called out more and more too. I think they were called out seven or eight times. That’s tough on our search and rescue team and our club members who have to get up – usually you don’t get the call until nine-o-clock at night and you’re out there until four in the morning looking for somebody.”
Bushell said the club will be putting more effort into education, making sure sledders know what they’re getting into whey they’re heading into the backcountry.
With the season close to wrapping up, Bushell said the club will be educating members on Snowcat maintenance and proceeding with replacing the tracks on one of the club’s trail groomers.
Over the spring and summer seasons, the club, in addition to preparing for next winter, will once again be busy working with its Shuswap Regional Trail Strategy partners (local First Nations (Splatsin, Neskonlith, Adams Lake and Little Shuswap bands), the Shuswap Trail Alliance, the Eagle Valley Snowmobile Club, Sicamous Quadders, BC Parks, Recreation Sites and Trails BC and Tolko), on backcountry management. This includes making Cummins Lake a walk-in trail only, as well as decommissioning some trails on Owl’s Head, eliminating four-wheel drive and quad access to ecologically sensitive areas.
