Spring is here and it is time to start thinking about some summer adventures. To begin with I want to remind everyone that our primary goal for the April club meeting is to develop a list of activities for the summer. Hopefully you will be giving it some thought and be ready to offer up some great ideas.
To say the least, the winter season was pretty uneventful for having good conditions at 4th of July. Let’s all hope that the potential for a better snow year in ‘24/’25 becomes more promising next Fall. But there were a few activities that were successful over the past few months. I want to thank everyone who participated in them. Especially, I want to thank the folks that stepped up and organized and led activities. Hopefully you will consider organizing a summer time opportunity that will get folks together to hike, bike, camp or party. At the club meeting we will also need to take a few moments to address two upcoming items. The first is the election, or approval, of a new president and/or changes in board member roles. To begin with, Scott Gossard has offered to take on the role of President starting next Fall. If approved by the membership, I will step down from that role and stick around to help Scott transition. Randy Brewer has indicated he would like to step down from the roles of VP/treasurer and WEB manager. Since I signed the Forest Service Special Use Permit and liability insurance policy for 4th of July and the club, it seemed appropriate that I should stay on the board a little longer. Also, like Randy, I am already authorized to deposit or withdraw funds from the treasury bank account. So I offered to take over the treasurer role. So with Randy’s help I will be transitioning into that role next Fall. But we are still hoping a member would be willing to join the board and eventually take over being the WEB manager. Until then, Randy has agreed to continue taking care of the WEB site for now. But in order to establish some redundancy for the future, Scott and I will start trying to become more familiar with the WEB tasks Randy takes care of. If anyone is interested, I would encourage you to come to the board meetings next year to see how things function. You might find you would like to become more involved. The second item involves an opportunity to promote the club and, maybe, encourage recruitment of some new members. Mark Staumbaugh with the Kootenai County Mountain Rescue Team has invited the club to set up a recruiting/PR table at their fund-raising event on May 22nd. He will be at next Tuesday’s club meeting and will give everyone more details about the event. The board discussed the offer, and we all agreed that it would be well worth our effort to take advantage of the opportunity. If anyone is interested in joining us, Scott and I will be representing the club at the event. Let us know if you want to tag along. Finally, for the April meeting will meet again for pizza and beer, or soda pop. After searching around it turns out that the Pizza Factory is still our best option for the final meeting of the season. I have reserved the group room (i.e. the same one we’ve met in in the past) from 6:30 – 8:00 PM on April 2nd. I would encourage everyone to order before you arrive so we can get our pizzas and drinks early. Hopefully, most everyone can make it to the meeting. So see you there!
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To say the least it has been an interesting winter! Unfortunately the lack of snow didn’t allow 4th of July recreation area to be much of an outdoor escape opportunity this season. But at least, from what I observed, opportunities to hike were taken advantage of by a few hearty folks. But on the bright side, we were afforded the chance to apply the treasury savings to maintenance of the grooming equipment and we should be in great shape to support next season’s grooming program.
