Snowmoblog

The Tooele Transcript Bulletin On-Line is reporting that Yellowstone National Park will be opening for the winter season on December 20th, 2006.  It appears that this year 400 snowmobiles per day will be allowed into the park.

For more details, check out their article linked below.

Via: Tooele Transcript Bulletin On-Line – Yellowstone opens soon for winter fun

We’ve upgraded our hosting service to a paid account, this allows us to offer a more professional appearance, and control our own site configuration, settings, layout, theme, and a whole lot more.

This also means that we’re going to start incorporating some ads into the site to help pay for hosting costs.  These ads will be as unobtrusive as possible, and we’ll try to keep them topical and, of course, appropriate.

You may also notice we’ve added an RSS feed (also called news feeds) in the right-hand column.  If you’re new to feeds, check out the excellent overview at Wikipedia, also we recommend either the RSS features in Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 or Google Reader.

If you prefer, you can subscribe to updates via email – there’s a link on the right side of the page – FYI, we don’t share or sell email with anyone, period.

Over the next few days & weeks, you can expect to start seeing more content get posted here at Snowmoblog, and we may perform some site design tweaks.  The “look & feel” may change as we try to find the right blend of readability, screen space, and simply what the team at Snowmoblog ends up liking best.

Talk to you soon!

According to SnowWeek there is! Seems that Pat Mach has compiled a list of past I-500 winners, and with the help of USCC is planning to re-unite at the Red Lake I-500 in January.

For more details check out the SnowWeek article linked below!

Via: SnowWeek – I-500 Reunion In The Works

The state of Illinois granted money to local governments and private groups for saftey & maintenance of the trail system.

More detail at WIFR linked below.

Technorati tags: WIFR, Snowmobile Trails

Via: WIFR – Snowmobile Trail Grants

Well, I think its safe to say that the next sledding season is quickly approaching. I’ve not really put any work into Snowmoblog this summer since I’ve let myself get too engrossed in work.

That is the big mistake. All the plans for getting things in shape for winter have slid until fall; and with my families move, its become much too busy yet again to get as much done as I hoped. As you may notice, as of the end of August 2006, we’re still on a free hosting plan at GoDaddy. This must change before we get too involved with moving forward, as the free hosting plan simply hinders too many of the features that we want to use on our blogging platform (WordPress).

The exciting part here, is that we are investigating our options of upgrading our sleds for this winter. We’re a few weeks away from making a real decision, and then putting it in play in late October, but it should work out – our local dealer has just the machines we’re looking for and at the right price as well.

So here is to a new season, and all the potential fun that it could bring!

I’ve been working on a number of things for another blog, and will be back to Snowmoblog in time to kick off for the fall season. So don’t worry about this site being abandoned. We’re getting some design work started so we will be ready in time to start talking about our sport’s all-important pre-season.

We’ll have a number of things to start with when the time comes and will try to cover some of the fall events where the fun announcements are made.

See you soon!

The worst part about spring and early summer, is that, well… its not winter.

So I have been lax in posting on Snowmoblog – one of my ideas for this blog was that I would post news as well as personal observations, stories and the like. Well, sled news is slow this time of year, and of course I knew that, but I figured I’d find some things. Like production news, or new advertising campaigns being planned, or new product lines being announced. There is some of that out there, but its pretty rare. The only real news on the manufacturers is financials – and thats mighty sad in some cases because of the lousy snow this past winter.

Now I bet your thinking, hey of course spring/summer is slow news and such for snowmobiling – doh! What kind of idiot starts a snowmobile web site in spring?

Well think that one through – a snowmobile addict of course!

I mentioned a few posts back that this site would be slow to take off, and that it will take time to get things rolling. I’ve got some infrastructure work to do here, getting the exact layout and color scheme planned, and dull stuff like that.

However, the way I see it, there isn’t much time before the next season starts. I mean, I still haven’t washed and waxed the sled from the last ride, there is some maintenance & mods to do, maybe a new sled for my wife, planning that mid-winter vacation… Damn, I better get cracking!

Alright, stay tuned, we’ll be getting things started here with some perspectives – even while the layout isn’t complete – we’ll start talkin’ sleddin’ so you might as well join in.

‘later

-Rick

According to the Burnett County Sentinal in Grantsburg, WI, this will be the final World Championship Snowmobile Watercross event. Scheduled for the weekend of July 14th, the 30 year old race will come to an end.

This is really disappointing – I’ve always marveled at the ability of some of these riders, and its always been a fun summer diversion during the long wait for the next snowflake. Well “all good things…” as the saying goes.

There is a lot more information in the article at the Sentinel, so head on over and read up on this loss to the sport.

Yahoo Finance has an article detailing the dividend distribution in April-May 2006. According to the information, a $.31 per share dividend will be payable on May 15th, 2006. See the Yahoo article for more information.

Congratulations to the Sault Trailblazers of Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario, Canada! They celebrated their 40th Anniversary on May 6th, 2006.

The Sault Trailblazers Snowmobile Club are pleased to announce that they are celebrating their 40th Anniversary this evening at the Root River Golf Course “the place where it all began”. Quite an accomplishment for a volunteer organization!

To read more, visit the soonews.ca website.