Please read full release here:
Jan 13
Important Update 13 Jan 2021
Jan 07
Beauties of the BEAST – 2021 Ride Announcement
Hello Beauties
When the snow starts to fall each winter we all look forward to our annual Beauties Ride, the fun that comes with it, and the memories that stay with us long after the snow has gone. Unfortunately with the current Covid situation your Beauties committee wanted to share with you that we have decided to cancel the 2021 event. So, we need you to stay healthy because we will have to make up for it in 2022!! See you all at the Next One – and stay safe, Beauty!
Follow Beauties of the BEAST on Facebook facebook.com/beautiesofthebeast
Jan 05
BEAST News Update 5 Jan 2021
Jan 05
Important Message from UCSR
Important message from UCSR:
We ask that riders know your health unit as you are expected to only snowmobile within your local health unit. Always refer to Interactive Trail Guide (ITG) ofsc.evtrails.com or the Go Snowmobiling App to see when trails become available.
Dec 31
OFSC Delivers Important New Year’s Message For Snowmobilers
OFSC Delivers Important New Year’s Message For Snowmobilers
Posted on 31 Dec 2020 | by OFSC
Until Shutdown Ends, Stay Close to Home & Only Ride Local When Trails Are Available
(Barrie, ON: December 31, 2020) – In support of the existing provincial shutdown and to limit non-essential travel, the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs (OFSC) urges snowmobilers to avoid travelling outside their local public health region, and only ride local trails when availability shows as Yellow or Green on the Interactive Trail Guide (ITG). https://ofsc.evtrails.com/ or the Go Snowmobiling App.
The OFSC highly recommends that snowmobilers avoid trailering and travelling to destinations that are outside their public health region. To discourage travelling by snowmobile beyond public health region boundaries, the OFSC has made trails between health units temporarily unavailable (showing Red on the ITG) until further notice. Trails to Quebec, Manitoba and the United States remain closed.
See the full release by clicking the following link.
Dec 22
Snowmobile Trails and Grooming Operations Allowed During Provincial Shutdown
Snowmobile Trails & Grooming Operations Allowed During Provincial Shutdown
OFSC To Implement Local Flex Trail Riding Options
(Barrie, ON: December 21, 2020) – Earlier today the Government of Ontario, on the advice of the Chief
Medical Officer of Health, advised all Ontarians to stay home as much as possible with trips outside the home limited to necessities such as food, medication, medical appointments, or supporting vulnerable community members. Employers in all industries should make every effort to allow employees to work
from home.
“The number of daily cases continue to rise putting our hospitals and long-term care homes at risk,” said Premier Ford. “We need to stop the spread of this deadly virus. That’s why, on the advice of Dr. Williams and other health experts, we are taking the difficult but necessary decision to shutdown the province and ask people to stay home. Nothing is more important right now than the health and safety of all Ontarians.” (Government of Ontario News Release, December 21, 2020)
Given that physical activity is an important part of staying healthy, today’s announcement by the Government of Ontario stated that “trails servicing snowmobiles will be allowed to remain open.” This means that OFSC trails can open in accordance with all public health guidelines.
Being allowed to remain open allows the OFSC to proceed with trail and grooming operations, however snowmobilers are strongly encouraged to stay home and if they do ride, they need to be mindful of several other important factors related to the pandemic.
- Today’s announcement reinforced “that Ontarians should stay at home as much as possible to minimize transmission of the virus and prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.” This means that during the shutdown, and when trails are in the Orange, Red or Grey Zones, trail riding will be local in keeping with public health restrictions. To facilitate this, the OFSC will implement Flex Trail options for local riding as and where appropriate. Check the Interactive Trail Guide before riding. Flex Trail options include trails within a public health region being available only for local residents.
- As the announcement also said: “Many businesses throughout the province will be faced with restrictions throughout the shutdown, including restaurants and bars, which will once again be limited to only take-out and delivery operations.” This means that snowmobilers may not have normal access to food services along the trails and should plan accordingly, although hotels and motels are permitted to operate.
- It is likely that all unattended buildings and washrooms (including outhouses and warm up shelters) on the trails will be closed with no access to riders. This is because public health measures demand that such structures “are subject to rigorous cleaning and sanitization protocols” which simply cannot be achieved frequently enough by volunteers, and thereby increase the risk of exposure and will likely close.
- OFSC trails connecting to another province (Quebec, Manitoba) or state (Michigan, Minnesota) will remain closed until further notice.
- The OFSC strongly encourages all snowmobilers follow current public health measures and practice our Ride Smart 2021 common sense approach to trail riding, including: Plan Ahead. Be Aware. Mask Up. Clean Often. Spread Out.
Even under these conditions, none of us can let our guard down. Only by continuing to demonstrate our willingness to be responsible riders and volunteers, and to cooperate with public health measures, can we protect each other and communities across Ontario.
The OFSC will continue to monitor the situation and communicate changes and status updates to permit holders regularly through our website, Interactive Trail Guide, Facebook page, weekly newsletter and Go Snowmobiling App alerts.
The Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs (OFSC) is a volunteer led, not for profit association that provides the voice for organized snowmobiling in Ontario. OFSC snowmobile trails managed by 200 community based, member clubs generate up to $3.3 billion in economic activity in the province each year.
For questions or to schedule a media interview with the OFSC, please contact us at marketing@ofsc.on.ca or by phone at 705-739-7669
Dec 18
Update on EOSC Portion of OFSC A Trail
Update on EOSC Portion of OFSC A Trail on the Prescott and Russell Recreational Trail
“We will be open for business”
(Ottawa, ON: December 17, 2020) – The Prescott-Russell Recreational Trail is a 72km rail-to-trail conversion which starts at St-Eugene and ends at Hammond, near Ottawa’s boundary. The Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs (OFSC) has a section of the provincial ‘A’ Top Trail on this trail in the winter. The ‘A’ Top trail is the backbone of the Eastern Ontario Snowmobile Club (EOSC) trail network.