Unfortunately, due to weather and snow conditions several of the scheduled winter trip and activity events had to be canceled this year. Although, after “Best Hand” some activities did and still will happen before the season ends. If you missed them: Fish Creek park and ski, Rock Soup, Round Lake and Mckensie Conservation Area events all took place. The group of participants weren’t large (~6-10 folks) but I think everyone got to have some fun and got some exercise out of the events. But if you still want to try to make it to a winter activity all is not lost. This coming Saturday (March 2nd) Scott is leading the annual trek at Nordman. Hopefully you’ve already seen the announcement he put out. If so, and you are thinking about join him let him know. Also, Goeff is offering an opportunity to “ski”. He is planning to lead a trek at Lookout next Wednesday or Thursday. So be prepared to hear more about it at the club meeting next week. There might even be a sign-up sheet on the table when you enter the meeting room. Regarding next weeks Club meeting, there will be two items on the agenda. The first will be the speaker of the evening. Since the hiking season might be heading our way earlier this year I thought hearing about the history of one of the nearby hiking areas might be in order. If you are not already familiar with the “Cougar Bay Nature Preserve” you might want to attend this meeting to hear Theresa Shaffer speak about her recently release book. It provides a good look into how the area was used and developed in past, and how the preserve came to be. It’s good story if you’re into the history of this area. The second item is Ya-I-Du-Ski/Snowshoe awards. So if you haven’t got your accomplishment sheet up to date, you might want to get it ready for the meeting so Roberta can tally up the “K’s”. If possible, I am sure She would appreciate it if your accomplishment sheets could be sent to her in advance. If you can scan your list, it can be sent to Truscott’s email address shown on the membership list. Hopefully, even though it has been a lean year for accomplishing many miles of skiing or snowshoeing you will want to take credit for what you’ve done. If you attended Best Hand and Rock soup you should feel obliged to take credit for snowshoe miles even if you just walked. So document your accomplishments and get them to Roberta. PS – Everyone needs to start thinking about summer time activities. As always the April meeting will be our opportunity to develop the summer list. See you next week at the club meeting. March 5th, 7 PM @ the Community United Methodist Church. To begin this month’s letter I want to acknowledge Dwight McCain. Sadley, he recently passed away. Dwight was always a committed participant in club activities and volunteered regularly to help keep the trails and facilities in good condition for all to use. To honor Dwight’s memory the board has agreed that the Skateaway trail, which he used regularly, will be renamed to “Dwight’s Skateaway”.
Please join me in providing condolences and support to Marty during this trying time! There is a “Celebration of Life” planned for Dwight at the Lake City Church on April 18th at 10 AM. Hopefully many of you can attend to honor a great guy. Regarding club activities coming up. I want to remind everyone that this Saturday, February 3rd is “Rock Soup”. Cooking of the soup this year will begin at noon. Hopefully it will be ready to serve between 1 and 2 PM and serving will continue till its gone, or everyone has gotten what they want. Bowls and spoons will be available. But if you want to bring your own bowl and spoon, that’s okay. I want to encourage everyone to come on up. I know there may not be much snow to ski or shoe on, but walking and/or biking might be an option to work up and appetite. The plan is to have a pot, or pots, heating up and ready to poor ingredients into for the soup. This year the only ingredient, along with a broth and water, that will be added will be vegetables (canned, frozen or fresh). So be sure to bring something to added. For those who want a little meat in their soup, it can be added when you get your serving. So if you’re interested in a soup with more than just veggies, please bring it with you, pre-cooked if possible. But just in case it’s not, there will be a fry pan available for heating it up. If you would like something more than just soup to eat, I would encourage everyone to bring along other items to munch on. Like snack food or fruit. Also, feel free to bring whatever you would like to drink. Water and hot chocolate will be available, but BYOB is always an option. There are a couple of other events coming up soon. I hope weather cooperates a bit better to make it possible to still hold them. The 1st activity in February will be the Round Lake snowshoe hike. I am the leader, and I still plan on doing it on Saturday, February 10th. So I will try to have a sign-up sheet available at next week’s club meeting (Tuesday, February 6th). I’ll see if I can find out if it’s worth bring snowshoes or just rubber boots. I’ll get the word out to anyone who signs up. If the snow doesn’t happen, I still plan to walk it. The Methow Valley and Newman Lake events are still tentatively scheduled for February. So stay tune for sign-up sheets or messages from the trip leaders (i.e. Nancy Mertz and Geoff Harvey respectively). See you next Tuesday at the club meeting. If you’re interested in electric bikes, Greg Lewis will be giving us a presentation. Merry Xmas & Happy New Year! I for one am still hoping that there will be enough snow to ski and snowshoe on before too long. A few of us went up last week to cleared several windfalls that we hadn’t removed earlier. From that trek, I can at least tell you that there was 2-5 inches of snow on the snowshoe trails. There might be a little more after the last snow shower. For the sake of the “Best Hand” fund raiser, and the rest of the season, let’s hope there is a bigger snow storm coming in the future.
