What’s New for Washington Snowmobilers in the 2024-2025 Season
Winter is here and snowmobilers are tuning up their sleds and getting ready to enjoy the season. Before you hit the trails with your snowmobile, make sure to check for changes, closures, and the latest conditions with Northwest Portal’s Snow NW mobile app and web map. Over the past month, Northwest Portal has reached out to land managers, groomers, and snowmobile clubs throughout Washington, Idaho, and Oregon to update our maps with the latest information on snowmobile trails.
Photo credit: Tanner, Sno-Jammers snowmobile club.
Closures
Washington State is fortunate that all of the fire closure areas from the 2024 fires have been lifted and none of the fires are impacting groomed snowmobile trails this year. However, 14 Sno-Parks will be closed for the 2024-2025 season because of a budget shortfall in the Washington State Park’s Winter Recreation Program. The largest funding source for the motorized program is sled registrations. For each sled that is registered, the program gets $94/sled/year to help support grooming and operation of the motorized winter recreation program. This includes the $50 registration fee and an additional $44 from the gas tax fund. The budget for each year is based on the funds raised in the previous season. Unfortunately, the number of sleds that are registered has dropped by 50% since 2002 although the number of snowmobiles on the state trails has not dropped nearly as fast judging by the full parking areas at popular Sno-Parks. Make sure to register your sled this year, so program funding can be restored for next year.
Map of Sno-Parks and snowmobile trails in Washington State, highlighting those that are closed for the 2024-2025 season.
Most of the closed Sno-Parks will not have a significant impact on trails that you can ride. Three of the closed Sno-Parks in Kittitas County, Taneum, Elk Heights, and Reecer Creek, are at low elevations so they can only be used for part of the season. The trails to these Sno-Parks will be groomed when there is enough snow and can be accessed from other nearby Sno-Parks. Other closures that will not reduce trail miles are French Cabin Creek in upper Kittitas County; Fish Creek, Bethel Ridge/Soup Creek, Nile, and Crow Creek in Yakima County; Echo Valley and Clear Lake in Chelan County; Cloverland in Asotin County; and Nine Bark in Stevens County. The impact of the Clear Lake closure will be partially mitigated by the opening of a smaller parking area with space for 8-10 vehicles across the road.
Two of the closures, Skate Creek in Lewis County and Crawfish in Okanogan County, both serving 33 miles of trails that are normally groomed, will have a more significant impact as they are the only Sno-Parks serving their trail system. In both cases, the groomers have indicated that the trail networks from those Sno-Parks will not be groomed this season, so we are showing those as ungroomed routes.
In addition to the changes resulting from closed Sno-Parks, there are a few other small changes for the 2024-2025 season. Beeler Pass in upper Kittitas County will not be groomed as the bridge out of Cole Creek has collapsed. Groomers will turn around at the junction of 4100 and 4110 on the west side and just before the bridge on the east side. Snowmobiles will be able to ride the ungroomed route over Beeler Pass but will need to turn around at the bridge. In Okanogan County, 5227-100 (Yellowjacket) will not be groomed due to cuts in the grooming budget and 4300-400 (Buttermilk Butte) is closed because of a washout.
New & Reopened Trails
This year, there are a few additions to the groomed snowmobile trails. Spur Mountain Road (3300-100) will be groomed for the first time in years now that several washouts along the route have been repaired. Apple County Snowmobile Club also told us they will be grooming on Rock Ridge Road from A Route to AB Route, creating a loop of a trail that once ended in a dead end. (We are not sure if this is newly groomed or just had not been shown on the grooming maps.)
Other Things to Do Before Setting Out on the Trails:
Get the free Snow NW app for Apple and Android and download the region for the area that you will be riding so you can navigate offline. If you have already downloaded regions, make sure to update your download to get the latest information.
Check the Avalanche Forecast for the area that you will be riding. Each trail and trailhead on the map links to the closest forecast zone. The Northwest Avalanche Center provides forecasts for Washington’s Cascade Mountains and the Olympic Peninsula with eight zones for the Cascades and one for the Olympics. The Wallowa Avalanche Center provides forecasts for the trails in Umatilla National Forest in the South Eastern Part of the state. There are no forecasts for North Central Washington, including Colville National Forest and the Washington portion of Idaho Panhandle National Forest.
Check the snow depth. Snow NW shows the location of all of the SNOTEL monitoring stations as snowflakes. Click on the snowflake and then on the monitoring station name to see the last seven days of data.
If you prefer to use GeoPDFs, check out our Avenza store. We offer 18x24 maps and 36x36 maps that are optimized for Avenza.
Buy or Rent a Snowmobile or Take a Tour from One of Our Sponsors
If you want to buy your first sled or are looking to upgrade, stop by Central Powersports in Ellensburg. They stock the hottest motorsports vehicles, including Ski-Doo snowmobiles, and also offer parts and service. Central Powersports is a sponsor of Snow NW.
If you want to try snowmobiling but don’t have a sled, Motor Toys Rental and Tours in Cle Elum offers guided tours and snowmobile rentals.
Join a Club
If you would like to find a community of riders or are looking for group rides, consider joining one of Washington State’s snowmobile clubs. The Cascade Drift Skippers, Sno-Jammers, and Junco Snowmobile clubs are all supporters of Snow NW and offer many great opportunities for rides and events.
Help Support the Project
If you would like to get on the maps and help us keep Snow NW up and free for users, check out our club and business support options on our Partner Portal.
Coming Soon: Print maps
Northwest Portal will be posting free print maps for each area where we have supporters. Pick a two sided letter or single sided poster.