It took a lot of work cleaning up the trails after a month of unusual weather, but the Pembina Driftbusters got things straight in time for the annual poker rally last weekend.
Club president Cliff Bromberger said the 110 or so participants who came out to ride the dozens of kilometres of trails the Driftbusters maintain left with smiles on their faces.
“It was a good turnout,” he said. “We had lots of positive comments and everybody seemed to be happy.”
And although the mercury dipped to the lower end of the kind of temperatures one would expect in January — with wind chill the temperatures dropped below -20C — that didn’t slow anybody down.
“Not at all,” Bromberger laughed. “We’re snowmobilers!”
The club used the Long Island Lake Saddle Grounds as the staging area for the event, which saw participants riding around to several checkpoints to complete their poker hands for a chance at some of the prizes on hand. Of course, the main draw for any sledder isn’t the prizes, but rather than the trails.
Bromberger said that while there’s lot of fun involved, this kind of event can’t go off without the work of lots of volunteers — well over 100 hours in total in the weeks leading up to the rally, much of it spent clearing the trails after a big windstorm a few weeks ago.
“There was a lot of deadfall, some very large trees like 18-inch or 20-inch spruce trees across the lines – poplar trees, willows and everything,” Bromberger said.
The recent bout of warm weather, which left a thick icy layer on top of all the snow, had an impact as well. The machines are designed to use some of the kicked-up powdery snow to cool the engines, but the problem was solved easily enough with riders going off the groomed trail a little bit to find some powder.
Riders from as far away as Edmonton and even further south took the time to drive up to Long Island Lake to take in the rally, and Bromberger said he figures the main reason for that is because despite the weather, this area still has more snow than a lot of other places.
“I think a lot of the reason is snow,” he said. “They got a lot more rain down there than what we got here. And temperature wise, it’s always warmer down in the Edmonton area than what it is in Westlock and north.”
While the annual rally serves to bring in some funds for the club, its main income comes in the form of selling trail passes — which are good on any of the trails maintained by members of the Alberta Snowmobile Association.