Regarding the upcoming fund raiser, Saturday January 6th, hopefully a lot of you are planning to participate. I also encourage you to spread the word to friends that may be interested in x-country skiing or snowshoeing. Who knows, if they join us for the event they might decide to join the club and help support the future maintenance of the 4th of July trails. At next week’s club meeting there will be a sign-up sheet for volunteers to help staff the “Best Hand” event support tasks. We may still need of eight to ten folks to help. So please be on the lookout for the sign-up sheet on the table as you come in the door of the meeting room. As usual, several stores have helped support the event with a variety of prizes. But as mentioned before, if anyone is interested in donating items they would be welcomed. If you do, bring them up on the day of the event and deliver them to the prize table at the panhandle hut. Please put your name on the donations so I know who to thank! If you can’t make it to the event, and wanted to donate something, give it to any of the board members at next week’s meeting. I hope everyone that wanted to stay active with the club has had a chance to renew their membership. If not I encourage you to sign on to the WEB site and fill out the membership form and submit it. It may be the result of a lest the stellar snow season, but according to Randy our membership numbers are a bit down this season. Also if you know anyone who uses 4th of July for recreation, please let them know that if they join the club they would be helping ensure the future maintenance of the trail systems. As a reminder, there are a couple of other events coming up in January. On Saturday, January 13th Skiing at Farragut State Park with Nancy Lewis is coming up. January 19 and 20th, Nancy is also leading at trip to Fish Creek Park n Ski near Grangeville. On or near the weekend of January 27 and 28th, Jim Mcmillen will be heading to Rossland B.C. If you are interested in any of these trips there may be sign-up sheets on the table as you enter the meeting room next week. But you can always contact the trip leader directly and they would be happy to add you to their roster of participants. Keep in mind that due to changes in circumstances or conditions, or lack of, trip leaders may need to adjust event dates or plans shown of the recently sent out winter schedule. So it is always a good idea to make sure your signed-up for the event so the leader knows who to keep informed about changes. The WEB site may also be a good source to check to see if changes to scheduled events are being advertised. The guest speaker at next week’s club meeting (Tuesday, January 2nd, 7 PM) will be Paul Loutzenhiser from FONIT’s. He will fill us in on the trail association partnership the club recently join into, and how the club may participate and benefit from it. Goeff will also include some details about his role and activities as our club’s representative. See you Next Week! Hope everyone is hoping for lots of snow! So far it’s been less then encouraging. But the good news is everything is in place at 4th of July, so that when the snow gets here the skiing and snowshoeing will be great. Keep your fingers crossed.
For those who really enjoy snow shoe opportunities, there is a new route you might be interested in. A loop has been created off of Jeannettes Jaunt. Skip probably will have signs placed on the intersections before too long. But for the moment if you want to test it out, once we have enough snow, you may need to look for snow shoe tracks that take off from Jeannettes Jaunt down the hill toward the freeway. The loop involves a little uphill and downhill travel, and might be considered moderately difficult. You would need to be your own Judge! At the next club meeting the main agenda will be generating the list of winter activities and getting them scheduled. I hope everyone has been thinking about some ideas. Jim Millen already asked me to make sure that a ski trip to Rossland B.C. gets on the list. So we have a start. Speaking of activities, hopefully most everyone is aware that on the WEB site there are trip leader guidelines, sign-up forms and other helpful info to assist folks you volunteer to lead activities. If you aren’t familiar with where to find these documents go to: Home page/More (on the tool bar)/Member Page (on the drop down)/scroll down just pass the volunteer form/ you will see Trip Guidelines, trail classifications, sign-up templates, etc. etc. FYI – thanks to the efforts of Katie Stubblefield the trip related documents have all recently been updated. Take a look. In addition to creating the clubs winter activities list, I want to remind everybody to bring some cookies. It is the annual cookie exchange (cookie party) for members, that in the end provides leftovers to be given to the IDT plow operators to thank them for keeping the parking lot plowed. So don’t forget to bring homemade or store-bought cookies for all to enjoy. Planning for this year’s Best Hand ski and snowshoe event begins this month. As usual gathering up the prizes for the event is a big task. The members of the board will be busy checking with 2-Wheeler Dealer, Ski Shack, Fitness Fanatics and other locations for donations. Efforts by anyone who wants to help out by checking with other stores or donate items is certainly welcome. The event always needs volunteers to help set things up or staff card distribution stations, etc. So when the requests are made and the lists for volunteers come out this month please consider helping out. As a reminder, If you hadn’t picked up a Park and ski sticker yet, make sure your payment specifies that it is designated for AREA 4. Also if you haven’t gotten around to renewing your membership or know someone who might want to join please keep the following in mind or share it with others: 1) Personal information entered on the club mailing list is populated from the membership form, the membership form on the Nordic club WEB site must be filled out electronically to make this happen. 2) If you wish to have your information added to the membership list you must check “yes” in the box in the lower right corner of the form “Add to PNC Group Membership List”. Please make sure to Key “Submit” after you have completed the form. 3) Payment of dues, can be done either electronically (preferred method) or manually (mailed to the club PO Box 2583 Hayden, ID 83835). Keep in mind, you must still submit the form electronically to be included on the mailing list and/or membership list. If you have questions, forward them to Randy Brewer via [email protected]. Please sign up as soon as you can. It really helps to get the membership list for the year completed early. And this year Roberta Truscott will be making up name tags for those on the list. She can’t really get going until the list is pretty much complete. Thanks again for your support! See you Next Week! As you may have noticed the weather is beginning to change. With any luck it is the beginning of a good skiing and snowshoeing season.
