The  snowmobile gate is now open. HOWEVER, please note the following:

1. Access through the gate is restricted to Timber Lakes Owners and their accompanied guests. This means that you, the owner, have to be with them. “My Uncle in California is the owner and he told me I could do it” is not the same as accompanying your guests.
2. There is not much snow. We have about 18 inches at the gate this evening. This means that there are lots of big rocks, posts, trees and other impediments. Please be cautious.
3. Your snowmobiles must each have a current season Timber Lakes sticker affixed. If you have paid your assessments and any fines you may have incurred, in full, you, the owner, may purchase stickers for your snowmobiles at the security gate house or in the office. If your account is delinquent, you may not purchase stickers.
4. If you are an owner, renting your snowmobiles, you must purchase a sticker for each rental machine.
5. The speed limits in Timber Lakes apply to snowmobiles. Slow down. You can drive like a maniac when you are safely outside of the subdivision.
6. Hundreds of thousands of your dollars have been spent this past summer by the Water Company (We are not the Water Company) laying pipe, installing fire hydrants and rebuilding miles of roads. We, the owners are paying for these improvements. Please do not allow your group to tear up the roads or try to drive through fire hydrants.
7. There is NO PARKING anywhere in Timber Lakes except in your driveway, the parking lot at the office, and the small parking area at Duck Lake. The area at Duck Lake is for you to drop your snowmobiles trailers IF you cannot get to your driveway. Please don’t park your car or truck there. You cannot park at the vehicle maintenance building, or along the road anywhere, including the entrance area to the security gate. If you park where you are not supposed to park, you will be towed! Please be aware that we do not guarantee that we have a place for you to park if you are not in your own driveway. During the holiday season, we will not likely have sufficient parking for everyone who cannot get to their own driveway. If this is the case, you need to find your own legal parking outside of Timber Lakes.
8. Pulling a trailer up or down Blue Spruce during the winter is prohibited. It is dangerous to try! Please don’t scoff at this just because you own a 4-wheel drive truck. People who ignore directive regularly block the road with a jack-knifed trailer. This causes your neighbors to generate intense negative feelings towards you. This happened today; please don’t be the cause of an accident or road block because you think this applies to everyone but you.
9. We ask you to be considerate to our security team while you are here. If you get stopped and questioned, please be polite. If you have your stickers and are obeying the speed limit, your stop should be brief.

We hope you and your invited guests have fun in the winter weather at Timber Lakes.

Gary Hume
Your Road Guy

Effective immediately, all Timber Lakes roads are closed to heavy traffic for the season. This means that vehicles in excess of 10,000 pounds will not be allowed into Timber Lakes. Propane delivery trucks are exempted from this provision, provided they are chained up. Package delivery trucks are also permitted to drive to the mailhouse. We will post a notice on the website when the roads are reopened in the Spring.

Also, please be aware that roads are extremely icy and dangerous during the winter months. Conditions are more slick during the first several snowstorms than during the heart of the winter. Please slow down and use caution. 4-wheel drive or chains are required. We have already had several vehicles slide off the road. Don’t let yours be the next one. You drive in Timber Lakes at your own risk; please don’t put someone else at risk by not taking winter driving seriously.

Gary, the Road Guy

We are tentatively planning to close all Timber Lakes Roads to heavy construction traffic on Thursday, October 29. If the weather holds out, we may push this out a few more days. On the other hand, if we get winter weather earlier, we may have to close the roads sooner. The point is that we are fast approaching the closure to construction traffic of all roads in Timber Lakes for the winter. Please plan accordingly and thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Gary, the Road Guy

The date for closing the roads in Timber Lakes to heavy trucks has been extended from Oct 15th to Oct 18th, 2009.  At that time we will evaluate if the 18th of October is the final day or if it may be extended.  Don’t plan on an extension. In the meantime, please use some common sense. For example, you cannot take a heavy truck up Blue Spruce in the rain. Without road base, the surface of Blue Spruce is slick, extremely muddy and dangerous.

