Doug Sagan is taking advantage of what’s left of the region’s first significant snowfall to test out some of the new snowmobiles at Factory Recreation in Midland.
Sagan says they’re numbers have climbed for years and another winter wallop could be the thing Factory Recreation needs to sell out of their stock.
“If we get another dumping of snow it will be great because we'll probably be sold out; bad because I don't know if we'll be able to handle all the business.”
Paul Deckert is almost as excited about getting back into the sledding as his kids are.
“I've got three boys and a girl. They're 27 to 20 and I can guarantee you they'd be extremely excited about getting into it,” he says.
The Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs says the sport generates $1.7 billion a year and over the last two years, ridership has increased by 30 per cent.
At Mid Ontario Snowmobile Trails, Ken Hagen says two years of great snow has helped the industry and the idea of buying a $260 trail pass for an early bird online price of $180 has helped too.
“Those sales were up over last year by more than 10 per cent,” Hagen says.
Despite the snow last weekend, groomers aren't out yet because temperatures are climbing for the next few days, which means no trails yet.
OFSC tells it’s members that it's not unusual to wait until the end of December or beginning of January for the season to begin and if the trails are open before that, they should consider that an early Christmas present.
