New snow fosters new ride

With the Waseca Sleigh and Cutter snowmobile show canceled and the annual ice drags moved to Gaylord, local snowmobilers were quite disappointed that the usual end to the festival was cut short.

So local enthusiasts Terry Huber, brother Tyler, and Tyler Priebe came together and decided to host a “last minute” snowmobile ride. Tyler Huber played host to nearly 40 snowmobilers.

“We wanted to do something with the ice drags and the snowmobile show getting canceled,” Terry Huber explained. “When we first heard about it, we thought, ‘Well, it’s going to get cold again and they’re talking about a lot of snow coming our way.’ So we decided to reach out to people a week and a half ago and see if they were interested.”

He, along with his brother Tyler and Priebe created a Facebook event for the ride. Over 30 people expressed their interest, with many of them committing immediately.

To meet the potential demand, Huber himself brought 17 snowmobiles (or “sleds” as he called them) for people to ride if they were interested but didn’t have their own.

Enthusiasts began gathering at Corn Country Seed at 9 a.m. Early birds shared in some Casey’s breakfast pizza before leaving. The takeoff time was a little after ten o’clock.

Their journey first took them through Courthouse Park: Luckily for them, the trails were freshly groomed following the blizzard that had gone through only two days earlier.

Their next stop was New Richland, where they enjoyed a nice lunch at the Willows. Terry had informed group members that the restaurant  was offering a burger basket lunch everyone could take advantage of. The next destination was Hartland, where the group made another stop.

“We’ll see where we go from there,” Huber told the crowd. “If we’re still feeling good, we’ll make another stop in New Richland on our way back north.”

It was a great day that would have otherwise been empty of any snowmobiling activity. “We have a lot of fun snowmobiling,” Huber said. “We’re happy to have such a great turnout for this.”