Snow’s a sigh of relief for local businesses

After the first major snowfall of the season, the Northwoods was left with piles of wet and heavy snow, making trail conditions prime for snowmobiling and providing local businesses with optimism for a strong winter tourism season.

The stage is set 

Jerry Wesner, trail boss and vice-president of the Cross Country Cruisers — the snowmobile club responsible for trails in Arbor Vitae, parts of Minocqua and Woodruff — said this is the first time he can remember in the last 10 years the trail system has been opened prior to Christmas. He added the amount of snow, if it can last throughout the season, should make for the best snowmobile season this area has seen in a long time. 

Jim Jungers, president of the Hodag Sno-Trails in Rhinelander, agreed with Wesner, but also noted that, as of Dec. 31, the club’s trail system is filled with debris from the Dec. 28-29 snow storm. However, he said, that shouldn’t be as big of an issue by the time this story is published. 

Wesner said the Cruisers encountered lots of debris as well. He said he “ran” an 18-mile stretch back and forth on the Bearskin Trail Dec. 29.  

“Normally it’s about a four-hour run, seven-and-a-half hours to get through it with the trees that we had to remove to get out,” he said, noting it was similar conditions riding a 20-mile stretch north to the Gresham Lodge.

Wesner said the snow is weighing down many branches over top of the trails. It likely doesn’t pose any issues for snowmobilers, he said, but it makes things a little tight for volunteers in the groomers. He also wanted to make it clear people understood that those who work for the Cross Country Cruisers are “100 percent” volunteers.

“In … general, I would have to say that the trails are probably in above-average condition, especially with the amount of snow that we’ve had and we got it all packed and got a good solid base started,” Wesner said. “The big thing is there’s so much traffic during the day because it doesn’t let the snow set up. In that (time) I went down (the Bearskin) on Monday (Dec. 29), I … bet you it was 250 sleds. I counted 200, and quit counting at 200, sleds (riding on the trail), and that started at 8 o’clock in the morning and we got back at 4:30 in the afternoon. So the traffic is just tremendous right now.”

He said seeing that amount of traffic was “awesome for the businesses and the gas stations and the hotels and the restaurants.”

“We’re working our tails off trying to keep everything rolling for the (snowmobilers) so everyone can enjoy the beautiful weather up here,” Wesner said. 

Jungers said he would caution riders going around turns to slow down and watch out for fallen trees or excessive debris. 

“There are things out there, that if you’re going fast around a corner you can’t see around the corner there could be something there, and that’s everybody’s trails not just Hodags’ trails,” he said. 

Jungers and Wesner both said all the lakes for each club’s trail system have been marked, but conditions, as of Dec. 31, are slushy. Wesner mentioned for Vilas County lakes, the club is putting red, white and green lights at the start of lake access and at the end of lake access.

Jungers noted the Wisconsin River crossings of the Hodag Sno-Trails’ system, as of Dec. 29, hadn’t been marked yet, and though they are passable, people shouldn’t stop or congregate on the river — some areas having as little as four inches of ice and being “iffy.”

The biggest thing the Hodag Sno-Trails needs is more volunteers, Jungers said. While much of the debris will have been cleaned by now, he said there were only a few volunteers that were able to help with that. 

Jungers said the large amount of snowfall was “exactly what” the Northwoods needed. 

“What you need is a heavy wet snow and then you go out and groom that, and then that packs down and you get the cold weather like we are, yeah that’s awesome,” he said. 

“Four years ago, we had snow, we groomed 13 out of 16 weeks,” Wesner said. “This is the first time I think in 10 years, if I look back in my records, that we’ve had snow and (trails have) been opened before Christmas. So if this continues with the snow that we’re getting and the temperatures stay cold and we get a good base built, which I believe we got a pretty good base built right now, this should be, if it carries through until April, by far probably the best winter we’ve had. We just got to pray it stays cool.”

