If you’re lucky enough to sit next to Carl Gushee in Narrows Tavern, you’re in for a treat. He used to work as an engineer on large tankers. They hauled oil to the Mediterranean and Middle East, and they carried wheat and other grains to Russia – just to name a few. A few nights he even went to sleep wearing his life preserver because there were50-feet waves and 75, 80 mph winds. He loved this life. And he can tell a story. He started in the 1970s, when an engineer needed to know the ins and outs of a ship’s mechanics, hydraulics and steam systems, in an age when calculations were largely manual and inspections done physically. By the time Carl retired in 2021, there were seven computers in the engine room alone, telling him everything that was going on in that ship. Carl grew up in Warren with plenty of friends in Waldoboro including Fred Paine. But it was his wife Carol Zucchi who brought them to Waldoboro. After a career of teaching, she wanted to care for her mother. Carl agreed and finished up at sea; then he retired. In those years, their two children and their families also followed them to settle down the road. Fittingly, family is a center of Carl’s retirement – that, and Sno-Crawlers. Despite the name, the Waldoboro Sno-Crawlers is a four-season club, maintaining a large network of trails and sponsoring at least one town-wide, roadside clean-up. It all comes from volunteerism.
I wasn’t going to buy a snowmobile, but then I thought, “If I’m going to buy one, I going to buy a cheap one.” I didn’t want to spend $15,000 or $20,000 for a something I might use only once, twice a year.
Well, the Waldoboro Sno-Crawlers had an old Ski-Doo that they were going to auction off, and I had my eye on it. But they didn’t auction it. After, Tony Lash asked, “Are you still interested? You want to buy it?”
I told him yes, and then he said, “The deal is if you buy the snowmobile, you’ve got to join the snowmobile club too.”
So I says, “Alright, I’ll join the snowmobile club. And I’ll buy the snowmobile.” And that’s how I got involved with the club.
There’s a lot of old snowmobiles around. You’ll see them parked on people’s front lawns after snowmobiling. But then the snow goes away, and then the snowmobile is still sitting there, all summer long. Then, when the snow comes in the fall, they’ll go out to start it, and you’ll hear, “Oh, it don’t start! This thing don’t start!!!”
Well, it’s been sitting outside all summer long, and you expect it to run good? Machines don’t operate that way. You got to use them.
So, my advice is, “Don’t buy any old used snowmobiles, just don’t do it,” because I’ve had three now, and every one of them has been a disaster. I’ve broke down a couple of time, and thank goodness, each time I was close to the road where I could get my truck in there and tow the snowmobile out to put it in the truck. I say, “If you’re going to buy one, buy a brand new one, or just get one a couple of years old.”
We’ve got 42 miles of trails in Waldoboro alone. And this past season, we had them all groomed beautifully. Which was great because we had a longer season. But then we lost the snow. But while it lasted, we had fun.
Some went out on the ice – I didn’t. I didn’t trust it. But I saw the tracks. One guy even took his snowmobile right underneath the bridge over there, heading for the falls. You could see where he stopped and turned around. A little snow, a little ice and people go crazy.
There are trails all the way up to Canada, and guys have done it. They’ve gone up to Greenville, and then from Greenville, they shoot on up to Canada. I suppose you could get lost but the trails are fairly well marked. And now, in Waldoboro, with the support of the police, we’ve put in GPS points all through the woods so that if someone has an accident in the woods at night, the police can find them more easily.
This year I rode up to Washington with Ben Scott, David Neubig and a bunch of other on the trail that crosses Old Augusta Road. And we never passed a snowmobile, not one. Those guys told me that would never have happened ten years ago. At night, they say, there used to be hundreds of snowmobiles. All you had to do was go out, and you’d pass lines of them.
I like snowmobiling okay. What I really like is going out and grooming trails. I enjoy it. Outside, in the forest, it’s peace of mind for me. And I tell you — without volunteers, these trails wouldn’t get done. We’ll cut logs, move trees, clear out brush and generally clean up the trails. I do it year-round. I do all those things, plus build bridges. We re-built four this year. The best one is near Finntown Road – we got a suspension bridge over there. I go out on my Gator with my chain saw and all my tools and the Sno-Crawlers sign. So, while walkers might see or hear me, they’re happy because we’re fixing the trails.
But other than us, ATVs are not permitted. They destroy the trails. And with a tree that’s crossing a path, they’ll either go over it or around, and either way, it’s a mess to clean up. We put up signs that say NO ATVs, but nobody pays attention to them. We’re the only ones, though, who have permission from CMP to ride under the pole lines.
And we all pick up a lot of trash. Mainly, it’s beer cans. Guys will go out at night on their snowmobiles, get lickered up, and just leave it all behind in piles. It drives us nuts! If they can lug all this stuff in, why can’t they load up the empty cans and take them back out? Like we learned in Scouting, “Whatever you take in, you take out.” Nothing stays in the woods but the woods.
One time, on the trail by Moody’s Diner, we came across a suitcase and a wet, moldy sleeping bag. And a bicycle seat. Someone had been living up there. We looked around for the frame or the wheels, but we couldn’t find anything else. And that was a question we had to ponder for a while: where did this person go?
Since then, I’ve heard from a police officer that there’s a few of that live up in the woods here. That really surprised me. I didn’t know we had that here. But the police check up on them in the winter to make sure they’re okay. But how this problem gets resolved, I don’t know.
There’s about 40 of us Sno-Crawlers now. I think it was much bigger back in its heyday, maybe fifteen, twenty years ago…all those people like Genthner, Winchenbach, Pat Bowden… a lot have passed away. We keep getting smaller.
But without much snow, how do you get people excited about snowmobiling?
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