The 2023-2024 winter has been a bad one for people looking to get outdoors to snowmobile. 

A lack of snow has kept trails from being groomed in many parts of southern Manitoba. While it’s frustrating the President of the Tri Lake Trail Busters Snowmobile Club Allan Sampson of Wawanesa says it wasn’t that many years ago they had a similar situation. 

“We had similar conditions five or six years ago and this year there has been a little bit of local sledding but our volunteers haven’t been out to try and groom our trail system because there just isn’t enough snow.” 

 

“Some guys have travelled up to the Duck Mountain area to do some snowmobiling and others have headed west and south trying to find areas with snow. Everyone knows you can’t control the weather and the die hards will wait it out hoping for some snow so they can get out.” said Sampson. 

As mid-February approaches Allan Sampson doesn’t know if the groomers will get out this year even if a significant snowfall hits the region. “That’s the question really if there is some snow do the volunteers want to give the time to groom trails because it takes a lot of hours to get around and our season has shortened up for sure.” 

Tri Lake Trail Busters maintains about 400 kilometers of trail system in the Killarney, Ninette, Baldur and Wawanesa areas.