Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this January 5th, 2024, as you have your host, James Jamail, off here at 330, and we're welcoming into the studio. Dan Volert, maintenance program supervisor, snowmobile, and ATV coordinator with Wood County Parks and Forestry Department. Dan, good to have you with us.
Thanks for having me.
It's been a while since we got into talk to you guys. I appreciate you being here and being in studio.
Good time of the year to bring in, it feels like.
Yeah, it feels like you normally, most of the time. We're going to talk snowmobiles, we're going to talk ATVs, but I want to start with you if you don't mind with snowmobiling.
And this time of year, how is it going with that? I know that we're waiting for Mother Nature to give us some snow here, but other than that, how are things going with that, that kind of thing?
It's going well, other than our snow.
All our clubs got their trails signed, and they're ready to go. We're getting in the last few bits of paperwork.
And Wood County has roughly 277 and 78 miles of snowmobile trail that's located throughout, spread through the whole county.
We have seven clubs, and I'm just going to list a few of them.
We have the Auburndale night-holes, which typically take care of the Auburndale, Salt to Arpen, up North to Marathon County, up through the Meat Wildlife Refuge, that type of stuff.
Bakerville snow rovers is Marshall area, over to Hewitt, they meet Auburndale on the northwest corner of the county.
They come down and meet the Yellow River Writers, who is the Southwest corner of Wood County, run the Yellow River corridor through Pittsville down to Dexter Babcock, and then they go west into Jackson County.
Bakerville also does go into Clark County and Marathon on the north end.
In the center part of the county, we have the Vespers snow drifters, they're kind of Vespery over to Arpen, they meet up with Rudolph's trails.
They go south down to Sunset Drifters, who is kind of the south end of the county, Wood County, and they go into Juno.
Most of their trails are in Juno County, and then we got Rudolph kind of stuck in the middle east of Vespers.
They're a smaller club with, but they're really building traction.
They're kind of the club that's real eager. They're trying to get some new miles established, we're working on that.
They go over to the Wisconsin River, where you get on the other side and you get to kill on their nights, and that's a whole other thing.
They go into Portage County, they got a big club over there, and a lot of their trails go into Portage County as well.
They're all part of what they call AWSC, Association of Wisconsin snowmobile clubs.
We all meet every first Monday, the month between September 1st and April 1st, typically.
Usually the club presidents are all there, we discuss certain things, you know, signage and the work going on, and needs and wants, and what they need from me and what I need from them.
Wood County is actually very fortunate because the president of AWSC is Laurie Hyde, a man who worked 30 plus years for this patch, and she's a wealth of knowledge for snowmobile in Juno.
You got a great person right there. Yeah, yeah.
I don't know what you had her in here before, but she's kind of spent a lot of her life doing it, and she's about as dire as they come.
She's, she goes to state things, national things, and I think she even goes international as well.
She's a big promoter of the sport, and she's a great advocate for sports. She really does a good job.
We also have Wood County director of AWS, he's my Hertzberg. With the old river riders, he's really big into getting things set up just within the county itself with all the coordinators.
And then Margie Straca is treasurer, she's also a representative for the AWSC here in the county. She's right in the middle of the investment.
She does a lot of fundraising, and just different things going around with sponsors, with brochure making.
Her and Dave, Dave's the president of the Vesper snowdrifters.
He's also the president of the Central Wisconsin ATV riders, which we can talk about later.
But they do a lot of volunteer work in the center of the county here and in to advocate for snowmobiling and any TV.
Dan, especially those of us that have lived here for a long time are grew up out here with snowmobiling.
With some of these things, I think that terms or the knowledge of it, we just assume is common.
To those out there listening, they don't know what it takes, what these clubs do, maintaining these trails. What does it take to maintain these trails?
Okay, yes. Each club, and they all have different miles that they take care of, snowmobile map.
It's available online. You can pick brochures up at different businesses.
They typically like to have donations because it goes back to the club to help with maintenance items.
They do a lot of brushing, tree cutting, anything you can think of in a trail.
Bridge maintenance, because there's bridges out there. I mean, the clubs, they're the guys that do the maintenance.
