Club History

Northeast Pa Sno-Trails formed in 1991 when the O&W Sno-Trails went out of business.  A small group of snowmobilers recognized that if the land that was then being used for snowmobiling was lost it would be extremely difficult to get it back.  A few people got together and had to throw in some personal money, take personal loans to buy the O&W Sno-Trails groomer and drop everything to get the new club off the ground.  As with most organizations, there was then and still is only a handful of volunteers making this club run.  While most of the original names have changed, there's not enough active people to make the many tasks at hand easier.  In the early days of NEP Sno Trails, the expenses "only" averaged about $10,000 per year.  Now they've surpassed $30,000 per year before we even start spending money on grooming.  Our membership grew from barely a hundred to over 1000 now.  While more members has its advantages, it also causes trail conditions to deteriorate rapidly.  Among the early challenges to our "start-up" club were: getting a loan to buy the first groomer and pay for the groomer even after the snow melted, drafting by-laws and becoming incorporated, raising enough money to afford insurance, making our first trail map, finding enough money to operate in the off season and have enough left to get started again the next fall and of course contacting all the landowners to see if they'd trust their land to a group of unknowns with only promises. Well somehow we got through all that and the challenges have now become more like: raising and maintaining enough money to operate 2 groomers, pay for much more expensive insurance, making continuous trail reroutes to bypass land sold or subdivided, staying on good terms with landowners and townships, trying to expand to more trail mileage to accommodate more riders, managing the many members we have properly to keep them informed, making the trails safer and better marked and lastly keeping the high quality volunteers we have from getting burned out.  Our trail system has undergone many changes, but is quite unique in the fact that no other trail system in the northeast can boast the huge number of private landowners we cross.  We have over 200 trail miles on over 200 landowners!  Most other clubs have huge areas of municipal, state or national owned lands making up most of their systems.  When we lose one small piece, it can shut down miles of trail. We all need to realize that this trail system is fragile and cannot withstand thoughtless and careless snowmobiling.  We receive many complaints dealing with noise, litter and straying all over lands where snowmobiling is only allowed on the designated trail.  Your support and courtesy is vital to to keep this trail system the great one that it has become.