By Larry Johnson Jr.
I am president of our local Tahquamenon Area Snowmobile Association (TASA). I just wanted to take the time to thank all who were involved in helping maintain the trails in our area.
We held our annual trail clean-up on October 3 and 4, which consisted of grading, signing, and brushing trails. We didn’t get them all done, but we are a lot further along due to the great volunteers that showed up this year. The volunteer team consisted of local businesses, trail riders, and some of our local club members. We even had a rental company from Sault Ste. Marie donate equipment.
Here are those who attended: Joe Caswell, Bob Carmody, Rexton boys, Jeremy Kapp, Ray Kapp, Dave Reiter, Kevin Schultz, Kurtis Parker, Eric BayBeck, Chris Wahl (Halfway Lake Resort), Rob Stein (Pine Stump Junction), Schubach family (Schubach Farms Cabin Rental), Alta Equipment rental of Sault Ste. Marie, and Larry and Tara Johnson (North Shore FMO).
Most people don’t know the time it takes to maintain these miles and miles of trails. TASA is a snowmobile and ORV dual club, which means with the help from the DNR, volunteers, and members, we maintain route trails and snowmobile trails.
Our maintained trails consist of:
North Trail 45 to the Tahquamenon Falls and Paradise
North Trail 9 – This hub connects Seney, Grand Marais, Pine Stump Junction, Windy Corners, Paradise, and Newberry.
South Trail through Newberry toward Rexton
South to Epoufette, connecting to Hulbert N.E. and Rudyard South E.
In the beginning, around the mid 80s, local business and community members knew something had to be done to connect one location to another, so they got together to form TASA.
At first they had many hurdles to overcome, since many areas were either privately owned, or swampy. This did not deter them. They pushed forward. Many years later, with long hours and hard work, we now have some of the best trails in the nation.
The reason I say this is to inform you that it didn’t happen overnight. With many volunteer hours and monies, the trails are here today. So I am reaching out to all businesses and community members to support TASA. Either become a member, or donate time or funds to keep us moving toward the future. If we don’t keep these trails maintained, the future of our trails could become less and less. If we don’t have your support to keep our club moving forward, this little town could end up not growing as it should. We all know tourism is the number one source of business in most of the U.P.
This doesn’t mean we have to change our Yooper ways. It means we need to help mold a better system, like the generations before us have done.
So let’s get these trails in shape. You can contact TASA via our webpage, TASATrails.com.
The site also has information on membership and upcoming events.
We are going to live up to our motto: We take pride in your ride.
We are just in need of support and guidance from our community. At TASA, we appreciate our small town.