Big turnout for Ponderosa Snow Warriors Pancake Breakfast and Fun Run

The buzz of snowmobiles punctuated the clear morning air around the Ponderosa Snow Warriors clubhouse Saturday, Jan. 22 as trucks and trailers pulled into the parking lot on Sucker Creek Road for the club's annual pancake breakfast and fun run.

"We're getting a pretty dang good turnout," said Snow Warriors President Forest Mercill. Even as the breakfast crowd wound down sleds continued to arrive for the ride. "Roughy about 150 hands sold today. A lot of out of state sleds, a lot of new sleds."

Mercill spent the morning serving breakfast with Brian Patzer, past president Mark Christian and other volunteers. He estimated they served nearly 100 breakfasts this year – so many that they ran out of pancake batter, the first time he's seen that during his time with the club.

The larger than expected turnout for the breakfast and fun run marked just one of the changes the club has seen recently.

Last year saw improvements to the parking lot around the clubhouse.

"That was one of our big fall projects," Mercill said. In addition to doubling the size of the lot, they dug it out and added fill and new top coarse material that should help with the rut problems that crop up every spring. "Hopefully it all holds together and gets all set up here. It should be a lot better."

Mercill said the improvements came about with the help from a number of volunteers and donors.

"I'm positive I'm going to forget somebody, but want to mention Mike Brown and Arny Brown, Quinton Grantier, Pat Hagen, Klint Menard, Brent Anderson, Deane Foley and Reece Hagen," he said.

The Snow Warriors are also focusing trails maintenance.

"Trails are looking great," Mercill said, adding that the club has two new groomer operators in training with their primary groomer operator Gordon Becker. "We're going to have some redundancy. Once we get everybody up to speed, we'll be able to run a little bit more and do a bit more grooming."

He said some of the money to cover grooming costs comes from a state grant program but it's insufficient to cover the cost of all the trails the club maintains every single year.

"We are in constant need of donations and grant applications (and) anyone who's willing to help with that," he said, pointing out the Snow Warriors are 100 percent nonprofit, and everything goes back into the club.

"Our plan is dedicating our resources to our core mission, which is grooming snowmobile trails," Mercill said. "We're dedicating all our resources to that."

Although things are looking up for trails in general, Mercill said the trails around Big Mountain are a big issue this year.

"We're not able to groom due to late season windfall that has come down," he said. "We spent four trips; over 15 guys have come up and we're just not getting it."

On one of those trips, they were able to clear just 80 feet of trail due to the density of the fallen trees.

"So, it's going to be a big maintenance project in the spring and we're going to really need a lot of help from the club and from folks around. Hopefully we'll be able to get in there and get it opened up," he said.

Another change this year, related to the clubs focus on both maintaining trails and on helping Lincoln's economy, came up at the Upper Blackfoot Community Council Meeting Jan. 18. This year, the club opted to forgo plowing the parking area on Copper Creek, which raised questions from county road and bridge manager Kevin Horne.

Although the county doesn't have any jurisdiction on the road, they plow it under an agreement with the Forest Service and he's concerned about parking along the road. The club is maintaining a loop at the parking area so trucks and trailers will have a spot to turn around, and has also helped with keeping the parking lot clear at Hooper Park for visitors.

Although the club talked to the Forest Service about the decision before the start of the season, Horne said he wanted to have a conversation about it with Mercill.

The Snow Warriors still have a couple major events planned for the season. On Feb. 13, they will host their annual moonlight fun run as a fundraiser for the Montana DAV. The first weekend of March will see the return of the vintage snowmobile run.

Mercill wanted to remind riders that they can get the current trail passes and any current tags at Grizzly Hardware.