December of 1969 a group of snowmobilers met at the Portage Rod and Gun club to form a snowmobile club. Winnebago Ridge Runners was chosen to be the name of the new club. Topics of discussion that evening was developing trails along with a talking about insurance for members. In the winter of 1968 a local Ski-Doo dealer,Tims Sport and Marine, had established a trail that went from Portage to local establishment located at Anacker Station. This 8 mile trail would become our first club trail. Although this trail is no longer in use, trail number 14 does still use part of the original trail. During 1970 our club worked with the City of Portage to establish a snowmobile ordenance which allowed snomobiling in certain areas of Portage. Over the next few years trail development was difficult. Often trails were closed soon after they were established. Too many snowmobiles, too few marked trails, turned out to be a recipe for problems. The fall of 1977 working with the City of Portage and private landowners our club established a marked trail around the city. The next fall a marked trail was established to Briggsville. In 1985 our trail from Portage to Marquette county was funded. Our club also developed a marked trail to Pardeeville in 1990 and is now a funeded trail. Grooming equipment started with a purchase of a Polaris twin tracked snowmobile, then a Manawa 6000 groomer and now today we own two Bombardier groomers. Even though over the last 40 years there were a number of challenges it was exciting to watch our sport mature in the Portage area. We maintain 32 miles of marked trail, we were able to construct a nice shop to maintain our groomers as well as store our equipment. We were able to purchase a few acres of land where we now host the Harold LeJeune Snowmobile Park to honor the volunteers who have worked hard to make snowmobiling in our area a pleasant experience.
Posted: December 8th, 2009