They send a contract with the county. They hold insurance liability in case any of their workers get hurt on each of their sections.
They do a lot of work and it's volunteer work.
We just can't assume these trails. There's 277 miles of trails.
These guys are out there September, October, November, December, getting trails set up.
They also tear down. They mow on the summers. There's a lot of work involved.
And they're very, very devoted. They love it.
It's nice, too, because we don't always get this inside kind of look on this stuff and knowledge of it.
I like to bring the, I'm kind of going somewhere with this, too, where every month we have Sheriff Becker, Jonas.
And Sean and I, one of the things, especially this time of year, we talk about is reminding people,
hey, be mindful of these trails. Some of them go on public property. Some of them go,
some people give some of their land for it and everything. And we've got to be really smart about that.
We don't want to lose these spots. This is a privilege, not a birthright kind of thing.
And we, when we attend these AWS, see me, he's usually Officer Matsuza.
He's kind of a recreational sergeant in the area. He's the one that patrols on a snowmobile and MTV UTVs.
He's involved with this. He also helps with training kids to get license.
They set that up. And I believe his next one will be in the spring from talking to him earlier.
A lot of the funding for this type of stuff comes through the DNR maintenance grants that I apply for.
There's a program that the DNR uses called snars.
And I don't ask, I don't know exactly what the acronym is.
You do, I go there though. Yeah, exactly.
And I would break that down. But basically all the clubs, they always have somebody devoted the snars.
They put all their maintenance entries in with the equipment they use.
And the DNR refunds that or they get reimbursed for that work up to a certain mile.
We got 277 miles of trail in the county, roughly, changes from year to year a little bit.
But they get $300 a mile from the state for maintenance costs.
That doesn't cover all the costs that the clubs put in sometimes.
Sometimes you got storms and trees down. There's a lot more brushing and stuff.
Sometimes swamps don't freeze down. There's just a lot of work that comes and goes.
But that $300 is there that it comes through me.
I allocate it, depending on the need, what each club put in.
Each club has the ability to get that $300 per mile of their trail.
If there's some left over at the end, I can allocate it where needed if some clubs spend more than others.
But there's a given amount. If we do get a lot of snow, which I don't know, it doesn't look like it right now.
But we do get into another cost thing that the state dictates called supplemental funding.
And they usually only okay that they got another call set aside in the event we get a lot of snow.
There's a lot of grooming costs.
Each groomer goes out. They have a GPS in it that basically logs.
It basically pings every so often as they're actually running.
Not just idling but moving.
And that kind of sets the miles per trail.
And the DNR follows that.
I can follow that in the office.
It's kind of a neat outfit because that way they get funded for the miles they're taking care of and grooming.
And it kind of makes everybody's kind of keeps checks and balances.
I was going to say it definitely it's some accountability there too.
Exactly because some clubs obviously they could let it run longer and idle.
But if it idols it changes and it senses that.
So it's been good for a couple of years that I've been involved with anyway.
And I think people are starting to get used to it.
With the importance of this, certainly it's fun.
We enjoy it and everything.
But we also understand that this is a big resource for bringing people into the community.
Bringing tourists in town.
Spending those dollars here.
The economic impact that snowmobiling has.
There's a lot of factors there too with that.
So it's important to be able to have that data.
Exactly.
And I mean it not only brings money in for our businesses, you know, into our economy.
It helps us keep maintaining the trails.
It's kind of good for everybody.
It's a win-win.
Yeah. And, you know, a lot of our clubs too.
You know, they get that $300 a mile maintenance fee.
But a lot of them hold these other fundraisers.
I really wanted to mention the Arpan X 2024.
It's a vintage snowcross race.
That's held in the center of Wood County.
It's kind of a center hub between Bakerville, Auburndale,
Investors, Clubs.
And they, it's 20 years and older sleds.
And they got different classes they run.
I've been there myself. It's very enjoyable.
I hope they get snow for it.
That's actually on February, Saturday, February 3rd at 9 AM.
That starts. They usually got, you know, brats, sodas, you know, food.
They get chilly beer, obviously.
Do they have a Facebook page or anything we can send people to to find out more about it?
