For most people older than 10, the 2007-08 winter simply cannot end fast enough. One group of Coulee Region residents, however, are reveling in the cold and snow.

“It’s been fantastic,” said Eric Williams, sales manager at Two Brothers Yamaha in Onalaska.

Williams is not just talking about the snowmobile sales — which are brisk, indeed. An avid snowmobiler himself, he’s also describing the opportunity to get out and enjoy the many miles of groomed trails in La Crosse County.

“We are truly blessed in this area,” Williams said. “With all the hills and valleys, you can access views on a snowmobile that you would never know existed otherwise.”

Williams, who grew up around Richland Center, said the scenery is better here and that other snowmobilers are telling him that the conditions haven’t been like this for at least 15 years. “And everybody’s saying that the trails are as good as they can remember,” he added.

Brent Stello, owner of BS Motorsports in Mindoro and a member of the Barnyard Trails snowmobile club out of Melrose, is another happy snowmobile dealer. Asked to describe how business has been, he starts to say that it’s been the busiest he’s been in four or five years, but then changes his mind.

“No, it’s probably my busiest season ever,” Stello said. “We had five or six bad years where there was not much snow or snow so late in the season that even those who wanted to get into it couldn’t. This year, we’re getting a lot of new people interested in snowmobiling.”

Besides the weather, there is another reason snowmobilers are grinning. Gib Wee, a member of West Salem’s Table Rock Riders, points to the combination of great snow, good trails and the ability to groom those trails.

“We’ve had big snows before,” he said, “but this year we’ve been able to groom the trails much more often.”

The Table Rock Riders plus five other clubs — the Blizzard Busters of Bangor, the Coulee Comets of Holmen, La Crosse’s Ridge Runners, the County Classics of Mindoro and the Coulee Sno-Drifters of Onalaska — are members of the La Crosse Snowmobile Alliance. Each club is responsible for grooming a portion of the county’s 130-plus-mile trail system. Needless to say, the groomers have been exceptionally busy this winter.

“The biggest problem we have is getting people to abide by the signage and stay on the trails — for some people it’s just too much temptation,” Wee said.

“We should all be very thankful that landowners let us go across their land, but if we get them angry at us they could shut things down,” Wee added.

Wee says that part of the problem is that some people think the trails are DNR property instead of private land.

“We groom 26 miles of the trails,” said Linda Saley, secretary-treasurer of Bangor’s Blizzard Busters. An injured knee has limited her snowmobiling this winter, but she put in a good word for the snowmobiling around Bangor.

“We’ve probably got some of the most scenic areas in the county and we also have the highest vantage point from a snowmobile,” she said.

Scott Lien, president of Holmen’s Coulee Comets, said he’s heard that the snow has been better here than in the more traditional snowmobile hotspots like northern Wisconsin. He’s also heard of people coming from as far away as St. Louis to enjoy the area trails.

Williams, too, knows of snow lovers who’ve driven long distances from other states to enjoy the trails in La Crosse County. “I think people are starting to see how good snowmobiles can be for the local economy,” he said.

“It’s just been a good, old-fashioned Wisconsin winter,” Lien said.

Contact Michael Martin at mike.martin@lee.net or (608) 786-6813.