JACKMAN -- Snow will be with some Mainers into May.

It doesn't hurt everyone to say it.

"There will be enough snow here to ride four or five more weeks, anyway," said Dave Jones, owner of Jackman Power Sports and trail master of the Border Riders Sportsman Club.

Conditions are different in central Maine, where washouts are taking their toll on the winter sport. But Jones said no bare ground shows in Jackman. Step off your sled alongside a trail, he said, and you will be waist deep in snow.

"We've got five or six feet of snow on the ground, and it's not going anywhere."

The National Weather Service in Gray posed no quarrel with Jones' assessment on Tuesday.

Meteorologist Art Lester said the weather service doesn't predict temperatures much beyond a week to 10 days. But for that period, at least, cold air seems a good bet.

"It doesn't look like any big warming for the foreseeable future," Lester said. "We don't see any change in the pattern. It's going to take a good, sustained warm-up to get this thing melting good. It's so dense."

Meteorologists are hesitant to predict how late snow will continue to fall this year.

Meteorologist Tom Berman said to expect a dusting of perhaps an inch more across central Maine today.

"We are in a pattern where it seems like every Wednesday we get a storm," he said.

Bob Meyers, president of the Maine Snowmobile Association, said northern outposts such as Jackman, Rangeley, Millinocket and Aroostook County are, indeed, looking at extended seasons.

There's just one problem.

"The clubs have gone through their grant money" for trail grooming, said Meyers, who lives near Bath. "It's been a long season. There is some supplemental money available and businesses can help out. It's to their advantage."

Jackman is situated along ITS Trail 89. It draws snowmobilers later in the season than most others, Jones said. Up to 60 percent of them hail from out of state, he said.

Jones said the Border Riders are continuing to groom trails. Given the slow snow melt, the season is far from over, he said.

"There will be off-trail riding in May," Jones said. "If not, you guys down there will be under water."

The price of gasoline, however, has put a damper on this snowbound winter.

"People are running out of money, with the price of fuel," Jones said. "But again, the town was full last weekend."

Vanessa Rancourt, a bartender at the Northland Hotel on Main Street, agreed that fuel costs have taken a toll. Business at the hotel has been only a little better than in recent winters, she said.

"People spend $200 in gas to come up here," Rancourt said. "It's just all gas prices. That's what we hear the most."

Still, Rancourt said, people are amazed at what they see in Jackman in late March.

"It's been a dynamite season," Rancourt said. "I'd say we have a month-plus to go. People come up here and the can't believe the snowbanks."

The Maine Snowmobile Association reports that, even along the U.S. Route 201 corridor, conditions are good.

Last weekend in Bingham, new snow provided a fresh base for trails, according to the report from the Valley Riders Snowmobile Club.

In The Forks, there was around 3 feet of snow on the ground.

The snowpack and the base on the trails were holding up well, and groomer operators reported no water problems. The Kennebec River Trail is open all the way through, between Berry's Store and Northern Outdoors.

In the Waterville area, a week of temperatures in the 40s might signal the end to the season.

"We stopped grooming a week ago," said Craig Stetson, vice president of the Fort Halifax Snowdrifters in Winslow.

"There's plenty of snow in the woods, but there are washouts at road crossings. The season here is just about done."

Stetson added, however, that there is good riding still beyond Oakland, near Smithfield.

Larry Grard -- 474-9534, Ext. 343

lgrard@centralmaine.com