Fall is upon us and our VAST volunteers are very busy finishing many trail projects. Hunting season has started as well. As we continue to work on our trail system, we also must respect others who share the land with us. Please remember that snowmobiling will start on or about December 15. We must give our sportsmen friends time to enjoy their sport, too. Many landowners hunt as well so please, if we get an early snow, stay off the trails until they are open.

An Invitation

As your new VAST President, I assure you that I will work hard for the betterment of our sport. We have many issues to address in the coming year, however we have a great staff and Board who work very hard to support the efforts of our volunteers.
Our 149 clubs and members have sent their best people to represent you at director meetings and trail meetings. Together we can lead VAST into the future to ensure our children and grandchildren can enjoy this great sport of snowmobiling. I would hope that at some point, each of you could find the time attend one club meeting, one county meeting, or even one Board of Directors meeting. Remember, you are VAST. So, please try to make a local meeting. You are sure to make some new great friends to enjoy our sport with.

Although our annual meeting has passed, I would like to say Thank You to everyone who attended. As always, many great ideas came from the floor. We will work on these ideas this coming year as they will improve our way of doing business and strengthen our organization. I'd like to extend a special thanks to Joan Choiniere of the Chester Snowmobile Club who agreed to serve as our substitute annual meeting Recording Secretary. I also want to send a big thanks to the Windsor County people and to Gail Woods who did a bang-up job organizing the annual meeting. The meeting facility was great and the vendors' displays were outstanding!

The month of October brings the VAST volunteer weekend. I ask all clubs to take time to recognize the volunteers who step forward to help you. Please send to the VAST office the information on their participation. We want to show our appreciation for all their hard work. Without all of us volunteering, there would be no clubs, no trails, and no VAST. In fact, there would be no snowmobiling in VERMONT. Regardless of how big or how small, every club is very important. The same goes for club volunteers whether there are two, three, or fifty helping you this fall.

We all must give an all-out effort to build better communications. At the top of the list as we start this new year, we must work to improve our communications and information flow within our association and with other people and organizations in the state and country.
We need to build a better image of snowmobiling and snowmobilers. As we communicate our love for our sport, we must also communicate all the great things we do for our landowners and communities. We have built many great programs over the years but we are the only ones that know about them.
For example, we have worked hard with state agencies and others to improve law enforcement and encourage responsible riding. With the help of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Vermont State Police, and the County Sheriff's Departments we now have a program that is working. However the program still needs attention and lacks funding. In spite of our past efforts, how many people in our state know how concerned we are about safe trails and responsible riding? How much time have you contributed as a volunteer to teach Safety Education courses? Or how much time have our committees spent to build our Responsible Riding and Safety Education programs? Or to get grants and donations to buy our new responsible riding and safety education trailer that we'll take across the state to get out the responsible riding message?
How about the Rails-to-Trails projects that now many people are now enjoying around the state? We enjoy 27 miles in Franklin County alone plus many more miles to come. There's the Delaware and Hudson railroad in Rutland County, too. We in VAST - all of us members and volunteers - made these things happen. Without our collective efforts, we would have no Rails-to-Trails on which we can bike, hike, snowshoe, cross county ski, etc. How many people know the role we played - the countless meetings we attended and the work we did behind the scenes for years with out any help?
As I end, let me say we have a lot of friends and supporters at federal, state, and local level. However, we need more. We need to gain support from people who do not snowmobile. We need to get them on our side working with us. Our future depends on it!
Until next time be safe in all you do.
Please feel free to send e-mail to me at rbwcat@together.net or call, fax, or write to me (information can be found in VAST News).

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How are you all holding up? A lot has happened to our country since the last issue of VAST News. I hope that all of you are well and that the tragedies that happened in both NY and Washington DC did not impact your families. If they did, my heartfelt condolences go out to you and your families. This is a time that we all need to stick together and support our country and the efforts of other countries, around the world, to eliminate the threat from those who threaten the freedoms that we too often take for granted.
It seems like every month the time just seems to go by faster and faster. Here it is November already and I hope that you are all ready for winter! Maelene and I are now living in West Danville and I can already tell you that it is a different world there. Monday morning, Oct. 8, we awoke to between six and eight inches of snow! So I hope that you're ready!
The foliage has been just fantastic this year. The colors have been as vibrant and vivid as I can remember in the recent past. The only bad thing about it is, the leaves have started to fall and we have a back yard full of maples. Anyone looking for mulch or compost?

