Chuck Best

On January 20th, 1999 we lost one of the Mt. Shasta Sno-Mobilers oldest members, Chuck Best.

The Tri-Forest Snowmobile Trails consist of over 260 miles of groomed trails and hundreds more of un-groomed marked trails. The area currently has four Snowmobile Parks with warming huts (Deer Mt./Chuck Best Memorial, 4 Corners/Medicine Lake, Door Knob, and Pilgrim Creek). We have groomers and sheds at 4 Corners and Pilgrim Creek. We wouldn’t have any of these things if it weren’t for Chuck’s belief in the

sport of snowmobiling and willingness to give of himself.

Chuck started snowmobiling in the early to mid 70’s. Chuck joined the Mt. Shasta Sno-Mobile Club and helped start the California/Nevada Snowmobile Association. Chuck was our Club’s CNSA representative for many years. In the late 70’s, early 80’s, there was only a handful of snowmobilers in the area, but soon the numbers started to grow. Around ‘86 Chuck became very involved with the local Forest Service and was devoted to developing our snowmobile area. In ‘87 bathrooms and a paved parking lot were installed at the Deer Mt. location. In ‘91 Deer Mt. received the first warming hut and in ‘92 the warming hut went up at 4-Corners. Chuck worked very closely with Jeff Burcher of the Goosenest Ranger District in putting together the OHV Grant requesting our first Tucker snowmobile trail groomer. When the Tucker was delivered in ’93, Chuck was the first one there to drive it.

Not only did Chuck groom the trails season after season, he marked trails and cleared trails during the summer. In ’96 our area received its second groomer, Chuck got the Club’s Non-Profit status and it was reported that our cost per grooming mile on our Tucker was $165 (The average cost per mile on the 14 CA groomers was $359.) Since Chuck basically ran the Tucker, he was the reason for the low cost. That summer Club members got the wood shed put up at the Deer Mt. Park. Chuck also helped form the California Grooming Committee with Barry Jones (California Department of Parks & Recreation, Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation, Winter Coordinator) in the summer of ’96. Chuck was able to teach Barry and the other groomers many techniques and shortcuts on grooming from his countless hours in the drivers seat. Chuck attended their first meeting in September and helped format the ‘Trail Grooming Guide Lines’ and the