As may snowmobilers know on 23 September 2020, the United Counties of Prescott Russell voted not to renew their lease with VIA Rail for the rail trail primarily for financial reasons. This lease was to expire on 31 December 2020. Over the past several months, the OFSC, UCSR and EOSC have been working diligently to negotiate an agreement with either VIA (as the landowner) or the UCPR (who leases the land for the P-R Trail). We had reached out directly to VIA, local mayors, MPPs, and MPs to help find a solution. We had proposed an interim solution, where an agreement would be put into place for 3 months (January-March 2021) therefore allowing time for a longer-term solution to be developed.
This morning, 17 December 2020, we learned that The United Counties of Prescott Russell and VIA Rail have agreed to extend their agreement until the end of June 2021. With this agreement in pace, the UCPR has agreed to a new land-use permission for the 2021 snowmobile reason. This will allow the OFSC ‘A Top Trail’ to travel over the P-R Trail as it has normally for years and connect Carleton Region SC in the west, through EOSC to Glengarry in the east.
As previously announced back in November 2020, we had secured an agreement with the UCPR for the Larose Forest so all EOSC trails through the forest will be open once the season begins.
A large thank-you is extended to the volunteers at the EOSC for their diligent work on securing the trail for the 2021 season.
We encourage snowmobilers, with an Ontario Trail Permit, to remain on the OFSC trails. We ask snowmobilers to remember that buying a permit allows you access to over 30,000 kms of OFSC trails including those within EOSC which will be available as weather permits this season. The UCSR and its clubs are committed to delivering the best possible trail riding experiences for snowmobilers around Ottawa and across eastern Ontario.
‐30‐
The Upper Canada Snowmobile Region (UCSR), District 1 of the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs (OFSC), is a volunteer led, not-for-profit association that provides the voice for organized on-trail snowmobiling in Eastern Ontario. The UCSR consists of 16 snowmobile clubs with over 3000 kms of groomed snowmobile trails managed by over 1,000 dedicated volunteers generating up to $70.8 million in economic activity (18/19 season) in eastern Ontario each year. The EOSC maintains 380 km of quality trails in Prescott-Russell and has an economic impact of $12+ millions annually in the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR) alone.
For questions, please contact Darin McRae, UCSR District Manager, at darinmcrae@ucsr.ca or by phone at 613-543-0374.
Dec 15
BEAST 306 @ Ramsay Conc 4C Trail Rework Project
The BEAST 306 trail north of Wolf Grove Rd has gone through some changes due to landowner turnover during the past 20 years. The trail at one time had used the old Drynan hunt camp property. It left the 4th line and headed west through Drynan’s to the 3rd line and then on to Clayton Rd. A reroute saw the 306 stay on the 4th and then on to Clayton Rd….the way the trail has been for a great number of years now.
That current trail had been identified as a potential target for a trail improvement project. The roadway in this corridor is narrow and has four residential laneway entrances to be crossed. Signage had been utilized in the past to help with snowmobile traffic at laneway intersections, but moving the trail to the opposite side of the roadway was a better, safer alternative and an idea in the making.
The trail relocate was a daunting proposition; the untraveled portion was approximately 700metres long and plenty wide enough with no unreasonable ditch grades to negotiate however the undergrowth and trees had been ignored for a great many years. This provided a seemingly mountainous task to even consider.
Enter the tireless BEAST volunteers and neighbours residing along and near this trail! Cooperation with equipment, tools and manual labour over 2 days of (crazy hard) work and some wet weather, the new trail had been cut and cleaned up.
Work started on Friday afternoon with four men armed with saws. Saturday at 8am the men mustered and began working. This squad quickly became a platoon and vehicle parking started to become an issue on the narrow roadway. By lunchtime the task was not quite at the halfway mark, but troops travel on their stomachs so hot pizza and pop was served in a local resident’s garage (plenty of room for social distancing!), with cookies and coffee to energize the afternoon. We returned back to work and gave it our best until darkness and freezing rain made things unsafe for this type of work. Sunday morning a group of seven men assembled and worked till 2pm to cleanup the rest of the downed trees and brush.
We had 17 bodies at our strongest point for a good portion of the day on Saturday. Some could only dedicate a few hours, some the entire length of the project …. this is how it’s done; many hands make light work. That being said there was nothing light about this work!
There was lots of other parts too. A backhoe with operator, a huge 12” wood chipper, a tractor/loader, two trucks with dump trailers all donated by businesses and personal interests alike. An appreciative sledder came along with his fuel supply truck and provided a diesel fuel contribution to the effort!
Besides sore backs and bodies, there were no injuries or damages. Safety was a priority and professionalism was apparent. There were new acquaintances made, and everyone pulled together. Residents who were not involved were completely understanding of our efforts and were not in the least upset by some minor delays in temporary road closure. Some were amazed and very impressed by the BEAST Army that had descended on their quiet lane for the weekend!
We hope that this effort will provide a safe, more enjoyable trail that should accommodate better early and late season usage, as well as showing local residents that we listen to their concerns too.
Many thanks to our hardworking volunteers who made this
possible. The BEAST and all the snowmobile clubs rely on volunteer
participation to make our pastime enjoyable and safe. Most of our trail work is performed by people who donate their precious time …. people who have a desire to contribute, not complain. Please consider becoming a volunteer!
Grant Penstone
Dec 01