Thanks.

Gary
Road Guy

Timber Lakes will close it roads to construction traffic (any vehicle over 10,000 GVW) as of October 15, 2009. Please make appropriate plans when arranging for deliveries.  You never know what mother nature will do and it could still be sunny skies, but the road closure will still be in effect.  The roads will reopen to construction sometime in the spring. Many times in the past, lot owners have asked for exceptions to the closure and they say they are only going “just off the paved road” and we find them up on the east or west side at the top.  If we did not have so many people telling us one thing to get around the rules and then doing something else it would make it a lot easier for those that do abide by the rules.  It takes away the opportunity to give a variance on occasion because of a few that choose not to follow the rules. That is why we close “all roads” to heavy vehicles on October 15.

You may see a dump truck enter Timber Lakes on occasion after the road closure date – that truck is delivering salt to the maintenance building that is used on the asphalt roads to melt ice. The road closure also does not apply to propane delivery trucks.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Gary
The Road Guy

Blue Spruce from Cottonwood to Green Briar is still closed and will be through the end of August.  Our road crew is making a major cut in the mountain side in an effort to improve the grade of Blue Spruce.  As of today, we have yet to complete the section between Green Briar and Cutoff Road.  This area is where the major cut into the mountain is taking place and that dirt is being moved down hill to the Blue Spruce – Cottonwood intersection.  We are raising that intersection several feet. At some point in this project we may have to close the intersection of Blue Spruce and Cottonwood.  If we do, we will route cars to Cottonwood via Red Willow.

Please remember that there is a lot of road construction taking place all over the mountain and the speed limit on non-paved roads is 25 mph.

The Board has recently authorized the issuance of citations to people speeding in Timber Lakes.  Don’t be one of the first to be issued a citation! And please remember, there is no parking on any of the roads in Timber Lakes. Even though some good citizen stole our No Parking sign, you will be issued a citation and may be towed if you park on the road.

Drive Safe.

Gary, The Road Guy

Many lot owners have contacted me during the past few days, expressing concern about speeding drivers in Timber Lakes. Generally, cars, pickups, SUVs and ATVs are driving faster than the speed limit. Please make sure that everyone in your group is aware of the speed limits: 35 mph on paved roads and 25 mph on unpaved roads. If you have contracted with someone to work on your cabin or lot, please make sure that they know the speed limits. If we catch a contractor speeding here, we will not allow them to re-enter the security gate. We will give a contractor or visitor one warning. After that, they will be added to a list of drivers not allowed inside the gates.

For those of us who travel Blue Spruce, starting next week, it will be closed between Cottonwood and Greenbriar for approximately 2-3 weeks. You will need to take the snow plow detour route until we open Blue Spruce back up. We are going to lower Blue Spruce by 12-15 foot cut on Blue Spruce, at the Cutoff Road intersection. At the same time, we will be raising Blue Spruce several feet at the Cottonwood intersection. These two improvements will make these intersections much safer to drive through and will hopefully reduce the difficulties of coming up along the snow plow plow detour route in the winter.

Please SLOW DOWN as our road crew works in this area. Also please SLOW DOWN when you are passing by the water pipe constructions crews.

Next item. This is the second notice to all lot owners that ATVs, motorcycles, ATVs, UTVs and all other recreational offroad vehicles be registered with Timber Lakes. Owners only (not their guests, friends, or impersonators) can register these vehicles with photo ID at either the office or the security gate house. The registration is free (unlike snowmobiles, for which there is a fee) but must be done by the lot owner. You will receive a sticker for your vehicles that identifies them as a Timber Lakes registered vehicle.

Also, all children under the age of 16 must wear a helmet while riding on these vehicles. This is for the safety of your child, not for my safety!