TMA $$$$$

The VAST Annual Meeting has also come and gone since the last issue of VAST News. In this issue, you will find complete details of the meeting. As many of you are already aware, the cost of a VAST TMA will increase for all TMA classifications by $25. This means that the VAST portion of the TMA will be $55 for residents, $85 for non-residents and the cost of a Commercial TMA will be $140. The $25 increase does not even pay the bill for the cost to groom our trails: it will raise approximately $875,000 and the price tag to cover our base grooming for the upcoming season is $1,200,000 - and that only covers the five year historic average for those who groom.
If we have another year like last year, our cost to groom the trails could approach $1,700,000 double the amount that the $25 raises. Most snowmobile gas tanks are 12 to 14 gallons on today's snowmobiles; therefore, the added cost of the TMA represents 1.35 tanks of gas - or less than the cost to eat one meal in a restaurant. At the above prices, it is still a bargain!

New Director Orientation

On Monday, Oct. 15, there was a New Director Orientation held at the VAST office. All new Directors were encouraged to attend, as well as their alternates. The orientation was also open to all others who aspire to become a Director or Alternate Director. New board members received their board manuals at that time as well as copies of the VAST Policy Manual. All of the material within their manuals was reviewed including the VAST By-laws and all applicable policies. The intent of the orientation is to allow new Directors to better understand their jobs and to give them the opportunity to have their questions answered. The following are new Board Members for FY 2002: Secretary, Nancy Lively; Rutland County, Barry Bradley; Essex County, George Holobowicz; Chittenden County, Pat Poulin; Addison County, Lisa Viau and Franklin County, Ross Arsenault. There are also several new Alternate Directors this year.

Assistance For Victims of Terrorism

The VAST Board of Directors has appointed a committee to explore and recommend how VAST can best assist the victims and families of the horrible events that took place on September 11, 2001. Karen Boulanger, VAST Receptionist is the Chair of this committee and will be working with her committee members and others to develop a plan of action for VAST to help the victims of terrorism.

Volunteers and Participation

Incoming President Ron Bartemy has a major goal for the association. That goal is to see volunteerism reborn. Volunteerism has made VAST what it is today and without it in the future, the cost to snowmobile will rapidly increase and the number of miles of snowmobile trails will be decreased.
Volunteers are the key to our trail system and the future of our sport in Vermont. It is neighbor talking to neighbor to gain permission for the continued use of land. It is the camaraderie and friendship developed among those who work together to build and maintain our extensive trail system. Without volunteerism, our trail system will be lost! In the near future, you will find a special section on the VAST website that will assist clubs in their efforts to enlist the help of volunteers to work on our trails. Every club needing assistance will be able to list what type of help they need and when and where that help is needed. The site will also allow contractors and individuals wishing to provide services for clubs the opportunity to post those services and to let clubs know they are available. Look for this section, in the near future, on the VAST website at www.vtvast.org.

Operational Plan

The Board of Directors has adopted a new Long Range Strategic Plan and President Bartemy has now charged Operational Goals Committee Chair Poulin with the task of developing the new FY 2002 Operational Plan. The Operational plan reflects items from the Long Range Plan that are to be the priority of the Association for the upcoming year.

