Avalanche Savvy

09/20/2026

09/20/2026

09/20/2026

Join is today for beacon practice, early season discounts and more Yampatika fallfest

09/19/2026

Join us tomorrow Yampatika fall fest! Beacon practice and early season discounts on classes

09/09/2026

09/09/2026

93% of Colorado snowmobilers have never joined a club.

Here's what the other 7% did for you last winter. 👇

❄️ 20,000+ volunteer hours. Nobody got paid. That's chainsaw crews clearing deadfall in July, groomer operators running at 2am, permit paperwork, trail signs, and insurance renewals.

❄️ 3,000+ miles groomed by 28 clubs. For scale: that's farther than driving from Los Angeles to New York City — and it gets re-cut every single winter.

❄️ Worth about $800,000 a year. At Independent Sector's Colorado value for volunteer time (~$40/hour), those donated hours are the equivalent of roughly ten full-time jobs that nobody had to pay for.

Now here's the part most riders don't know:

👉 This helps you even if you never ride a groomed trail.

That club groomer isn't just packing a trail. It's often the machine that carries a search-and-rescue team to a stuck or injured rider out in ungroomed terrain. Your registration fee feeds Colorado's Backcountry Search and Rescue Fund — CPW has put $6.882 million into SAR teams statewide since 2023, and many counties used it to buy sleds, avalanche gear and rescue training.

The plowed trailhead. The free avalanche forecast on COTREX. The fact that the area is open at all. Somebody volunteered for that.

📈 AND THE TREND IS ACTUALLY GOOD NEWS

Volunteer hours are up — roughly 18,500 in 2022 to 20,000+ today
Colorado approved the first snowmobile registration fee increase since 2007 — 19 years — so clubs can finally replace aging groomers instead of nursing them along
The Keep Colorado Wild Pass brought in $42 million in its first year, and winter motorized use is now written into where that money goes
Snowmobile trail maps and avalanche forecasts are now free on COTREX

More people are giving more time, and the funding is finally catching up.

The one number that hasn't moved is the 93%.

💬 OUR ASK — and it takes ten seconds:

Drop your home trailhead or favorite riding area in the comments. We'll reply and tell you which club grooms it and how to plug in. 👇

And if you want to do more than comment:

🎟️ Enter the Sweepstakes — grand prize is a snowmobile. It funds our insurance and our scholarship. Link in the comments.

📍 Sept 26 — Snowmobile Kickoff, Sun Powersports, 945 Motor City Dr, Colorado Springs. 10am–4pm, free, whole family. CAIC and CPW will be there.

📍 Oct 23–24 — SnowMo Expo, National Western Complex, Denver.

7% shouldn't be carrying this alone. ❄️

08/21/2026

https://share.google/gx1fQpBRiAhbCzOpp

The state levied a $151,300 fine on Blackbird Mountain Guides, which took backcountry skiers into the Sierra Nevada in threatening conditions. Nine died in an avalanche.

06/01/2026

Volunteers needed! Our club is looking for anyone who can help with timber mitigation on our winter trail system the week of June 15th.

In a public/public/public coordinated effort, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Steamboat Lake & Pearl Lake State Parks, and the US Forest Service will be helping North Routt Snow Riders clear problematic timber that negatively impacts our grooming operations each winter.

We need volunteers to help move slash, cut timber, lead working party's to the correct trail and trim nagging, low hanging branches that swat at our snowcats during grooming.

Please contact Larry at 303-588-7258 or DM us.

05/07/2026

https://youtu.be/OnJAJZuf8-4?si=VozI-lQasCtjkQ3u

Dave McClure,Professional Snowmobiler, Arctic Cat Athlete, Rob's best friend and riding partner,"First hand account of Rob Kincaid’s Avalanche Accident"GNFAC...

04/25/2026

Season finale lovelandskiarea for Friends of CAIC annual cornharvest!

❄️