St. Germain opens select ATV trails in attempt to salvage winter tourism

On Feb. 12 the St. Germain Town Board voted  unanimously to open select ATV/UTV trails in an attempt to mitigate damage done to the Northwoods tourism economy by one of the warmest, driest winters in living memory.

Technically speaking, the board’s vote temporarily rescinded a provision in the town’s ordinance which prohibits ATVs and UTVs from operating on shared ATV/snowmobile trails during the winter.

“This is prompted by discussions in recent days,” supervisor Ted Ritter said at the outset of the conversation. “The idea here is to recognize that this winter has been devastating economically and to try to salvage something out of this winter.”

“There are portions of the snowmobile trails that are considered shared-usage, although they’re not shared with the ATV/UTV club during the wintertime,” Ritter said. “Those designated trails could be opened. Specifically, they are the Highline Trail and the two connected spurs across private property to Oberg Road and Halberstadt Road, the Fern Ridge hill, and going north out of Leisure Estates.”

“So the idea is that those sections of those trails could be opened very soon and promote them as being open and try to encourage ATV/UTV out-of-town traffic to come up and spend some money in St. Germain.”

Two days after the meeting, Ritter told The Lakeland Times the town’s ATV and snowmobile clubs should be given a “gold star” for collaborating to create a plan to ease the pain of local businesses, especially those which are tourism-dependent.

“I think the action that was taken was commendable,” Ritter said. “It’s commendable particularly to the two clubs,” who came up with the plan and presented it to members of the town board.

“We support that action,” said Stephanie St. Germaine, executive director of the St. Germain Chamber of Commerce. She said other than anecdotal observations, there are not yet finalized reports or sales figures to gauge how this season compares to years past.

“It’s too early to say,” St. Germaine told the Times, “But we know this has been a very bad winter for business so far”.

Ritter went so far as to use the word “disastrous” to describe the drop-off in tourism.

Roger Klein, president of the Bo-Boen Snowmobile Club told the Times conditions this year are “unprecedented”. 

The club begins the trail-grooming process when four inches of snow are on the ground. 

At one point in January, the Bo-Boens took the first steps of brushing, panning, and inspecting the trails, but they were never opened for use due to a rapid temperature rise and melt-off shortly after the snowfall.

Klein said he checked with several sources who have lifelong affiliations with the Vilas County snowmobile trail system, and none can remember a winter where trails simply didn’t open.

There is a possibility — though likely not probable — the area could see enough snowfall and freezing temperatures for the trails to open to snowmobile traffic at some point this season. 

Wisconsin state statute allows snowmobile trails to be open from December 1 to March 31 each year.

Ritter cautioned those at the meeting about a worst-case-scenario within a worst-case-scenario.

“If this were to be adopted, we’re all hopeful that it works,” he said. “We all hope it will bring some people up here; the trails will get used; and there will be some economic benefit to St. Germain. But we’re also hoping — and wouldn’t it be great — to get a lot of snow in late February and March, and we could actually get a few weeks of snowmobile trail usage.”

“That’s the part I have trouble with,” he said. “If we adopt this and encourage ATV/UTV out-of-town traffic to come up, they’re here, and it snows, we say ‘Well, we got four inches. We’re closing the trails’. Those people are already here, or they’re on their way. If we close the trails on them, I would imagine that some of them are going to say ‘Well, I came up here just for this, and I want my money back’. And who are they going to want their money back from? The lodging establishment that they’re staying at, and I don’t know that we want to put them in that position. That’s the only personal concern I have.”

Town chairman Tom Christensen pointed out individual communities and snowmobile clubs cannot decide independently whether to close or open their trails. As they are all part of one larger system, the decision to open or close is made at the county level as an all-or-nothing call.

“We’d have to live with the fact that we’d have to switch them back over (to snowmobile use),” Christensen said, referring to the chance of four inches of accumulated snow. “The ATV folks seem to be OK with that.”

Supervisor Kalisa Mortag asked the standing-room-only crowd if anyone present was in the business of renting snowmobiles.

“We went out once with the sleds this year,” an unidentified audience member said. “We’ve already put ours away for the winter. It’s not enough (business) where we’re going to risk wrecking a nice sled.”

Despite a mid-week snowfall with around three inches of accumulation, the ATV and snowmobile clubs prepared the trails in question for ATV/UTV use and opened them to users.

“It would have been stupid for us (the town board) not to support this,” Ritter told the Times. “Why not try it?”