The club will continue to meet this year at the United Methodist Church at the intersection of Hanley and Ramsey Road. The club meetings will begin at 7:00 PM. As always, we plan to continue meeting on the first Tuesday of each month, through April. COVID is still with us, but at least it is not considered to be as significant as it had been for the past few years. But I would encourage everyone to continue to use safe practices to avoid unnecessarily spreading it, or the flu, to others at the meetings. For the first meeting of the year, Pat Hutchins from 2-Wheeler Dealer, will be presenting examples and info about new winter sport equipment available this year. Recruitment of new members is one of the main focusses of the board this year. At the first board meeting it was agreed that the club should try to offer an event designed to attract family participation. The current idea is for the club to offer an opportunity for parents and their children be to introduce to winter activities. Initially the event will be focused on snowshoe hiking. So you will be hearing more about this in the future from Katie Stubblefield and Scott Gossard. They will be taking the lead at working with local organizations or groups to facilitate assistance and support in getting families, or individuals, to participate. Our hope is, that if our members can make contact with non-members through this type of activity that some will join the club and keep their children involved. Which in turn may help ensure the future of the club, and its ability to continue providing groom trails and warming facilities. The board also started talking about activities for the coming season. We have agreed that the “Best Hand” Poker Ski & Shoe, and the Rock Soup events will be held again. But to get things in the works for the future the main topic of Decembers meeting will be to review activities that have occurred in the past. The objective will be to assess level of interest, establish leaders for planning and coordination and to establish schedules if possible. So start thinking about trips and other types of activities for the future planning discussions. If you hadn’t picked up a Park and ski sticker yet, there is a new development that you should be aware of. We have learned that the State has apparently discontinued the use of AREA 11 as the area that 4th of July is in for reimbursement of the funds to the club for the grooming program. It is now AREA 4. So when you pickup a ski and park sticker for this season, make sure to specify that it be designated for AREA 4. As reminder, since it is the beginning of another season the need for folks to renew their membership or join the club is critical to supporting the maintenance of the trails and facilities at 4th of July recreation area. I want to thank everyone who stuck with the club in 2022 and hope you will renew your membership in 2023/24. When renewing or joining for the first time, we want to make sure you get onto the club mailing list and Membership list. To ensure that your information is entered on the club mailing list, the top of the membership form on the Nordic club WEB site must be filled out electronically. If you wish to have your information added to the membership list you must check “yes” in the box in the lower right corner of the form “Add to PNC Group Membership List”. Please make sure to Key “Submit” after you have completed the form. Payment of dues, can be done either electronically (preferred method) or manually (mailed to the club PO Box 2583 Hayden, ID 83835). Keep in mind, you must still submit the form electronically to be included on the mailing list and/or membership list. If you have questions, forward them to Randy Brewer via [email protected]. Please sign up as soon as you can. It really helps to get the membership list for the year completed early. Thanks again for your support! PS – Goeff Harvey may be looking for volunteers in the near future to get the grooming equipment sheds and snowshoe warming hut up. If you have the time to help when requests go out, please let Geoff know. The more the merrier! See you Next Week! |
AuthorPanhandle Nordic Club News and Events Information Archives
October 2024
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