Tearing up the roads with a dirt bike or ATV will get you a fine and the revocation of your Timber Lakes registration sticker. You are paying for the road maintenance, so if you allow your kids to tear up the roads spinning donuts and peeling out, I will continue to spend your money to to repair the roads. When winter comes and you see that there is no snow removal, don’t call me to complain if we used our snow removal budget to keep up with your donut-spinning family members during the summer.

This is a holiday weekend — slow down and enjoy the mountain. Please be safe in whatever you are doing.

Gary, your Road Guy

The road grading is grating on someone’s nerves. We received an anonymous fax at the Timber Lakes office today. The quality and font size of the document does not allow us to simply show you the fax here on the website. We have retyped it, exactly as we received it, complete with the original text and spelling. The content has not been edited in any way.

May 18, 2009

Dear Timber Lakes Association:

It is out of complete frustration that we write this letter to you. In all the years that we have lived in Timber Lakes, the roads have  never been in such poor condition. Unlike the letter that circulates once a month claiming that the roads are always taken care of, we have not seen a pot hole (some very deep), rut, deep crevices etc. filled or taken care of in three years.

The roads we are talking about are Greenleaf, Acorn and Deer Creek roads. They haven’t seen a grater or ANY fill dirt in the last three years. The roads are in horrible need of some fill dirt and grating. When it used to be done (years ago) it would take a day or so to smooth out the roads so they were drivable….that is doing all three in our area. We know there are a lot more, obviously.

We realize your response to this will be that there are so MANY roads and they do the best they can. Our response to you would be that we have all driven around and we would suggest less time on the pricy landscaping of the Maintenance building and grooming around the ponds, and spend some time grating the roads. We pay just as money a year to have some attention paid to our roads as the “larger” homes pay.

Simply drive the roads of the huge homes and see for yourselves the difference…then come and drive Greenleaf, try to drive Acorn without getting stuck in the huge, long, deep crevices and then go up Deer Creek. You wouldn’t like living on these negelcted raods any more than all of the residents on all three roads do.

Thank you for listening. We felt it should be said even though we are confident there will be reasons why it doesn’t happen again this year.

How about that truck that was bought for $80,000 that did no good at all and you can’t recoup any of the Association money that was spent…I wonder how many roads we could have fixed for $80,000????? I’m sure that everyone who pays their dues would love to know!

We usually do not respond to letters, emails or faxes that are not signed by lot owners but we made an exception in this case as we wish to clarify some points raised in the letter.

Just last week a lady that lives on a road just north of the ones listed in the letter called to let me know of some big holes in her road and asked that we do something about them as soon as possible. Because she took the time to call me and leave a message, I checked into the issue and instructed our road crew to fix it. Within two days, the holes were filled and the road was graded. I then returned her call to let her know the road crew had fixed the road and hoped that she was satisfied. This is just one example of how we respond to our fellow owners.

If the person that wrote the anonymous letter had taken the time to give us specifics, including their name, I would know who to call to discuss the road issues.

As for the “pricy [sic] landscaping” around the new vehicle storage building – we planted those trees, for which we negotiated a huge discount, for two reasons – 1. To make the view of the building to the surrounding neighbors a little less obtrusive, and 2. Wasatch County required us to landscape around the building as part of our building permit. We do not do any grooming around ponds. The Jones Lake dam was repaired this last year by the folks down in the valley who own the water. We cleaned up most of our stuff at Duck Lake and moved it to the new building, as we promised the neighbors we would do.

Regarding “larger” and “huge” homes getting special road treatment, I point out the following – There are larger and huge homes in every plat in Timber Lakes. There are larger and huge home on Acorn and Deer Creek. By definition, there are homes on Greenleaf that are larger than some homes on some other road. We don’t have a road that is reserved for larger or huge homes. Likewise, we don’t have a road that is restricted to smaller homes. This Board has never made a single road decision based on the size of home. We do not maintain any road based on the presence or absence of a larger or huge home.

I invite Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous to drive up past my cabin on Buck Way. I was stuck twice in the past three weeks. The President of the Association almost lost his vehicle in a water-filled pothole on the upper mountain a few days ago. We are aware that many roads have serious problems and assure you that no special consideration is given to anyone based on the square footage of their cabin, its location or any relationship they may have to the Association.

