CARIBOU and LIMESTONE, Maine – As warm and rainy weather moves into Aroostook County this week, local trail groomers worry that the region’s snowmobile season could end much too soon.
Aroostook’s 2,300-mile trail system is popular among snowmobile enthusiasts, many of whom travel from out of state to experience northern Maine’s typically cold and snowy winters. Though a lack of snow delayed last year’s season, the winter quickly rebounded, bringing in more tourists to ride trails and enjoy Caribou’s first ever snowmobile festival.
Snowmobiling contributes more than $600 million a year to Maine’s economy, according to a 2020 University of Maine study.
But so far Caribou has received only 56.2 inches of snowfall, compared with 98.9 inches at this time last year, said Priscilla Buster, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Caribou.
Aroostook could see temperatures peak at 50 degrees Wednesday, with rain moving in for the latter half of the week. At this time, there are no snow storms predicted for the next two weeks, Buster said.
Trail groomers are not optimistic.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I’ve never seen a winter like this,” said Gary Marquis, Caribou Parks & Recreation superintendent. “Unless something changes in the next 10 days, we could see the end of the snowmobile season.”
Marquis oversees upkeep of 120 miles of trails in Caribou, New Sweden, Stockholm and Westmanland. Conditions have been favorable to riding so far, but many trails have only three to seven inches of snow packed down, making them more susceptible to washouts during heavy rain.
With temperatures in the 40s Tuesday, the trails could start deteriorating that day, Marquis noted.
“We groomed last night and will tonight, but that will probably be it,” Marquis said. “We haven’t had a snowstorm in four weeks.”
The lack of snow has already canceled this year’s Can-Am dog sled races and affected the return of Caribou’s SnowBowl festival, the latter of which drew in 8,000 to 10,000 people during its first set of events.
SnowBowl organizers Troy Haney and Jim Gamage announced Monday they are postponing a hill climb race, set for Wednesday at BigRock Mountain in Mars Hill, and the Brian’s Ride Cancer Fund snowmobile event, due to less snow on the mountain and snowmobile trails. Brian’s Ride would have taken folks from Caribou through Limestone and parts of the St. John Valley.
Haney and Gamage, who co-own Spud Speedway in Caribou, still plan to host weekend events at the speedway, including Northeast SnoCross races, a RaveX stunt show, vintage snowmobile parade and races and a groomer rodeo.
Volunteers have been hauling snow from the speedway parking lot and nearby fields since last weekend to ensure the race tracks have six to eight feet of snow, enough to withstand the rain and warmth, Haney said.
So far Haney and Gamage have not discussed moving the SnowBowl up in the season.
“This is just one of those years,” Haney said. “A similar thing happened in 2010 when I tried hosting snowmobile races [at Spud Speedway]. We had zero snow on March 6.”
Even so, this winter has been one of the most unusual seasons, said Chris King, a member of the Limestone SnowHawks, who maintain 35 miles of trails.
On Monday afternoon, King was grooming trails not far from Spud Speedway and noticed dirt peeking through the snow. That would not be happening if the trails had their normal foot and a half of snow, instead of just three inches, King said.
King said that daily snowmobile traffic has been down at least 30 percent this season because of trail conditions.
The SnowHawks have already reduced a section of their 8-mile ITS 89 trail from two lanes to one due to 10 feet of water that has washed out the snow.
“If we get rain, we probably won’t be able to groom after that,” King said.