Club News

Cascade Drift Skippers Snowmobile Club 

CDS Minutes: Wednesday, 3/13/2013 

Held at 6:00pm at the Issaquah Elks, 765,

 Issaquah, WA 

Membership & Budget Meeting 

 

Board Members present: 

President:                     Tim Horton 

Treasurer:                      Trina Martin 

Meeting called to order by President, Tim Horton 

 

 

Membership Roster:

Tim Horton shared the current membership roster.  (See list uploaded to documents)

 Officers Report:

Past President Pete Beaupain:   At the end of the wounded Warrior ride he ended up with a pair of goggles so if anyone’s missing a pair, see Pete.

President Tim Horton: reported that we are still in need of a Club Historian to collect photos and written accounts of Club Events.

Vice President Brian Cook:  Absent. Although, Tim reported on Brian’s behalf that there were a couple renewals in February. CDS has 100 members now.

Treasurer Trina Martin:  Shared current financial report.  $2,710.11 in checking; 50/50 has $323.50; Savings $4,505.59 for a total of $7,739.20 in all CDS accounts.

Secretary Sheri Hyytinen:     Absent.  (Cheryl O’Shaughnessy filling in to take notes)

Web Master Jon Ferrian: Any pictures that were received have been posted to the club site.  Continue to send pictures to Jon to the club email: cascadedriftskippers@gmail.com Question:  If a member shares their Picasso Album, can Jon post their pictures?  He responded that if he can get in their album, then he can post pictures from Picasso.  Although, emailing photo’s to Jon is the easiest. As the season dwindles, he will work on updating the CDS website.  cds.clubexpress.com   He may even have a contest to see if you notice the changes. Look out for these! CDS Face book is going great.  Members are scheduling rides and sharing a lot of photo’s. Make sure you check it out!

3/23 Lee & Shirley Koeger’s Steak Ride at Blewett Pass: Make sure you make it to this fun ride.

April 13 Mt Baker Shootout by Northwest Glacier Cruisers. Kevin Hoglund talked about this event and mentioned there will be demo rides, raffle (to include Garmin 655T), local dealers will be attending, new 2013 machines will be displayed.  They will set up tents and BBQ, along with accepting donations (benefits area grooming).    They are hoping to stay in the 1^st parking lot, depends on the snow level.  If you plan on camping, arrive early (Thursday night or Friday).  No awnings please.  Take Hwy 20 to north to Concrete, south side of Baker, riding near Glacier Creek and Schreiber Meadow side. It is a great time and hoping you can make it. 
Additional info: http://www.northwestglaciercruisers.com/

Also, Kevin Hoglund lives in Skagit County so if you are up for a ride in the Baker area, let him know if you are interested in scheduling a ride.

Award Banquet – June 8th We are planning and need recommendations for a location and would like to pass around a list for sign-ups to help.  Need assistance with venue, tables, screen, slide shows. Some idea’s shared were LeMay in Tacoma, Hydro plane museum, Museum of flight, and Acme Bowling. Let Tim or another Board Member know as we will discuss at the next members meeting in April, bring your idea’s. 

 

State Park Winter Rec 100^th year event in Olympia March 19-21^st. WSSA goes on the 21^st to the Commissioners gatherings (a lot of pat on the backs). Dick Elkins attended Tuesday and Thursday, Carl Corn attended Thursday. 

 

Dick Elkins WSSA Representative: If you are interested in filling in at upcoming WSSA meetings, please contact Dick.  Check with Dick for future dates and locations.

 

Check WSSA homepage as they are addressing the Gas Tax, Snow park permit & tabs issues and provided upcoming legislative meeting dates to discuss these items with your representatives.  Constituents are encouraged to attend or phone in.  E-mail addresses are provided; don't hesitate to tell these legislators what you want!  There is an email format on the site homepage that you can send the letter to your legislator to support these issues.  It’s really easy.  Check the site out. 

http://www.wssa.us/

 

Snowball 2013 is April 5 (6-10PM) at the new MOHAI in Seattle!  Mick is the contact and has a table reserved.  Support avalanche safety and join them for a great dinner, drinks, silent and live auctions, and more!  This spring's end-of-the-season celebration and fundraiser for the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center will be at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) at the south end of Lake Union in Seattle, at 860 Terry Avenue N. Tickets are $70 before April 1, and $80 after - buy yours soon!  http://www.nwac.us/snowball/

February 2013 Rendezvous WSSA Convention:  30 people from the club attended and had a great time.  Many enjoyed the Super Bowl climb, including Trina!  They rode in Ahtanum State Forest & Rim Rock Lake area; there were a lot of great areas. Many continued on to Sumpter, OR and Cornucopia in Halfway. In Sumpter, we had a guide (Sumpter Snowmobile Club President) who showed us the entire area, although not a lot of open areas. In Halfway, the group stayed at Cornucopia Lodge (4800’) and rode from the cabin.  It was foggy a couple times, but went down and found some good riding areas east of Fish Lake.  Cabins and meals provided for about $100 a day and the snow quality is wonderful and really recommends it.

