Trail signs - Poor examples

[wisco-mb]

My education group is hosting a trail signing workshop at the AWSC workshop this fall. I'm looking for any photos of poor signing examples.
I attached one as an example of how not to sign an intersection. Any photos or examples would be appreciated!
I'm putting together a power point for this.
It should be an interesting workshop since I'm sure there will be many points of view. We are basing it off the current WI DNR trail signing booklet. https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/sites/default/files/topic/Aid/grants/CF0023.pdf
Thanks!
I also posted this on HCS. I got some good photos from some folks including @SHOOT2KILL.

 

[pclark]

Good thread, when I assumed trail master duties for our club I had never done the job, in fact our club had no trails. I knocked on doors to gain permission to access property to run our trails. Then I studied how to lay out properly marked trails, perhaps we were oversigned and marked but at least people knew where they were going and every mile of our trails were perfectly signed. I’ve been on poorly marked trails but I’ve also been on perfectly marked trails, the people that do the work are volunteers, and most do a a great job because they love what they do. We do need younger people to get involved though, hammering stakes in with a stake pounder when you’re 60 can be brutal after you done it all day. Thanks to all the clubs for their hard work.

 

[ddhanna]

I'm not seeing it on HCS. Which section?

 

[whitedust]

Trail signs are for newbies and you have to look at signage thru their eyes. Once I have been down a trail I pretty much know where I’m going don’t bother with signs other than they mark a fork in the trail that is expected or I’m at this point take a break. I do get confused on lake chains no land marks to relate to so do you follow tracks or look for signs that aren’t there? Imo don’t enter a chain of large lakes unless you are with someone who knows the way.

 

[wisco-mb]

I'm not seeing it on HCS. Which section?

Trail signs - Poor examples

www.hardcoresledder.com

 

[garageguy]

I know the up like the back of my hand. with all the closures it's getting easier

 

[mspease]

Good thread, when I assumed trail master duties for our club I had never done the job, in fact our club had no trails. I knocked on doors to gain permission to access property to run our trails. Then I studied how to lay out properly marked trails, perhaps we were oversigned and marked but at least people knew where they were going and every mile of our trails were perfectly signed. I’ve been on poorly marked trails but I’ve also been on perfectly marked trails, the people that do the work are volunteers, and most do a a great job because they love what they do. We do need younger people to get involved though, hammering stakes in with a stake pounder when you’re 60 can be brutal after you done it all day. Thanks to all the clubs for their hard work.

Yeah, the post pounding is hard on me too! I had an issue with my right wrist after last year so this year we are ordering a gas powered post pounder.

 

[garageguy]

No green electric one

 

[rp7x]

mark , change up and use your left hand

 

[wisco-mb]

I just completed my powerpoint, but I'll still take any photos or comments from others. I did make a mention to try to look at it from a newbie point of view.
If anyone is interested, the AWSC workshop is at Wilderness in the Dells. 10/26. There are two different sessions in the afternoon. 1-2:15, and 2:30-3:45.
That gas powered post pounder is a good idea!
Youth is the key for the future. I'm the youngest(39) in my club and county association. The rest are 60 and above. Quite the gap, even in the Gen X age group for us.

 

[indy_500]

Youth is the key for the future. I'm the youngest(39) in my club and county association. The rest are 60 and above. Quite the gap, even in the Gen X age group for us.

While I agree, the lack of youth is concerning, have to remember the same has been preached for the last 30 years, but it’s just part of the cycle of life and snowmobiling in general… snowmobile clubs are not attractive to 20-30 yr old riders. Most of them work a lot, and want to bar hop and ride like mad men when they get the chance. 30-50 yr old riders work a lot, and are often raising children/have families and barely have enough time to ride let alone be active in a club. 50/60+ yrs old many become retired, kids are grown and out of the house, and now they have all the time in the world to attend meetings, mark trails, and maintain trails. Just facts of life, and I don’t see anything changing… 20 years from now, those who are currently 40 yrs old will then be 60 and running their clubs. Just the way it is.

Perfect example… good bud of mines dad, retired at 60 a handful of years ago moved up north to Crandon to their retirement home. Was hardly an avid rider, just a guy who’s always had sleds. Never belonged to a club his entire life. Soon had a lot of time on his hands. In a matter of a couple years, he is now the Trail boss for LMT trails and a Forest cty rep and does a good majority of the grooming.

