News Photo by Jordan Spence The Presque Isle Sno-Trails Snowmobile Club has purchased a new pole barn and property.

MILLERSBURG — The Presque Isle Sno-Trails Snowmobile Club has a new home. Club President Dave Campo said the club closed on the property and pole barn Sept. 20.

Campo said when the previous president resigned due to health issues the club needed to find a new place to store its equipment.

“The man who owned the building owned the four lots here, so I contacted him to see if he’d be interested in selling that lot. Lo and behold he said he’d rather sell the whole package,” he said. “We decided that was a good deal we couldn’t pass up. We can put our equipment in the building if we need or want to. Right now we would have trouble with the wheel tractors getting them in the front door. We would add a larger door to it in the back. This is the center out of our hub. We have a 133 miles of trails to maintain.”

The way it will pay for the building is to set up a payment schedule with the bank and do quarterly payments that won’t start until March or April 2018.

“The way the club operates is that we have 133 miles of trails and the DNR pays us a brushing and dinging fee. We get $90 a mile for the brushing and dinging, which is what we’re doing now. We’re taking a crew out tomorrow to do some work,” he said. “That’s under $12,000 a year. That money is for operating the club, we use the money for fuel for our truck, other repairs and stuff like that. Then when the grooming starts the people in Lansing make a decision on how much they’re going to pay us per mile to groom. Last year they paid us $4.11 to groom. Every time we groom a trail we get paid for that. So that’s how we get our income.”

The group hopes to make a modification to the building to add a door in the back of the building. He said this will make it easier to move equipment in and out.

The trails the club work on include The Elk Connector that goes toward Atlanta. Then they have what members call a big cut east and north of Millersburg and then they have the Railroad Grade they groom from Millersburg to Posen and more.

The club has close to 25 to 30 members.

“I hope to keep growing the club. We have active snowmobilers that take a couple trips in the winter. If not around here up to the Upper Peninsula it just depends on if somebody wants to organize the trip,” he said.

The next club meeting will be in at 7 p.m. Monday at Millersburg Community Center, 5561 Main Street. People can arrive at 6 p.m. to enjoy some pizza, which is cost shared between everyone.

“We’ve got lots going, lots of things. Hopefully this will be a good winter for us,” Campo said.

Jordan Spence can be reached via email at jspence@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5687.