New Brunswick’s snowmobile trail system from the southeastern part of the province north to the Acadian Peninsula has been “devastated” by the fierce ice storm that crippled parts of the province last week, according to the N.B. Federation of Snowmobile Clubs.
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“It closed the system right off,” said Mackenzie Steeves, who manages grooming operations for the South Eastern New Brunswick Snowmobile Association.
Steeves said nearly every one of the 20-odd trails in the southeastern part of the province are simply impassable due to fallen trees and broken branches that are strewn across the trail system.
“It’s bad, there are big trees down,” Steeves said.
It’s been almost a week since the ice storm and he said trees and branches weighed down by thick ice are still blocking the path of snowmobilers.
Steeves said volunteer crews have spent more than 100 hours using chainsaws to clear away the trees, followed by groomers acting as bulldozers to push away the massive mounds of deadwood but he said progress is slow.
“We’ve been at it since Thursday and we probably don’t even have half of our system opened up yet,” Steeves said.
It’s the same situation for trails on Caledonia Mountain.
Rob Lane has been grooming trails on the mountain for the past six years and said he has never seen conditions this bad.
“The trees fall in and land in the middle, which makes it extremely hard to cut,” Lane said.
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According to Ross Antworth with the New Brunswick Federation of Snowmobile Clubs, the snowmobile trails have seen major issues in much of eastern New Brunswick from south of Moncton north to the Acadian Peninsula.
Antworth told Global News they are working on a plan and a cost estimate to cleanup the damage. But while many businesses in the province depend on snowmobiling to fuel the local economy, he said with the state of emergency still in effect in some northern communities, the state of snowmobile trails is secondary to efforts to restore power to thousands.
Steeves said it will take his crews at least until the weekend to clear away the storm debris and open the trails, but he’s hopeful people will be back on their snowmobiles once the cleanup is complete.
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