John Puffer is considered the backbone of the Porcupine Ridge Runners Snowmobile Club. “It’s kind of ironic nominating John for groomer of the year, during a season without snow, but this is a guy who is constantly thinking and dreaming of that perfectly groomed trail, even with no snow”, said the club president.
Regardless of conditions, you can be sure that the groomers are ready to go at a moments notice and John is constantly using Yankee ingenuity to try and figure out how to make our old equipment work better and faster with less effort.
As a volunteer, John is always walking around with a book of trail passes in his pocket. Since he’s the club vice president and the treasurer, he’s also responsible for accounting for all passes and money, and making sure the sale outlets are fully stocked with passes.
You need to understand that John lives and breaths trail work and keeping our local trail system open.
He is constantly working on some project that needs to be done before snow flies, whether it be sawing out lumber in his saw mill to maintain and build the club’s infrastructure or re-decking a bridge by himself.
John is always talking to landowners about a better route of travel or working with town officials to getting street signs moved.
Without this volunteer the club would have ceased to exist just a couple years ago. He sometimes feels a little under appreciated and grumpy but the rest of us consider him a legend and would like to give him the respect he deserves.
That said, the Snowmobile Association of Massachusetts honor John Puffer of the Porcupine Ridge Runners as the 2016 Groomer of the Year.