 

March 3^rd Wounded Warrior Ride:  It’s a lot of work and takes around 20 people. Although, it was a great event and there was a lot of support by the members.  A lot of these wounded warriors have never rode before, it’s quite the life experience and they are so appreciative and it makes it worthwhile.  It really makes you feel good to see them so enthusiastic about the ride and having such a good time. We had a lot of food too!  Bill Badgley made homemade chili that was wonderful.  Shane brought the riders and huge donation from JBLM for food.  The lady donated hot dogs, buns, burgers, soda, chips, cookies and other items so the club would like to do something for her.

The feedback was positive from the wounded warriors, it was a great way for them to get out, and they appreciated everyone donating their sleds so they could ride.  They also had a great time at the Elks for dinner from 6-9PM that evening. They enjoyed taking pictures throughout the day and at the dinner.  Photo’s were posted on our CDS site.  This is a great event and well worth every expense!

Carl suggested starting to plan this event now for 2014.  If you are interested in helping out we will get started early.  Someone from Kittitas media came last year, but we didn’t have anyone this year.   We would like more media next year as it’s a great opportunity for exposure for this sport and our club.  Jon Ferrian mentioned they did veterans ride and negotiated with Arctic Cat.  So, if anyone has connections to dealers/manufacturers don’t be afraid to talk to them to include media.  Put the “what’s in it for them” idea out there.  See if they can come to our event next year.

Chris Mayer nominated Jon Ferrian for a hill climb they experienced out of Hyak area.  Jon lead and gunned it up this hill, he buried his machine and it rolled on top of him.  Chris went up and came back down to get him.  Another time when they were with Remco in a bowl with 2 step sides and Jon got buried and was holding on slope, so they had to go get Jon from the slope and from under the machine.

Fred Wemer nominated Sheri Hyytinen - at the conference in Yakima, Sheri and Mike Hyytinen  received new sleds for a gift from Mike for Valentine’s Day.  There were hardly any miles on them and Sherri was following behind Linda Bowen, Sherri ended up running into Linda as she looked back.  Another time, we were riding in Sumpter and we rode down this bowl and Sherri got stuck, which tied up the group for a bit.  Fred nominated Sherri for scratching up her new sled.

Fred Wemer also mentioned a moment in Halfway.  Kelly Hayes lost his glove on the ride somehow, next day they were riding down the road and found it.

Fred Wemer nominated John Woodward for his stuck into the side of the embankment as he rode right into it.

Kurt Zeutschel nominated Bob Posey. During the warrior ride we experience technical difficulty with one of the sleds, so Bob offered to ride the dead sled back to the parking lot.  Bob tipped the sled over and he was not even riding it.  Bob also got stuck in a bowl during the ride and Carl Corn came down to ride Bob’s sled out.  After hiking up the hill to get back to his sled, he said he is taking oxygen on the next ride as he was exhausted.

Tim was the last recipient of the “Rusty Ski” award and was passed on to Jon Ferrian.

 

50/50 Raffle

Thank you Carli & Trina for collecting for the Raffle. $104.00 was collected. Congratulations to Carl/Cheryl  for winning $52.00.

 

New Business:

 

New Venue for CDS meetings:

Carl moved to table this discussion, multiple members seconded and voted to table to the next meeting.

 

Nominations for Board positions were opened up to members:

Secretary(Sheri’s position):  Bob Seelye nominated Cheryl O’Shaughnessy and was seconded by Bill/other additional members, Cheryl accepted.

Treasurer (Trina’s position):  Jon Ferrian nominated Kelly Hayes, multiple people seconded, Kelly accepted.

Vice President (Brian Cook’s position): Mario was nominated, but he declined.  Fred Wemer nominated Chris Mayer, multiple people seconded, Chris accepted.

President (Tim Horton’s position): Fred Wemer nominated Brian Cook.  Brian was not at the meeting to accept/decline. 
Carl Corn nominated Jon Ferrian, but declined; he mentioned he was passionate about the club, but strong reasoning that he can discuss 1:1 with others if they wish to hear. 

Jon Ferrian nominated Carl Corn, he declined due to his WSSA legislative efforts.

Fred Wemer encouraged one family not to have 2 positions in the club as it’s an overload on the family. He also thinks this should be someone whose been in an officer position in the past.  He nominated Kurt Zeutschel, it was seconded and Kurt accepted.