The Arpan Lions is the head.
Okay.
Probably one to contact for that.
Sure.
Like I said, Bakerville,
Vesper and Auburndale are all part of that.
Roselville,
Club, not in Wood County.
But from marathon, they help out with that as well.
They usually get a lot of the groomers on hand so people can see them.
You know, you got all these snowmobiles.
It's a really neat event. That sounds like it.
They put a lot of work into it.
Killin' their nights.
They run the radar run every year.
But Anchor Bay, that's February 10th.
They're actually calling it Winterfest this year.
They're gonna have live music.
There's food out there.
They have a cash raffle.
That's going on right now.
They have some going on during Winterfest.
You can look on their Facebook websites and get more information.
Rudolph River Rovers are running something similar.
They all run poker runs different times of the year to get fundraisers
to get people in and out of the businesses.
A lot of what the clubs do is volunteer.
It isn't just for snowmobiles.
Because it gets them and members into these businesses.
You know what I mean?
And keep in the economy going.
Not just during snowmobiles season, but other times as well.
I think that's such a strong point about this.
And every year we see these events.
And we talk about them on the air here or anything.
It's one of the biggest things that stands out to me is they could be just focusing
on the snowmobiling or raising funds for their clubs.
And they've used these opportunities to not just do that.
But to help out these local businesses.
And anything that supports local.
We are always going to be behind something like that.
Yeah, it's...
When the trails are gone, you definitely know they're gone.
You hear snowmobiles.
I mean, up north you see them all over.
But when it's going in woodcone,
you're not going to see them at the local cafe.
Yeah.
The local bar eateries, gas stations.
I mean, it just gets people in.
You know, it's...
We...
And I did want to mention we do have snowmobiles online on the woodconey parks
and forestry website.
They are available in brochures.
There's also apps that a lot of the newer
technically advanced riders have that they plugged their
phone right into that get some going as well.
That's really gotten traction in the next couple of years.
Yeah, yeah.
Diving into the way that a lot of the tech has influenced snowmobiling
and a lot of that is really interesting.
It's crazy how old that's come back.
It looks like a video game.
It does.
Yeah, it's amazing.
Somebody's tracks, you know,
and they look like jacked up machines from the space.
You know, like the outer space.
It's really quite a deal.
I did want to mention two Bakerville.
They do have...
They also do golf outings that they got
Father's Day weekend for their club.
I just love to mention there's opportunities,
you know, to get involved with clubs.
I want to know how it works.
There's a club in your area in Wood County.
You know, they're always looking for volunteers to help, you know.
I wanted to make sure we had time to talk about that, Dan.
Certainly, and we're speaking with Dan Voler from Wood County Parks and
Forestry Department, mentioning volunteering.
And that's always important, no matter who's really with us.
We're going to bring up volunteering.
But one of the things that I know talking to some of my friends about
that are into snowmobiling really enjoy the sport,
wanting to get their kids involved.
And it wanted to get younger people,
more and more younger people involved in this,
to keep the sport alive,
to help these, you know, maybe members of these clubs,
or just in general,
the act of snowmobiling and the sport of it.
From your perspective,
are you seeing younger people getting involved in it more?
Are you seeing some of that?
There's always younger kids.
I know they're trying to get involved with the clubs.
They'll reduce the membership, you know,
or wave it to get young people involved.
You know, somebody sure, it's easier to pick Russia up
when you're doing trails.
And they get the ride.
They're little kitty cats around.
Matt Sousa, as I mentioned earlier,
he does a good job with training kids,
you know, if people are looking to get into that,
only does ATVs as well.
Sometimes it's a joint class.
Yeah.
But, you know, it gets kids started early,
you know, and gets them out
and interacting with people.
That's always a good thing.
You get them young.
You spark something in them young,
and they're doing.
Yeah. Exactly.
And clubs, you know,
they lose members every year,
and you like to gain them.
You know, and there's,
I wanted to mention,
there's 600 clubs,
Wow.
With all in the state.
Yeah.
And they're all kind of organized,
similar to Wood County.
They're all a little bit different.
And we want to meet each individual piece.