 

[Hoosier]

While I agree, the lack of youth is concerning, have to remember the same has been preached for the last 30 years, but it’s just part of the cycle of life and snowmobiling in general… snowmobile clubs are not attractive to 20-30 yr old riders. Most of them work a lot, and want to bar hop and ride like mad men when they get the chance. 30-50 yr old riders work a lot, and are often raising children/have families and barely have enough time to ride let alone be active in a club. 50/60+ yrs old many become retired, kids are grown and out of the house, and now they have all the time in the world to attend meetings, mark trails, and maintain trails. Just facts of life, and I don’t see anything changing… 20 years from now, those who are currently 40 yrs old will then be 60 and running their clubs. Just the way it is.

Perfect example… good bud of mines dad, retired at 60 a handful of years ago moved up north to Crandon to their retirement home. Was hardly an avid rider, just a guy who’s always had sleds. Never belonged to a club his entire life. Soon had a lot of time on his hands. In a matter of a couple years, he is now the Trail boss for LMT trails and a Forest cty rep and does a good majority of the grooming.

I like your optimism and I see things the same way. I'll have kids in the house for about 6 more years and then assuming it's still legal to own your own vehicles and the planet didn't burn up I plan to be riding a lot more then and hopefully help out more then too. But I'm not in a hurry to get them out of the house and I'll still be working for quite a while after that.

 

[indy_500]

I like your optimism and I see things the same way. I'll have kids in the house for about 6 more years and then assuming it's still legal to own your own vehicles and the planet didn't burn up I plan to be riding a lot more then and hopefully help out more then too. But I'm not in a hurry to get them out of the house and I'll still be working for quite a while after that.

And younger generations lack of time is just one thing that sucks in this equation… There are many clubs ran by older gentleman that push away younger generations ideas.

I live in a town that had tripled in size in the last 20 years. I grew up here, and fell in love with the sport riding locally here as a kid, so having accessible local trails means a lot to me. But, With multiple new neighborhoods going up yearly, the urbanization is starting to get difficult to work with. There isn’t much distinction between Appleton and Greenville anymore. Due to this, we had a landowner not grant access to a main corridor trail a few years ago (very close to my house). At that time my local club had 9 miles, yes 9 miles of trails… without that trail we’d be down to 6 miles. So I came to our next meeting with multiple ideas mapped out to get around this, and possibly a new addition of a trail to shorten the time around town (which I knew we had 75% of the permission needed already). The president and trail boss had ZERO interest, and in the past 4 years have made ZERO efforts to find a reroute for this corridor. To head west from the Appleton area, you now have to add over 10 miles each way and have to swing north first. After being extremely frustrated, I left the club and now just pay yearly non participating dues to the Bo boen club (Where I ride most often). Seems to me they just keep the club going to have an excuse to go off-roading on their SxS marking and clearing trails, with 6 miles of trail left they really should consolidate with neighboring clubs at this point, but hey what do I know I’m just a wisecracking millennial!

 

[pclark]

And younger generations lack of time is just one thing that sucks in this equation… There are many clubs ran by older gentleman that push away younger generations ideas.

I live in a town that had tripled in size in the last 20 years. I grew up here, and fell in love with the sport riding locally here as a kid, so having accessible local trails means a lot to me. But, With multiple new neighborhoods going up yearly, the urbanization is starting to get difficult to work with. There isn’t much distinction between Appleton and Greenville anymore. Due to this, we had a landowner not grant access to a main corridor trail a few years ago (very close to my house). At that time my local club had 9 miles, yes 9 miles of trails… without that trail we’d be down to 6 miles. So I came to our next meeting with multiple ideas mapped out to get around this, and possibly a new addition of a trail to shorten the time around town (which I knew we had 75% of the permission needed already). The president and trail boss had ZERO interest, and in the past 4 years have made ZERO efforts to find a reroute for this corridor. To head west from the Appleton area, you now have to add over 10 miles each way and have to swing north first. After being extremely frustrated, I left the club and now just pay yearly non participating dues to the Bo boen club (Where I ride most often). Seems to me they just keep the club going to have an excuse to go off-roading on their SxS marking and clearing trails, with 6 miles of trail left they really should consolidate with neighboring clubs at this point, but hey what do I know I’m just a wisecracking millennial!

Indy, what you have stated is very true. The only thing with guys raising kids is that it might be a great time to have them come along when Putting in the trail. We had a few guys that brought their sons and we all had a good time, young and old. We only had about 11 miles of trail so 1 day and the work was done. And yes, it’s disappointing that older leadership doesn’t take the time to listen or make the younger guys feel more welcome. Our county groomer corporation was a little like that but I volunteered to sell ads for the map for a few years and one of the groomer guy took me under his wing and that’s how I learned to groom. The clubs up in Vilas seem to have more younger guys in their 40’s I have noticed but still majority is retired guys.

