For some, last Saturday’s snow meant messy driving conditions and some shoveling. But for Bob Bruce and his fellow Wiscasset Sno-Goers at the club’s open house on Sunday, that snow and the Tuesday’s brings hope for what has so far been a lean snowmobiling season.

“Mother Nature has not been kind to us,” said Bruce, the club’s membership chairman. “She has given us some good snow and then taken it away.”

Even a trip to Millinocket for snowmobiling didn’t go well for the Wiscasset man. He ran into mechanical problems there, and rain.

At the open house, things were looking up, both for the season and the club’s plans to give snowmobile rides at Wiscasset Parks and Recreation Department’s Winterfest on Saturday, Jan. 31.

The daylong celebration features nature activities and more, capped with a fireworks show and concert. Most of the fun happens at Wiscasset Community Center. Wiscasset Community Playground will have skating.

Wiscasset Sno-goers members plan to give free, short snowmobile rides from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Children take most of the rides, but the rides are also open to adults, Bruce said. The club’s members look forward to the event each year as a chance to interact with the community and share their enjoyment of snowmobiling,

Bruce didn’t plan to take up snowmobiling. “But unbeknownst to me, my companion (Louise Rideout) got two snowmobiles,” he said.

Rideout’s son is an avid snowmobile rider. So Louise Rideout and Bruce took it up, and now Bruce’s son Joel Bruce rides, too. Father and son once rode 193 miles together.

“That was a long day and I slept good that night,” Bob Bruce said.

While he is the first of two generations of snowmobilers, many of Wiscasset Sno-Goers’ members are the offspring of those who were in the group decades ago. Member and past president Chet Grover of Wiscasset used to ride with his father, Paul Grover. Now he rides with his own three boys and wife Michelle Grover.

It’s something they can all do together as a family, the couple said inside the clubhouse Sunday. And it helps pass the winter.

“If you live here, you might as well enjoy it,” Chet Grover said.

President Buck Rines started riding with the club when he was 12 or 13; back then it was named Yankee Sno-Goers because some of its early members worked at Maine Yankee.

“It’s just something I enjoy doing,” Rines, 59, said about why he has stayed with the club over the decades.

The snow on Saturday was a start, but, by itself, not enough cover for riding the trails.

“Every rock and stick is sticking up,” Rines said.

Wiscasset’s snowmobile season largely takes place in January and February, as much as two months shorter than in northern Maine where the ground freezes sooner and stays frozen longer, Bruce said. With or without snow to ride on, the Sno-Goers gather for potluck suppers and meetings, and to clear trails and repair bridges.

“It’s a great bunch of people, and it’s a lot of fun being out in the fresh air,” he said.

For more on the club, including membership dues that help support riding in Wiscasset and around the state, contact Bruce at 207-319-8009 or bobbiker@roadrunner.com. For more on Winterfest, call Wiscasset Community Center at 207-882-8230 or visit Wiscasset Parks and Recreation on Facebook.