Dwindling snow cover a bad omen for winter recreation in the region

Reggie Dufresne, vice president of the Westmoreland Sno-Belters, says the closest place he can think of with enough snow this year to go snowmobiling is near Pittsburg. ETHAN WESTON—Keene Sentinel
Published: 01-16-2025 10:00 AM |
As a kid, Dan Shelley remembers playing hockey on frozen ponds by Thanksgiving and spending Christmas break on the back of a snowmobile. These days, as president of Westmoreland Sno-Belters, a snowmobile club, Shelley is still hoping for enough snow to ride — in mid-January.
He’s not alone. As days of snow cover decline and winters warm, winter recreation faces an uncertain future in the Monadnock Region. And as chances to ride dwindle, local snowmobiling clubs like Shelley’s are struggling to keep up membership and motivate volunteers.
Shelley has been the president of Westmoreland Sno-Belters since 1999 and has watched club membership fall in tandem with declining snow cover. Back in the day, 300 members was the norm, he said. A lack of snow over the past few winters drove a decline to about 75, and right now the club has about 30 members, according to Shelley.
More and more people are waiting to see if there will be snow before registering their vehicles and joining a club, Shelley said.
Climate change is decreasing the number of days with snow and is expected to continue to do so. A 2021 Climate Assessment by University of New Hampshire researchers found the state’s average 100 annual days of deep snow cover likely to shrink to 30 to 60 days — or fewer — by the end of the century.
Although several storms have dumped snow on the region this winter, there hasn’t been consistent snow cover deep enough to snowmobile.
According to the National Weather Service in Portland, Maine, a professional spotter in Keene has recorded 11.7 inches of snow so far this season. The service doesn’t have historic snow data for Keene, but a decade ago Jaffrey recorded 79.3 inches of snow and Concord 71 inches.
For clubs like the Sno-Belters that’s a big problem.
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With fewer and fewer days of snow cover, Shelley said clubs are challenged financially and finding it more difficult to recruit and engage volunteers. The Sno-Belters have a dedicated group of about six who collectively spend hundreds of hours on trail maintenance, Shelley said.
Last fall, Sno-Belters volunteers worked with the Monadnock Regional Rail Trail Collaborative to clear drainage ditches and culverts on a seven-mile stretch of the Cheshire Rail Trail in Westmoreland. Volunteer labor hours help the collaborative qualify for state grants.
But lately all that work hasn’t been paying off for the snowmobilers.
“As of right now it’s questionable how many more years we can keep doing this with no snow,” Shelley said.
Monadnock Sno-Moles President Steve Kottke said his club has 121 members right now. In a good year, the club averages 400 to 600.
The club maintains about 80 miles of trails in Jaffrey, Rindge, New Ipswich, Fitzwilliam and Troy with about 10 consistent volunteers, said Kottke, who has been snowmobiling in the area for 40 years.
“If we don’t have snow and people aren’t riding snowmobiles, people lose interest,” Kottke, a Rindge resident, said. Ten volunteers is “definitely not enough.”
In a good year, members’ registration fees come back to the club through state grants to pay for grooming, which prepares trails for riding by smoothing out and packing snow. But it takes eight inches of snow to do that, and so far this year that hasn’t happened. Kottke said last year the club was able to groom for only about four hours, with only parts of Jaffrey and Rindge having enough snow.
With membership declining, the Sno-Belters have had to rely on sale of raffle tickets to get by.
Membership has dropped for Keene Sno-Riders, too, President Jeremy Evans said. The club has had years with limited or no riding as days of snow cover declined in the area. And with fewer opportunities to ride, fewer people become part of the group, making it more challenging to maintain the network of 50 miles of trails the club maintains in Gilsum, Keene, Sullivan, Surry and Swanzey.
For Winchester Trailriders, it’s the end of the road. The club was founded in 1996, according to Trail Master Dean Beaman, but lack of snow in recent years has led to a sharp decline in active volunteers. Those who are still involved are getting older, Beaman said, and the maintenance has become unsustainable.
The club is dissolving as a nonprofit entity and will merge its assets with Chesterfield Snowmobilers, which will take over grooming trails in Pisgah State Park, Beaman said.
The winters snowmobilers could expect in the ‘90s and 2000s aren’t the norm anymore. The club hasn’t groomed more than 60 hours in years, Beaman said. That puts a damper on volunteers’ motivation.
It’s a problem all clubs in this region are facing, he said. And the impact isn’t limited to snowmobiling.
Since 2010, the five-year average length of the ski season at Crotched Mountain in Bennington has fallen from 123 days to 103 days, according to data from New England Ski History. Across New Hampshire and Vermont ski areas, November openings and April closings are becoming less common, data show.
Winter has historically been a time for the outdoor recreation industry to shine in the Granite State, with skiing alone contributing more than 7,000 jobs and $500 million in economic output annually, according to an analysis by Plymouth State University researchers for Ski New Hampshire. But fewer days of snow cover mean fewer winter visitors and less money coming into the state, the researchers found.
That’s likely true for snowmobiling, too. A 2011 economic analysis by the university found the sport brought in $586 million annually. At that time, there were more than 56,000 registered snowmobiles in the state. By 2023, that number had fallen to a little under 38,000.
With the cheapest registration fee $121, that’s a loss of at least $2 million, not to mention the lost economic impact of visiting snowmobilers making other purchases in the region.
While big tourism industries feel the largest economic impact, warmer winters also affect local traditions. The Wilson Pond Family Ice Fishing Derby had to be moved from this Saturday because of thin ice.
In recent years, January temperatures in southern New Hampshire have bottomed out in the low teens, not falling below zero as was once the norm, Weather Underground data show. Without those colder temperatures, ice doesn’t freeze as hard and thick.
As winter in the region becomes less accommodating of snowmobiling, skiing, boarding, skating and ice fishing, the next generation of Sno-Belters may not be able to learn to ride in Westmoreland the way Shelley did as a kid or have the chance to snowmobile anywhere in the region.
Club Vice President Reggie Dufresne said this is the first year he can remember with nowhere to go snowmobiling in southern New Hampshire and Vermont in the middle of January. He’d have to go as far north as Pittsburg to find open trails in good condition.
With the riding season in the Monadnock Region almost disappeared, Shelley said he expects to have to go farther north whenever he wants to ride — a choice he said is available only to people with the resources to travel.
To Shelley, the value of a local club is the role it can play in making snowmobiling accessible to locals, especially young people. Without snow, those opportunities are melting away.
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.