Public Meetings

Last month I reported to the board on an issue that could have a significant impact on our association this year and for the future. It had to do with landowners and public meetings, specifically in the town of Peacham, although it could be any one of our towns. Please review this subject, as it will be important to all of us in the future. The main issue that we must decide upon is how much input should adjoining landowners or non-landowner town residents have in the decision-making process for snowmobile trails?
On Oct. 8, Alexis Engasser (our new Trails Administrator) and I had the opportunity to take part in a town meeting forum held in Peacham to discuss the snowmobile trails that lie within the town boundaries. The trails there link Groton State Forest to the Barre/Montpelier area as well as to all of the Northeast Kingdom, connecting through Danville and St. Johnsbury. They are very important to this region as well as the rest of the state.
Over the last several years, it has become more and more of a problem to locate trails in this town and this year land closures have made it almost impossible to open the trails. Peacham is a so-called bedroom community for St. Johnsbury and Barre/Montpelier, as well as several New Hampshire communities. There are also many individuals that live here that either run home businesses and/or they are financially independent, and others are attorneys and retired individuals. The number of native Vermonters is now limited.
Ross Page, the Trailmaster for the Bayley Hazen Road Snowmobile Club (the local Peacham snowmobile club), has hit one stone wall after another this year in his efforts to re-open closed trails. He has met with the select board as well as with almost all of the residents of Peacham. There appears to be an effort by many residents to block snowmobiling in this community. The meeting that night attracted more than 50 snowmobilers and interested town residents. It served as a forum for people to talk about their values and their views on our sport.
Believe me, the Bluewater Network attitude reigns in many parts of Peacham. This is the attitude that snowmobiles are noisy, dirty machines and that they are the scourges of the earth. It is also their opinion that they have the right to control our sport, even if they do not own the land that the trails are on. Sounds sort of like ACT 250, doesn't it! I think that we are in for a lot more meetings like the one in Peacham: a thing of the future. Hopefully, Ross will succeed with his quest to re-open the trails.
We as snowmobilers hold the future of our sport in our hands! I hear over and over again that the reasons for landowners closing their lands, or for not giving permission to host a snowmobile trail, is not to thwart their neighbors but due to lack of consideration for the landowners by snowmobilers. Our sport is becoming more and more popular and that means that there are more and more snowmobiles on the trails. This means that landowners are seeing more and more traffic across their land, and in many cases it's not the amount of traffic, it's the time of day that the traffic occurs and the speed and illegal noise that accompanies it.
Look for curfews in the future as well as speed limits and further restrictions on noisy, loud exhausts. By the year 2010, 80 percent of all snowmobiles manufactured will have to meet stringent new exhaust emission and noise standards, reducing them by 50 percent. Obey the laws and respect the landowners who allow us to use their land.

Old Champion Lands

The long awaited Draft Plan for the future use of the 22,000-acre West Mountain Wildlife Management Area (WMWMA) was released on Oct. 9 at a Champion Lands Advisory Committee meeting in Island Pond. At the same time, the management plan was announced for the 84,000-acre private parcel held by Essex Timber. Also, the US Fish and Wildlife Service also announced its Draft Plan for their initial Visitor Services Plan for the 26,000-acre Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge.
All three draft plans will have no immediate effect on the total mileage of snowmobile trails in the three management areas. All trails will remain where they currently are, with exception of Corridor Trail 98 maintained by the Connecticut Valley Sno-Riders. This trail currently runs through a wetland area in the WMWMA and will be relocated to higher, dryer ground within the next several years. The Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation will pay for the relocation of this trail. The result should be a better trail system for everyone.
It does, however, appear that there will be roads closed within the WMWMA and that access will definitely be curbed in that portion of the old Champion lands. Overall, snowmobiling appears to have been treated very well. However, other forms of traditional access have not, such as camp owners.

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Trail Administrator's Report
By Alexis Engasser

A week ago, I stood out on my porch on the hill and watched in awe as the snowflakes accumulated. Mother Nature's weather teasers and early snowfall maybe an early indication of another promising winter. My first two months on the job as Trails Administrator has been very busy and eventful. Many meetings later and a notebook's worth of phone calls, I have had the opportunity to meet and talk with many of you.
I have also been out in the field inspecting bridges and conducting site visits; walking potential trail relocations I finally got to meet Frenchie (Armand Gauthier), the mastermind behind the first drag that I have ever groomed with! I recovered from a serious case of poison ivy and also got engaged to my boyfriend, Joel.
The excitement did come to a drastic halt after the horrific events that took place on September 11. Everything that was of importance before was disregarded. Unable to concentrate and relying heavily on the media, the tragic events in NYC and Washington DC left us feeling helpless and angry. After donating money to the many relief funds, giving blood, displaying our patriotism in support of the US, and volunteering in anyway possible, we are showing our support and trying to strive for optimism in light of our country's disaster.

Trails and project funding

Besides the blazing temperatures, the VAST 34th Annual Meeting was a successful indication that we will have a working budget for 2002. I am very pleased that the budget passed by a 75 percent vote. With this increase, VAST must continue to focus on the impacts to the landowner base, trail closures, and addressing safety issues and law enforcement. After last year's record-breaking snowfalls, the grooming contingency fund was literally tapped out. With this year's budget, we are prepared for another intense riding season, and we will be extremely busy gearing up for hundreds of hours spent preparing and maintaining equipment and preparing the trails for the season.
Last year, funding for the SSTP amounted to (average) $610 per mile. This number was derived by taking the sum of the VAST Trail Fund expense and the Statewide Snowmobile Trails Program expense and dividing that total by the number of corridor trail miles (4,600 contracted miles) in the state of Vermont. The statewide grooming average was 12.21 weeks with 10 counties exceeding the 12-week mark. The increase in last season's grooming average will directly affect this year's grooming contracts and cost of trail maintenance per mile. This year's projected cost per mile figure is similar increasing the average by $5 to $615/mile.
With winter approaching quickly, trail construction projects are reaching the final stages of completion. I have received numerous completed construction Grant-in-Aid projects and the process of repayment is underway. Just a quick reminder that snowmobile clubs that expect construction grant money for this current year need to complete their projects before Dec. 15, 2001. Snowmobile clubs may receive an extension past the Dec. 15 date if they submit a written letter to me explaining the nature of the extension.

