TRAIL TALES
If there’s something the Washburn Trail Runners
Snowmobile Club is really well-known for, it’s
their hospitality.
It’s seen in the popular home-cooked meals the
club based in Washburn, Maine, offers to snowmobiling
enthusiasts who stop by the clubhouse on winter weekends.
However, as Tim Stitham will tell you, it goes well beyond that.
“It’s a community of snowmobilers here,” said Stitham,
president of the Washburn Trail Runners. “If there’s some-body
in need, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. We will
drop whatever that is and help out.
“I could probably ramble off half a dozen different scenarios
where I’ve been at home peacefully relaxing, watching TV
and I’ll get a phone call saying, ‘Hey, I have a report of a guy
who has a broken-down sled and they’re walking towards a
road crossing. It’s 10 degrees outside and it’s pitch black out
there. Any chance you guys can help them out?’”
More evidence of this commitment to snowmobiler safety
can be seen in a custom-built device that the club plans to
use this season.
The device, essentially a large trailer on skis that can be
towed behind a snowmobile, will be used not only to mark
trails, but also to help snowmobilers in trouble.
“If there’s a report of an injured person that’s been in
a snowmobile accident on the trails, the local fire depart-ment
can use it to perform rescue operations on the trail,”
said Stitham. “We really take pride in doing the very best we
can for the snowmobilers, whether they’re a member or not,
quite frankly.”
Prime real estate for snowmobiling
The Washburn Trail Runners Snowmobile Club was founded
in 1989 by a group of 20 or so snowmobile enthusiasts from
Washburn and the nearby communities of Wade and Perham.
“They got together and decided that there was a need
for an organization to maintain the trails and to provide
a service for people who snowmobile in the area,” Stitham
said, pointing out that Aroostook County, where Washburn
is located, is an exceptionally popular destination
for snowmobilers.
Stitham says more than half of the Washburn Trail
Runners’ 270-plus members are from outside the community
and come from as far away as New Hampshire, Vermont,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and even North Carolina to
ride the area’s trails, which are part of a larger interstate
snowmobiling network.
WAJAN/123RF
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