By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

Bob Meyers was nearly gleeful. The executive director of the Maine Snowmobile Association had just heard a weather forecast, and it called for snow.

“We’re setting up for a great season,” he said Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier in the day he had spoken with one of the 32,000 members of the MSA. This one happened to live in Fort Kent, in far northern Maine.

“They got 40 inches of snow up there over the weekend,” Meyers related. There was so much snow that the people maintaining the Crown of Maine’s trail system decided to haul rollers behind their massive grooming equipment.

“They needed to knock it down before they could go out and groom it,” explained Meyers. “This is a good thing,” he added, especially with the New Year’s holiday weekend about to arrive.

Northern Maine won’t be the only place seeing loads of sledders this year. And one rule change affecting the use of two trail systems that cross into New Hampshire will benefit some local area riders.

After several years of controversy, Granite State officials have agreed to terms with Maine officials on reciprocity on N.H. trail 18 and Maine ITS 80.

The New Hampshire trail links the Success Pond area north of Berlin, N.H., with the Grafton Notch area in Maine. ITS 80 crosses the Maine-New Hampshire border at several spots in Evans Notch.

Both areas include portions of the White Mountains National Forest. The trails are popular with riders who complained that in the past if their sleds weren’t registered in both states they’d be violating the law by crossing the state lines.

Businesses in Fryeburg, Maine, and Errol, N.H., were among the most vocal in calling for a reciprocity agreement. Sledders often visit filling stations and restaurants in both towns when they’re able to use the two-state trail systems.

Meyers said New Hampshire officials agreed to reimburse Maine for the cost of maintaining the trails, leading to the agreement.

Snowmobiling in Maine is a multimillion-dollar business. It’s particularly big business in places such as Aroostook County, and around Moosehead and the Rangeley Lakes. So big that the MSA boasts more than 2,200 business members in addition to its individual membership.

And the MSA wants to keep snowmobiling as both a business maker as well as a safe and enjoyable family activity.

To that end, Meyers will join with Maine Warden Service Col. Tom Santaguida today at a news conference in Augusta to tout the state’s new “left of center law.”

Backed by the MSA, the state Legislature approved the law earlier this year. It requires snowmobile riders to keep to the right of the center of trails. Straying across the imaginary line when approaching or navigating a curve, corner, grade or hill can land the operator a summons.

The fine that goes with it will eat up $100 in sled gas money.

Meyers said the MSA and the state are working to reduce the number of snowmobile accidents in an effort to make the sport safe for everyone.

“There’s a time and a place for that” he said of sledders who speed or attempt various tricks such as jumping over moguls.

Trails aren’t among the places he has in mind, Meyers said.

Snow-cross tracks, open expanses of lakes or fields or other places where radar runs are sometimes sponsored by snowmobile clubs, are where the riders of hot sleds ought to open up.

Maine’s Warden Service, which enforces snowmobile laws, said that last winter seven people died while sledding in the state. In all, there were 241 reportable snowmobile accidents.

Some of those crashes left people maimed. Damage to costly sleds ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Santaguida is expected to outline the Warden Service’s plans for special operating under the influence enforcement activity as well as the ride right program during the press conference.

Meyers said the most important thing for riders to remember are the basics: “Keep to the right, don’t drink and ride, always look ahead and have a great winter.”

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