[Rattler]

LG, thanks. At a minimum, I will look into posting signs next season -- although it's a little like closing the barn door after the horse has turned up missing. The damage is done, and I'm on the hook (not the fun-loving snowmobilers) to pay to get it repaired.

What's key in your reply is that I "shouldn't have to." In the same way that I don't currently have a sign here at my permanent residence saying "No driving cars or bicycles on the lawn or up my front steps", I really shouldn't have to have one at Rattlesnake. If snowmobilers showed the kind of common sense and courtesy that they would expect others to show around their property and possessions, we'd be OK. I might have once considered finding a way to allow snowmobile access from my property to the lake that steered sledders away from the finished landscaping, but not now. Now I'm thinking signs, chains, fences, barriers, Web cameras, etc. -- whatever it takes to keep them out or catch them if they continue to trespass and break the law.

One more point: I'm having a hard time justifying your argument about there being a "trail" there that somehow makes it OK for subsequent sledders. Sort of like if someone breaks the law before me, it's OK for me to break it, too. If snowmobilers are using that logic to define where they can and cannot travel around the lake, things will never get better.