Now we’re talking business

Krystal Westfahl, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Minocqua Area Visitors Bureau, said she noticed at least one restaurant on Dec. 30 very busy with snowmobilers.

“I’ve been hearing businesses are just head over heels,” she said. “The fact that we got this snow is just going to do wonders for everybody’s moral. The past two years it’s been a little bit low. So, yeah, it’s been a really great start to the season. It’s nice that it happened early so we can get the bases nice and packed and hopefully a long snowmobile season. I don’t want to jinx them, knock on wood.”

Westfahl said snowmobiling has a large economic impact on the Northwoods economy. She said it brings the area “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“So that, coupled with early ice fishing and silent sports, like cross country skiing, the fact that the tubing hill is opened at Minocqua Winter Park, we’re going to have — what I’m predicting — a banner winter,” Westfahl said. “Again, knock on wood because I’m a little worried I’m going to jinx it, but it seems like we’re really kicking off a great winter tourism season.”

She said mostly all phone calls “the past few days” visitors bureau staff answered were related to snowmobiling and trail conditions.

Westfahl said callers have been directed to visit the visitor bureau’s website, minocqua.org, and the snowmobile clubs’ Facebook pages. 

Last winter was the second in a row where the area received very little snow accumulation. Because of that, Westfahl and an entire coalition of northern Wisconsin entities worked together to get lawmakers’ attention to see if there was any financial relief available. 

Westfahl explained that there were many small businesses that started largely because of federal funding given out during the Covid-19 pandemic and didn’t have enough capital to weather a two-year snow drought with little to no tourism traffic.

“We just wanted our legislators to know we were here advocating on behalf of small businesses and luckily people heard, they could sense our frustrations,” she said. “So then the Governor and Tammy Baldwin took it up at the federal level and got that SBA loan change.”

The “SBA” loans Westfahl referred to were low interest loans offered by the federal government’s Small Business Administration in response to drought-like conditions. 

“It wasn’t free money, it was the same type of loan application a farmer could do … low, low interest, long terms, to get them over the hump,” she said. 

Westfahl said there were 35 new small businesses that opened their doors after the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“So yeah, we’re just really stoked we got the amount of snow we do now and we can’t thank our clubs and the volunteers doing all this hard work, we can’t thank them enough,” she said. “They’re really the back-bone behind our snowmobile season and our winter tourism economy.”

Tony Pharo, executive director of the Oneida County Economic Development Corporation, said area businesses in the Rhinelander area are excited about the snowfall and ready for increased tourism traffic this winter. 

He said, however, it’s a little early in the season to predict how much that economic impact will be “because of the holidays” and many people had planned to spend time in the Northwoods regardless. 

Pharo said one thing he’s hearing more about right now from Rhinelander area businesses is an ice issue that’s impacting how many people traverse the roads to spend money at local businesses. 

“But we know the bars (and restaurants) are very excited,” he said. “We’ve heard a lot of good things there … but that’s about all that I’ve heard right now is that they are overly excited about where we’re at right now.”

While the Lakeland area depends heavily on snowmobile traffic for its winter tourism season, Rhinelander is a different type of economy. Nevertheless, Pharo said snowmobiling does play a large role for the area come winter time. 

“It depends on the business,” he said. “You have some of those bars that are on the trails and … I wouldn’t say inner-Rhinelander as much as the outer areas of Rhinelander … those bars are very, very dependent on the snowmobile (traffic). Inner-city Rhinelander not so much. It’s all on the fringes.”

Pharo said with the more opportunities for people to snowmobile in and around Rhinelander, comes more people staying in the hotels. 

“It’s more for … retail business with the snowmobiles also,” he said. “It’s a little bit different (than the Lakeland area). Everybody’s happy about (the snow) … we’ll hopefully get some warmer weather next week to be able to get the roads cleaned up and people are really excited to be able to see the tourism come back for snowmobiling, definitely.”

Trevor Greene may be reached via email at [email protected].