Sports
Bottineau County is well groomed
Tyler Ohmann
03/19/2013
Winding throughout the Turtle Mountains from Souris to Lake Metigoshe to Bottineau and all the way to Rock Lake are more than 200 miles of snowmobile trails, and more than anyone else Loren Johnson has the job of maintaining the trails smooth ride ability.
Johnson, who retired last August, does the majority of the trail grooming for the North Dakota Parks and Recreation service that helps run the snowmobile trail systems throughout the state.
However, the Turtle Mountain trails are the largest system and Johnson is responsible for trails from Souris to Lake Metigoshe, Lake Metigoshe to Bottineau and the lake to what is known as Kalvin Klinic.
The section Johnson does is much bigger than the Rolla side east of Kalvin Klinic, which has only one trail. Johnson grooms four different trails in his route, which takes him an average of three days a week.
There are four operators of the groomer, but since Johnson retired last August he is the only person who has time during the day when less riders are out, so he does the majority of the grooming.
Johnson said he usually tries to run during the week, so as to go when the lowest volume of riders are utilizing the trails.
“I don’t want to hit anyone or anyone to hit me,” Johnson said. “Sometimes with the snowfall, you’ll have to go out on a Saturday.”
Johnson said that the groomer has only been out on a Saturday twice this year.
Johnson said he works an average of 20 hours a week grooming trails, a job that he says is necessary to keep riders on them.
“The groomer smoothens out the trail, and without it, not too many would want to ride on it, because it would be so rough,” Johnson said. “Every weekend it gets pretty well beat up, so every week you got to groom it, so that people actually want to ride it.”
While some wouldn’t think that the job is too interesting Johnson said he really enjoys it.
“Some would think that it’s boring, but I like it because every day it’s different,” Johnson said. “I mean there is sunny days, cloudy days, stormy days and seeing deer and moose and coyotes and something different every day.”
Johnson even spotted a moose last week while on his route near Sawmill Corner. He also has seen turkeys, as well as other wildlife.
The trails were opened in the early 1970s and have been in use for more than 40 years.
“It gives people from another area who have never been to the Turtle Mountains somewhere to go,” Johnson said of the trails purpose. “Being on a trail system, they won’t get lost, and it’s safe, because it’s all marked.”
Marking is a big part of the success of the trail. Each fall six to eight volunteers from the Roaring 20s snowmobile club mark out the years’ trail, a task that can take several days. Johnson figured that approximately 100 landowners make their land available for the trail to go across, which he believes is crucial to the trails success.
“If we didn’t have the land owners allowing us to do this, we wouldn’t have much of a trail at all,” Johnson said. “I mean it would be ditches only and it wouldn’t be as scenic as the trail is now.”
“A lot of people come from all over the state to ride here, because of the scenery. There isn’t anything like this in the whole state,” Johnson added.
Another interesting fact is that the groomer did not run at all during last year’s mild winter. In order for the groomer to be out, there needs to be a certain amount of compacted snow on the ground, which the Bottineau area did not receive last year.
In fact, it was the third time in 10 years that the groomer did not run.
The trail does have a lot of success when it is open, which it has been every week since snow totals have picked up after the first of the year.
Johnson estimates that at least 1,000 to 1,500 riders use the trail system every weekend. He said that the majority of those riders are from out of the area and stay confined to the trail.
However, those more familiar with the trail tend to stray off of it in search of different terrain.
He also said that the trail has received its fair share of complaints from land owners surrounding the trail, especially this year.
“We’ve probably had more complaints than normal this year for people running off the trail,” Johnson said. “They’ve been getting too close to hay bales, and making it harder to get hay bales out, and I’ve heard of a couple of instances that fences have been cut or broke.”
However, he said that broken fences aren’t always the snowmobilers that do them, though they tend to get most of the blame.
“Sometimes that isn’t snowmobiles doing it, it is the weight of the snow doing it, but they think it’s the snowmobiles doing it,” Johnson said about broken fencing. “I would just say that for whoever is riding off the trails to respect the landowners a little more, and stay away from bales, and from fences.”
“If we lose the landowners support, and we lose the trail system, the whole town, the whole county and everybody suffers from that,” Johnson added.
Through interactions with people from all areas of the state Johnson believes that the consensus is that the Turtle Mountain trail system is easily the best in the state.
“Everybody that comes here say that this is the most scenic, the best groomed trail, and they just love coming to the Turtle Mountains,” Johnson said.