The trails are alive with the sound of sledders.
Coming from near and far to experience the trails of Simcoe County, snowmobile enthusiasts are thrilled with this year’s winter wonderland.
“This is shaping up to be the best snowmobiling season in five years,” Kris Puhvel, executive director of Orillia and Lake Country Tourism (OLCT), told BarrieToday.
“So far, we have received close to 300 centimetres of snow and with a thick base. Barring any major warm-ups, it looks like conditions will be excellent well into March," Puhvel added.
That’s great news for Burlington’s Clint Stock, because his annual goal is to sled until his birthday — which is at the end of March.
“I’ve been sledding since 1967 and that's the plan every year,” Stock said this past Saturday at the Simcoe County Administration Building on Highway 26 in Midhurst, where he was loading up his sled from a morning ride.
“We did about 105 miles this morning — went up to Wasaga Beach, Midland and Orr Lake and then back here," he added.
Stock said he wanted to keep sledding, but he had a commitment back in Burlington that night, so he was only going out for a quick day trip.
His morning ride took five hours.
Stock has been out 10 times already this season and he tries to get out every weekend. His itinerary changes based on commitments, but normally he leaves Burlington behind for the weekend, preferring to stay overnight in a hotel close to the trails.
“Normally, we’d go out on a Friday and find a hotel for a couple of nights and go from there,” he said. “We’ll grab something to eat in the morning and then again at night. We spend the day riding."
According to the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs (OFSC), this year’s conditions will have a positive impact on the local economy — a boon to make up for last year’s bust.
“This is the comeback season we all wish for and did our snow dances for and La Nina is not disappointing,” Lisa Stackhouse, director of programs and partnerships at OFSC, told BarrieToday. “The economic benefit of snowmobiling is huge.”
According to Stackhouse, full-season and multi-day in-season permit sales are up over last year and the OFSC is seeing an upward sales trend every weekend as more trails become available.
Last year, according to a spokesperson from the Ministry of Transportation, the OFSC sold 86,000 permits. The specific number of permits per available category was not provided.
A season permit for sleds made after 2000 is $294 plus a $7.50 processing fee. A classic permit, for sleds made in 1999 or earlier, is $201.20 plus a $7.50 processing fee. A multi-day pass is $45 per day, with a two-consecutive-day minimum.
As more permits are sold, the economic impact increases, trickling down to sled manufacturers, clothing makers, hotels, restaurants and a variety of sundry industries, including gas stations and convenience stores, officials say.
“This machine, all in, cost about $40,000,” Stock said of his winter ride, a fully equipped sled that has power steering and heated seats, among other luxury extras. “Add in permits, gas, hotels, meals and travel costs and it starts to add up.”
A 2023 report called ‘The Economic Impact of Snowmobile Trails in Ontario,’ based on expenditure data from the 2022-23 season and commissioned by the OFSC, shows that the provincial network of more than 30,000 kilometres of OFSC-prescribed snowmobile trails is Ontario’s "most valuable recreational trail network and a key pillar of our winter tourism economy.”
The report found that in the 2022-23 season:
- expenditures by snowmobilers riding OFSC trails increased to $1.48 billion, up from $843 million in 2019
- those expenditures resulted in an estimated $3 billion of snowmobiling-related economic activity for Ontario
- snowmobile trails directly supported 9,307 full-time jobs
- snowmobiling generated $538 million in taxes across three levels of government: $239 million in federal taxes, $258 million in provincial taxes, and $41 million in municipal taxes.
The study also found that the $3 billion of 2022-23 economic activity was almost double what was reported in two previous studies — $1.6 billion in 2019 and $1.7 billion in 2014.
“The new study estimates that OFSC snowmobile trails have the potential to generate a total annual economic impact of between $3 billion and $6 billion in any given season, dependent on factors such as weather,” wrote the report’s authors, Harry Cummings & Associates, an evaluation and planning consulting firm based in Guelph.
Some riders are reporting this year’s conditions are providing additional value for permit purchasers, something that was basically non-existent last year.
Daryl Alexander, who hails from Bethany, near Peterborough, has been sledding for 15 years.
He said he paid the same amount for his permit this year as he did last. The only difference, Alexander added, is that he’s actually getting out this year.
“Last year was a terrible season,” he said as he prepped his ride last Saturday in a county parking lot just north of Midhurst. “I got out once.”
This year, he’s hoping to cover about 4,000 kilometres of trail before the snow melts, what he considers an average year.
“Today we’ll go out for probably five hours or so and we’ll do about 160 to 170 kilometres,” he said. “On the trails you get to see stuff you’ve never seen before because the trails go through areas roads don’t.
“It gives you something to look forward to over the winter rather than staying indoors all the time.”