 

President’s Choice:  Mick Steinman nominated Jon Ferrian for this award for all he does for the club. 

Horse’s Patoot:   Nominations needed

Mileage Award:  Fred Wemer currently is the holder of this award, but let him know by May 15^th so we can get the name on the award by June 8^th award banquet. Someone has a chance still, so if you have over 2000 miles…

Rubber Side Up:  Voted by membership.

Snowmobiler of the Year:  (Can be one person or a couple and its voted by the membership) 

*Carl nominated Lee and Shirley Koeger for snowmobile couple of the year. 

*Jon Ferrian nominated Carl Corn and Cheryl O’Shaughnessy for exposing younger kids to the club. 

*Nomination for Jon Ferrian as he came here from Minnesota and is active, got the word out, Web Master for the club, and Facebook is up and running, including dragging members to Island Park already.

Anyone on the rusty ski award is a nominee and others can nominate additional names.   We will get all of the awards on paper and vote at the next meeting. 

 

Groomers report by Tim Penelerick:

A little snow up high. Salmon Le Sac is low.  100 hours this past month.  Thank you to the club for the donation to WSSA to get through the rest of the year.  Trails are holding up and worked out pretty well this year.  Culvert at French Cabin off 4218 is holding up, will work on next year.  If anyone wants to get together to help with this project, let Tim know.  He will be at the snow show again this year. 

 

Glenn Markovits and Renee Bennette’s Overnight Experience:  They attended the meeting and they shared their experience when they were stuck for 2 nights in cold snow cave with a fire pit in front of it.  They went through a lot during this time, including Glen hallucinating and seeing things due to burnout.  It is very important that you are prepared for an event like this.  Glen shared in great detail all of the events that occurred.

 

Glen pointed out the importance of the following, along with additional pointers shared by other members:

• It made a substantial difference of being in that situation with the list of items that he had previously received from our club quite some time ago. They shared the list (uploaded to CDS documents) with the members and we will also post on our club site. Kevin also suggested Search and Rescue list (24 Hour pack) that is online.
• Wearing the right gear (3 layers, Klim gear, boots, gloves), and to keep moving to stay warm.   Check space blankets in your kit as they expire.  Some of his were old a flaked so he could not use them. Kevin suggested Cabela’s SOS mummy bag as they get up to 128 degrees and are great. 
• Food is essential as they had water, Cliff bars, Gatorade, trail mix, high protein items, nuts, P&B sandwiches. 
• 1st thing to do is make your shelter, then make a fire. Getting out of the weather & staying dry is very important!  Don’t take your boots off to warm up in front of the fire as you will actually lose your body heat this way. 
• Another key point he made was that Renee was supportive, cooperative, considerate, and respectful through it all so that helped the situation tremendously. 
• There are different levels of experience within each rider, so think of who you are riding with and how you need to look out for others within your group and to ride at the lowest level of experience within the riders.
• He forgot about this at the time, but use the sled seat as they pop off as this can be used as a barrier from the ground to lay on, rather than directly on the snow.
• Dan Johnson just happen to see it on the news and he texted Glenn asking if he heard about the people lost on the mountain, not knowing it was Glen…so he responded to Dan to tell Search and Rescue to come in another way.  It was hard to text as his hands were so cold and cell phones work by heat from our body.  Search and Rescue should have contacts within our club who know the roads.  Kevin suggested a Club Rescue Tree.  Our club should create this list for future reference in these cases.
• Had GPS (Rhino) and used 12 volt battery outlet on the sled to charge.  Montana is wired and on cradle and left that on the sled to charge.  It’s important to know how to use these as the coordinates were dead on. Thankfully, Kurt in Snow Jammers was paired with his Rhino and he had his contact in his unit.  Also important to be on same settings (Garmin set to Wag 84)
• Jon mentioned Spot is a great device to use as you can send a pre-programmed message to 10 people that shows your location. 
• Cell coverage:  Verizon had signal, but AT&T didn’t.  Glen mentioned if you have a cell phone that works, take a picture and send as the geo-tagging records GPS coordinates and sends this to recipient. Check under menu settings for this feature.
• Another reminder was to change your beacon batteries often.  If around 75%, toss and replace the batteries.

 

In the end, two Search & Rescuer’s hiked 2-3 miles to get to them and then it took 5 hours to walk out.  It was exhausting! They were very appreciative of all the efforts of family, friends, and SAR (40 volunteers).

 

The membership agreed that we should have more training with the safety equipment (beacons, spot connect, GPS-Rhino’s, and the 10 essentials).  Members would like a meeting early in the season to start covering these important topics before rides begin. 

 

 

Treasurer's Report: