WILTON – The Woodland Wanderers Snowmobile Club, a Wilton-based group, has established trails from Dryden all the way to West Farmington, as well as east to the Archer Road in Chesterville and west toward Carthage, for a total of 60 miles of trails. Trails include portions of the Whistle Stop, ITS 82 and ITS 89.
Several of the trails lead to local businesses, such as Cushing Motorsports, Mt. Blue Motel, Colonial Valley Motel, Ripley & Fletcher pre-owned sales, The Farmington D restaurant, Pizza Hut, The Comfort Inn & Suites, Mountainside Powersports, Salt & Pepper restaurant, Shelly’s Hometown Market, Gould’s Service Station and Steve’s Family Market. The club has an average of 15 – 20 business members per year and around 30 – 35 members per year, with about eight to 12 active members.
“Active members” are those that engage in creating new trails, cutting brush and downed trees off existing trails, building new bridges and repairing existing bridges, and grooming the trails during the winter season with the groomer. The club’s groomer is a 2005 Tucker Sno-cat with a 14′ drag that is pulled behind it. There are currently five groomer operators that work in rotating shifts to groom the entire trail system on a regular basis.
Every Thursday from October to April the club meets at 399 Depot St, though currently the restrictions from COVID-19 have suspended those meetings. Information is kept up to date on the club’s Facebook page, including grooming operations, trail conditions, meet schedules and pictures of activities that the club performs.
Right now, the club is grooming on almost a daily basis. Anyone who is interested in joining the club as a business or as an individual/family membership, may contact the club at woodlandwandererssc@gmail.com or message the club on Facebook.