And it's working,
and it has worked for a long time.
Different things change.
You know, there's different legislation
that changes and stuff,
and you know, Laurie's part of that.
I'll談 them again.
She's advocating for different changes,
and it's been advocated to get
this $300 mile changed
But I didn't want to mention
that snowmobiling trails
itself is self-funded
and that will be a registration
residential in out-of-state trail passes
and the gas tax multiplier.
All that money is allocated
through the DNR and a fund
and then we request that each
colony for each of their clubs
to help with maintenance.
But there again, it doesn't always cover all the costs.
And these clubs are all trying to make it nice.
That's why they have all these funneries
you know that I was speaking of.
Sometimes they're involved with
trades, they have whole bingos.
I mean, there's just
a lot of different things they tried.
There's actually, um,
let's see here,
January 10th, the Rudolph
River Rovers are actually
holding a fundraiser at Papa Murphy
Speedza.
50% of any proceeds
go to the River Rovers.
That's just another small example.
I mean, they have gun raffles,
sportsman's bank,
fundraisers, these clubs are doing.
Especially this time of year.
Keep an eye out for those.
And while we're broadcasting
and focused on central Wisconsin here,
of course, we're able to be heard
throughout the whole state.
You mentioned how many clubs there are.
Wherever you're listening to us,
chances are there's a snowmobile club near you.
Find out how you can be involved with them.
And to people who don't aren't that into snowmobile,
you could still be a part of these things
and still be a great help.
To get more involved in snowmobile
in this, in the fun of that.
Dan, I want to,
I do want to take some time talking
a little ATV with you.
But what do you got?
And this is just something that
I should mention for snowmobile.
What county snowmobile
alliance and landowners assume no liability
as to the trails, machines
or individuals.
We always respect private
and no trespassing signs.
And we just obey the
state local ordinances.
I mean, the trails are only for snowmobiles,
not ATVs.
We want to be respectful of the landowners.
It's hard to get permission,
easements to go on people's land.
We don't want to ruin that.
That's a privilege.
And please stay on the trails.
They're marked clearly.
The guys do a great job of it.
So I guess, you know, have fun when you do that.
But always stay on the trails.
I really wanted to mean
get that point across.
Because that's how we keep our trails going.
Yeah.
Be respectful.
And certainly when you're able to do that,
we're able to keep these trails.
We're able to keep this going for not just us,
but for future generations.
A lot of the clubs will give back to the landowners too.
We give facts.
I know different things that they've done.
They usually have like a night,
a pre-owner appreciation night.
That's really cool.
The establishment there.
They've been fighting landowners.
I don't have a beer and barbecue.
And different things like that.
That they give back.
That's kind of the way it should be.
You know, the owners paste taxes on it.
You know, people are using this land.
It's the way it should be.
Yeah.
And it's a really cool, you know, mutual agreement.
Gentlemen's agreement, if you will, kind of thing.
But it comes with respect.
You've got to respect the land, respect the property.
And then everybody has a good time.
Where do you want to go next?
What do you got there to?
ATVs?
Yeah, let's talk a little ATVs
as we're getting close to wrapping up.
Yeah.
Well, ATV, UTVUs has been really ramping up
in our county lately.
You know, everybody for a long time
was trying to get a lot of trails and roads open.
I just wanted to specify there is a difference
between trails and roads in Wood County.
Yes.
Trails are typically what a park and forestry department
run through our county forest.
We have our ATV intensive use area.
That's where you want to go if you want to do
some mudden.
And you want to just go over hops and rough riding.
I phone because I got a lot of family members at ATV
and UTV ride, friends, family.
A lot of them just want to cruise.
You know, they want a nice country road to cruise on.
They don't want the dust and the mud and the dirt.
And a lot of our rural areas are open now.
Most of Wood County is open now.
Other than the township of Cranmore.
It's mostly Cranbury, Marstering a lot of roads there.
Yeah.
And what there is is the state roads.
Marstfield has been opening more of their tone or city
I should call it so you can get access in and out.
Obviously there's a lot of traffic areas there
and safety concerns.
But that's, it's kind of an ongoing map that's going on.