I now want to once again, explain why the roads in Timber Lakes are going to be a mess this summer. This is repeat information for anyone who attends our regular Board meetings. The Water Company (no relation to Timber Lakes Property Owners Association, except that you and I fund both entities) has hired a contractor (Sunroc) to install new water pipe along approximately 2/3 of the roads in Timber Lakes. The Water Company has instructed Sunroc to install the pipe in the center of the road. This means that almost every road in our subdivision will be completely torn up. While we do understand that people need to be able to drive to their cabins, it does not make any economic sense to spend a lot of money maintaining a road that soon will be torn up. We can address major problems, but not every problem we would normally fix. The roads above Blue Spruce are already in this condition, having been torn up and left by Sunroc last fall.

What makes matters worse, is that there is not enough money in the Water Company construction contract for the roads to be put back as good as they are now. We are going to be addressing this major concern for the next several years. We will do the very best we can to protect our interests in the roads, but they are going to get worse before they get better. We have discussed these issues with the Water Company and will continue to try to work with them. It’s their pipe, our roads and all of it is paid for by the same people, the owners.

Finally, your Board of Directors completely agrees with the comment made by Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous about the truck. The Anonymous Family would already know this if they came to our monthly meetings. The previous Board purchased that truck without proper research as to what type of truck could be useful on the mountain. We have been trying to sell or trade the truck for several months, but have been hampered by the economy, which is affecting all of us.

Like every Board that preceded us, and every Board that follows us, we have to live with the past decisions. Many of those decisions are, in our opinion, good and a few are are questionable. We are doing the best we can with what we have.

When you as a property owner have a concern, please talk to us about it. There are several ways to do this. You can use email, the telephone, send us a comment from the website, write a letter, send us a fax or best of all, come to a meeting in person and share your two cents worth. The Timber Lakes Property Owners Association is made up of the owners of 1530 lots. The members of the Board of Directors are just fellow owners. Some of us live here, some of us are weekenders and all of us care as much as you about the mountain, the roads and how the money is spent. We don’t retaliate against a fellow owner who has a problem or disagrees with something. Please don’t be afraid to identify yourself. We have met some great people who come to tell us how to do a better job. We cannot respond to an anonymous letter. Contact me and tell me your name and lot number so we can respond directly to you and your concerns! We welcome your input.

By the way, I do not know anything about a letter that is circulated every month about the roads. When you are grating about the grading, contact me. I will listen.

Gary Hume
Road Guy

The roads on both the East side and the West side of the mountain are open for construction traffic as of May 15, 2009. Please make sure if you are involved in a construction project that you have all the proper permits from TLPOA and Wasatch County. Security will ask the delivery truck drivers to provide lot information to them before they allow deliveries through the gate. Also, remember that all ATVs, UTVs, 4-wheelers, etc. need to have a current TLPOA permit (available at the office without charge to lot owners only). There is a lot of road construction going on as the water company lays new pipe. Please drive slow and be aware of all the workers. Remember the speed limit is 25 MPH on all non-paved roads, even if you are on an ATV. Please note that your construction projects need to be completed during the spring and summer months. Some time around October 15, 2009, depending on weather and temperature, we will close the roads to construction traffic.
Gary Hume
Road Guy

Winter has finally come to a close (we think). Many folks are asking when construction trucks well be allowed on the roads of Timber Lakes. We are hoping that the west side will be available the first week of May 2009. Next would be the lower part of the east side and then the upper east side. There is still about 4 foot of snow on the upper east side and that part of the mountain probably will not be open for at least 3 weeks. All of these dates are estimates!

If you have a specific question when your part of the mountain will open for construction traffic, you can contact the security personnel at the front gate for a day-by-day update. They will be the first ones that get the word as to what part of the mountain is open and when.

Gary Hume
Road Guy