 

[whitedust]

I understand where you are coming from Indy and it’s not always about age. Some clubs welcome newcomers others don’t at all. Some don’t want to hear a word you have to say some act like they do then ignore your comments and move on with their agenda act like you said nothing of consequence. Lol. The way I approached clubs was I’m here to help mostly with trail maintenance either take advantage of my time and efforts or I’m gone. I decided when I lived in Vilas to maintain about 20 miles of FRs which was self serving for me to access local trails and FRs to trail 2 in the UP. Im sure the winter I left many were shocked at the number of trees down in the local FRs. I didn’t do all of it myself asked a buddy to help who knew sometimes the FRs were the best place to ride. I’m now at an age where trail maintenance is more difficult so I leave it to the young guys and hopefully the younger crowd continues to attend meetings and take over. Don’t give up snowmobiling is a life sport and your time to take charge will come.

 

[gary_in_neenah]

After being extremely frustrated, I left the club and now just pay yearly non participating dues to the Bo boen club (Where I ride most often).

There's a lot of that going around, Indy. I've seen the same and have moved on myself.

Back to the Original Post, I'm pretty sure I've been at that intersection. Western Taylor or Eastern Chippewa counties on a north-south corridor. Complete with bullet holes and arrows in multiple directions.

​

 

[euphoric1]

I understand where you are coming from Indy and it’s not always about age. Some clubs welcome newcomers others don’t at all. Some don’t want to hear a word you have to say some act like they do then ignore your comments and move on with their agenda act like you said nothing of consequence. Lol. The way I approached clubs was I’m here to help mostly with trail maintenance either take advantage of my time and efforts or I’m gone. I decided when I lived in Vilas to maintain about 20 miles of FRs which was self serving for me to access local trails and FRs to trail 2 in the UP. Im sure the winter I left many were shocked at the number of trees down in the local FRs. I didn’t do all of it myself asked a buddy to help who knew sometimes the FRs were the best place to ride. I’m now at an age where trail maintenance is more difficult so I leave it to the young guys and hopefully the younger crowd continues to attend meetings and take over. Don’t give up snowmobiling is a life sport and your time to take charge will come.

I agree with what you are saying Pete however, as far as the clubs that don't want to hear a word you have to say, I've belonged to different clubs through the years, both fishing and snowmobile and like indy some of the clubs I have belonged to or supported I did so because it was the area I rode and I would support them through equipment or goods donations, or join an area club where I rode for the financial support. the one thing I have noticed in clubs through the years are the people who say " I belong to a club " and to that I say there is far more than just belonging and the huge problem club membership in the Wisconsin snowmobile world is the "discounted trail pass" now we have an even larger amount of "i belong to a club" and that's where it stops. The ones who don't want to listen I can almost guarantee you its because of the guys or gals who have all the answers on how to do or run things but when it comes to actually doing something they aren't there. A large fishing club I used to belong to, our meetings would be packed houses until it came to elections, for club positions and alot of the times it was the same people who took, held or kept the positions or floated among them, so yeah in a way I don't blame at times when you have the same select people puling all the weight and the rest of them telling them how they should or shouldn't do things. Our biggest issue in Wisconsin isn't club membership as with the advent of discounted trail pass I'm willing to bet membership has risen exponentially, yet involvement has stayed the same or dropped because we are losing the long term membership who have done all the work or put in all the time in the past until now. We cant possibly expect to just rely on the older/retired generation to carry all the workload on their backs, it isn't just clubs that are suffering because the younger generation doesn't have time or want to get involved> I don't know about you but I look at the world and I ask myself... how did we get so busy that we don't have time for anything else? and folks it isn't just snowmobile clubs but what people and I'm sorry but more so the younger generation doesn't understand is none of this would exist without volunteerism and involvement. and how we change that? more exposure, making time, volunteering and maybe make it mandatory with new membership to be involved whether its in leadership positions, projects or something as simple as attending meetings instead of just saying " I belong " I don't know the right answer but those are my 2 cents worth

 

[pclark]

A pretty good assessment of most clubs, 80/20 rule in effect, probably more like 90/10 in snowmobile clubs. Not saying all clubs, but pretty much rule of thumb. Same guys do most of the work or can be counted on to make it happen.