Yeah.
Because there's slowly changing ordinances to allow it.
Wisconsin Rapids is allowing it in some places.
Yeah.
But there's great debate over that.
We're going to go with County Highway Commissioner
and city officials.
You know, it's kind of a what they agree on.
And once that gets agreed upon, typically send us the ordinance.
Okay.
We post that.
Each township village has their own ordinances with ATVs.
It's one of a different snowmobile in that every town's different.
Usually everything's marked.
You can ride most of the streets or on your main County highways
you'll see the big red ATV circle with the slash through it.
Yeah.
They're marked very clearly.
Our whole county, I know the sign guy personally,
does a great job getting that signage out when things open
and enclosed, you know, depending on what's going on.
But it's usually up to each individual going body.
Yeah.
For locally here, Dan, when it comes to,
because as you mentioned, this is a conversation that's going to keep happening
and growing as this grows itself.
And then counties, cities are adapting to it.
When it comes to the ideas of that and how to grow it,
do they reach out to you guys?
Do they look for feedback from you and from your team?
Yeah.
We get occasional phone calls.
You know, people wanting to know if they got access to this or this business
or if they can go down this road, we try to go to that local township
and figure it out.
And if you're an old, I'll ask the question, is that open?
And if it is, if it ain't legible on our map, we fix it.
You know, it's, there's kind of an ongoing thing.
We got a couple different groups here again, Wattva,
which is a Wisconsin ATV, UTV Association.
We're kind of a member of that.
They give us a lot of information and stuff in the area.
We also have the Central Wisconsin ATV Club.
That was kind of originally made with Pittsville
and the originally started to push.
I think Jeff Massval, kind of, he was the mayor of Pittsville back in the day,
kind of originally got this going.
And I guess Dave Strock is a president of a now,
but they've been kind of continually getting this ATV thing going.
Yeah.
And now it's, most of the county's open.
I mean, you've got, you're always going to have your bumps in the road with things,
you know, people ruin it for others, you know, type of thing.
But for the most part, I think it's been received pretty well.
Good to hear.
I think a lot of people are under the impression that you're going to see these
all obnoxious machines going by 10 at a time.
And it really ain't.
Yeah.
I mean, I love, I live in the village of Esper myself.
I see a few a day.
It's usually mom and pop going down for coffee or for breakfast
or just, you know, your maintenance guy in the village checking things.
Yeah.
You know, it's farmers, you know, going to check their fields or their cows.
You know, it's, you get a few people riding,
but they're usually not.
And these things are always, as we're learning just by even in the times right now
in a conversation, these things are always adaptable.
We try one thing.
And if it isn't working, we can adapt and re, you know, re-tinker with it and everything.
So it's great to hear that there's a conversation going on with all groups
and the feedback is there.
It's an ongoing thing and it probably will be for the next few years.
Everything changes, you know, also.
Dan, it's been great talking with you.
I want to remind people that we're always looking for volunteers for these clubs,
these small and big club, any of these clubs,
and really anything going on with our parks and forestry department encouraged people to reach out
and find out more about that.
You can do that at the website woodcountywi.gov, woodcountywi.gov.
And Dan, if people have follow-up questions, want to talk to you specifically,
how can they reach you?
Yeah, well, they can reach out.
I mean, via email, they can call the woodconey parks office.
They usually set me right over.
I do a lot of talking with people explaining how it works in our county, you know,
and if they have questions even out of the county, usually I can point them in the right direction,
you know, or get them...
I can usually get them answers using that somehow.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm usually pretty linked up.
Pretty up, okay.
The woodcounty contact for the phone number for woodcounty is...
Wisconsin Rapids is 715-421-8400-428400.
And again, the website woodcountywi.gov, woodcountywi.gov.
Always good to talk to you, Dan.
Happy New Year to you and yours.
We'll look forward to having you back soon.
Sounds good.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for a great week.
A midday magazine, a big shout out to Pam Hilke.
And the amazing scheduling she does week in a week out.
We appreciate you, Pam.
We'll be back with more midday magazine next week right here at 975 FM 1320 AM.
WFHR.
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