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BELGRADE — Ernest Rice made almost everything on his 80-plus acres of land with his own two hands.

The house he and his wife, Kathy, live in? He built it in 1973. The snowmobile trails behind his house? He blazed them himself decades ago.

Rice, 80, maintains 20 miles of snowmobile trail south of Belgrade Stream, stretching from where he lives in Belgrade into nearby Readfield, Mount Vernon, Sidney and Augusta. He’s the president of the Belgrade Draggin’ Masters Snowmobile Club — one of 284 official clubs affiliated with the Maine Snowmobile Association. He has been a leader of the club since it was founded in 1990, and has been maintaining the trails since 1972.

Back then, he said, the trails would be coated in several feet of snow for several months every winter. Now, though, Rice wonders whether he’ll ever be able to ride on the trails for more than a week or two every winter.

Without a foot of snow on the ground, the trails are practically unusable by snowmobiles, he said — and snow depth readings have not reached a foot anywhere in Kennebec County so far this winter, National Weather Service data shows. What snow has come was washed away quickly by warm rains, and no major snowfall is yet in the forecast.

It’s a new normal, Rice said: Much of central Maine just isn’t getting the snow it needs for snowmobiling. It’s been an issue for several years in a row now.

“Down here in Kennebec County, I’m afraid our years are probably up,” he said. “Unless we get some real drastic change in the climate, we’re done.”

‘SUPPORT YOUR SPORT’

Rice has only gotten lost on his snowmobile once, while riding on a frozen Messalonskee Lake about 15 years ago. In a complete whiteout, with Kathy riding behind, he used the shoreline and educated guesses to get back onto a trail and back home.

That’s the thing about Maine’s snowmobile trails, he said — they’re robustly maintained by snowmobile clubs like the Draggin’ Masters, and easily navigable, even in severe wintry conditions.

During winters with heavy snowpack, Rice and several other members of the club drive their snowmobiles on the trails, pulling a hydraulic metal drag behind to smoothen the ride for others. During winters like this one, Rice rides an ATV or his tractor out on the trails to clear debris, in hopes of a good snow.

Maine’s 13,200-mile network of maintained snowmobile trails is the third-longest in the country, behind only Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to the International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association. Adjusted for state size, Maine’s network is among the most dense in the country, with 0.37 miles of snowmobile trail for every square mile.

Snowmobile clubs receive grant funding to maintain these trails directly from snowmobile registration fees paid to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, which also uses the funds to enforce safety rules on the trails. But over the past three winters, snowmobile registrations — which cost $55 for Maine residents for the entire winter season — have plummeted.

Last winter, registrations declined to a nine-year low of 67,922. Just two years prior, in the 2021-22 winter season, registrations hit 88,422, their highest number in the last 10 years. This winter, registration numbers are slightly higher than in mid-January last year, but still well below average levels, meaning funding to snowmobile clubs’ trail maintenance has slowed.

Al Swett, the president of the Maine Snowmobile Association, said the registration drop can be directly linked to the lack of snowfall.

“I have guys tell me, I ask them, ‘Did you register yet?'” Swett said. “‘No, I’m not going to register until it snows, and I probably won’t even do that because it’s mid-January now. So why should I be registered? I’ll take a chance and hopefully not get caught.’ I said, ‘But that’s not the point. The point is you have to register to support your clubs and support your sport.'”

Rice and the hundreds of other snowmobile club leaders across the state have to maintain their trails anyway, in case a major snowfall does come along, because on a good weekend there could be up to 300 people riding through Belgrade to spend money at local businesses, he said.

He said he could count on substantial snowfall — and those hundreds of riders — just about every winter since he started in the early ’70s, until the last three winters.

“I used to go out on rides for 500 miles and come back,” Rice said. “Just unbelievable, fantastic riding, all over. And now you can’t even go a mile.”

‘WE CAN’T HELP THEM OUT’

This winter season, snowfall in Portland — the closest official National Weather Service snowfall observation site to Augusta — is 16.8 inches below average. For the 2024 calendar year, Portland saw 25.4 inches less than usual, and 16.2 inches less than usual in the 2023 calendar year.

Nowhere in Kennebec County this winter season has snow depth reached the 12-inch mark — which is generally a benchmark for when snowmobiling is possible, Rice said.

That dramatic shift is emblematic of a larger change in Maine’s climate, driven primarily by carbon emissions released by human activity.

By 2085, the climate in central Maine “could resemble current conditions in New Jersey, hundreds of miles south,” a November report by the Maine Climate Council said. Winters have shortened by two weeks and have warmed, on average, by about 5 degrees — faster than any other season.

The Maine Climate Council report said, under a worst possible emissions scenario, only 15% of the ski resorts in the northeastern U.S. will be viable at the end of the 21st century. Those ski resorts, Swett said, even have the benefit of creating their own snow — a strategy that simply isn’t feasible for Maine’s thousands of miles of snowmobile trails.

The snowmobiling industry has a $350 million economic impact in Maine, largely driven by the 2,100 businesses that sit along trails and provide lodging, food and equipment for riders. But Swett said many of those businesses may not even be able to make it to the next big snowfall, whenever it might come.

“I feel bad for the smaller businesses, like these little bed and breakfasts and the Airbnbs now,” Swett said. “The little restaurants that count on us so they can make it through this season into the next season, whether it be bicycles or horseback riding or ATVs. It’s pretty sad. They count on us, and we can’t help them out.”

‘TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT’

The changing climate and lack of snow has led to shifts away from winter powersports up and down the manufacturing chain.

In mid-2023, Yamaha announced it would end production of its snowmobiles after the 2025 model year, closing a nearly 60-year run in the business. The company said they weren’t confident enough in the future of the industry to justify continuing production.

“Yamaha has concluded it will be difficult to continue a sustainable business in the snowmobile market,” a news release about the production halt said.

Yamaha was one of only four major manufacturers of snowmobiles in the world, alongside Polaris, Arctic Cat and BRP Inc., which makes Lynx and Ski-Doo models. Arctic Cat, too, is rolling back production, pausing new snowmobile manufacturing through at least the first half of 2025 and laying off 65 employees at its headquarters late last year, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

The main reason for the layoffs and production pause, Arctic Cat told its dealers in a November letter, was “current conditions in our industry.”

One of those dealers is Mike Pushard, owner of Pushard Powersports in Chelsea and chairperson of the town’s Select Board. Pushard said he still has inventory left over from last winter, when customers simply weren’t buying snowmobiling paraphernalia.

The future of his business, he said, is effectively entirely dependent on Mother Nature — every day of snowmobiling lost is a major dent in the business model. While Pushard said he doesn’t “believe in” climate change, he said Mother Nature has “not been very nice” over the last few winters.

“When there is no snow, you’re not selling belts, plugs, oil, runners, selling helmets, gloves, jackets, bibs,” he said. “It’s a huge trickle-down effect.”

Rice, meanwhile, keeps planning to maintain his trails. When there’s no snow, he’ll ride his tractor to crush branches and debris.

He tries not to hope for snow. Instead, he wants to be prepared for it, just in case — because he remembers how good it was for decades, when central Maine took the generous snow for granted.

“It’s just unfortunate,” Rice said. “Global warming, I guess, is here to stay.”