VAST Maps

The infamous trails map, many have asked, when will it be complete? I finally finished the revisions and I have been informed and am aware of potential trail closures or uncertainties for this season. Ultimately, we should have the map by the beginning of December. The 2002 Map will reflect changes received as of Oct. 2001 and there won't be any significant change to the layout besides trail re-routes and minor intersection changes. The intersection numbering system will not change this year due to the overwhelming response from many individuals; this will be applied to next year's map with the input by the county trail's coordinators and snowmobile clubs. There will be some background changes on the map, such as eliminating the relief, accentuating the town labels and road route numbers and adding public land boundary lines.

Challenges to our sport

On Monday Oct. 8, Bryant Watson and I attended an Informational Forum on Snowmobiling in the Town of Peacham. The meeting comprised the Bayley Hazen Snowmobile Club, Town of Peacham residents (snowmobilers, non-snowmobilers, landowners and concerned residents), VAST, Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Forest, Parks and Recreation. The objective of the meeting was to address concerns of the local residents with snowmobile traffic, noise and the current situation with the trail location within the Town of Peacham.
Ross Page, Trailmaster for the Bayley Hazen club and Don Glover, Caledonia County Trails Coordinator, had put together a very informative presentation on general snowmobile facts and presented several possible alternate trail routes within the town. During a heated discussion on opposition to snowmobiling in the town, many expressed objections to the noise and pollution issue and also the high volumes of traffic. After emphasizing ISMA's efforts in noise control and our position on the levels of snowmobile traffic, another point was brought to our attention.
A town resident (non-landowner) asked why he shouldn't have a say in the decision process at the community level. Residents expressed that they would like to participate in future planning for snowmobile trail development in the Town of Peacham. This is a subject for concern that we will be dealing with now and in the future, as VAST may face the difficult task of obtaining approval throughout an entire community, not just with area landowners.
In addressing the sound/noise issue, I received an interesting e-mail from Andrew Doe of the Saxon Hill Riders, who is also Chittenden County Trails Coordinator. Here is how he explains the math behind the decibel in the chart on this page.
"This compares the linear noise level (Y-Axis) with the decibel scale (the A-Scale). The A-Scale clips everything below 180 kHz. It is generally felt that sound in the lower frequencies is not annoying to humans. Key things to glean from this chart are:

• Your standard electric razor on the face is more than twice as loud as the loudest snowmobile traveling at wide-open throttle 50 feet away.
• A philharmonic orchestra is 20 times louder than the loudest snowmobile traveling at wide-open throttle 50 feet away.

Sound questions have come up in every town meeting I have attended. Sound dissipates at a rate proportional to the square of the distance from the source. The farther away you get, the lower the noise. This is simply conservation of energy. The pressure wave gets larger and larger as it travels away from the source and as a result of the increase in size, it gets weaker and weaker. Actually, it gets weaker than calculated because of air friction as molecules bounce into each other as they carry sound. This model assumes a vacuum with no air, but in actuality, sound will taper off sooner. This shows the sound intensity in decibels from 1 to 150 ft. from the source. This represents the upper limit for a snowmobile. So 78 dBA at 50 feet is equivalent to 66 dBA at 100 feet and 59 dBA at 150 feet. We try to maintain a minimum of 150 foot setback from residential homes whenever possible."
Despite the figures that show snowmobiles' relatively benign noise, to address landowner concerns we must focus on this issue as well as the manufacturer's studies and input. Unfortunately, this is not a new issue: noise pollution has been part of the ever-growing challenges to snowmobiling since the 1970's. Even though we maintain a setback wherever possible, the signal is loud and clear that we should route snowmobile trails away from residential homes and town centers whenever possible.

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Check out the next issue of VAST News - December 2001!
It will be out the last week of November.