Page 32 - WCM 2022 Winter

Carving a Trail to the Future
Snowmobiling’s Unsung Heroes by Shellie Leger
The crew of the Mexico Trailblazers prepares for the much-loved Blessing of the Sleds.
“Winter is not
a season,
it’s an occupation.”
~ Sinclair Lewis
We Mainers are hearty stock. We embrace the brutality of winter by engaging in recreation that celebrates the season’s blasts of snow and exhilarating cold. Winter is a fickle minx, a season that poses many threats, and required ingenious uses of scant resources, creative problem solving, and prodigious mettle. It beguiles us with its beauty, calls to us in its moonlit silvery nights, and offers endless entertainment in its crystalline snowfall. Behind the comfort of our modern lives we are able to revel in winter’s divinity from a safe distance. But one group of selfless Mainers volunteers their winter hours in the harsh elements, maintaining endless miles of recreational trails, all for the benefit of others.
The Mexico Trailblazers
Nick Brown, president of the Mexico Trailblazers, is no stranger to winter’s magnetism. In 1972, Nick was given his first Arctic Cat snow machine. A gift from his mother, in the wake of his father’s death, Nick was smitten. “I rode with my dad’s friends. It filled a hole after he died, but it was the mid- eighties when I took on a leadership role. Our club has 60 members now, but we fought to get that number; it’s a fragile sport. The trails are dependent
on volunteers. The Bureau of Parks and Lands supplies grooming grants as long as you have at least 35 miles of trail, but those grants come from club registration fees ($48.00), and that fee covers law enforcement, education and grooming, so the money gets used fast. Our trails get a lot of wear and tear.”
He describes many vital tasks to maintain trails: grading, dragging, trimming and upkeep of the clubhouse that’s available to riders 24/7 for warmth and rest.
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Arts, Entertainment, Adventure and More in Western Maine
Courtesy Mexico Trailblazers