Now that snow is piling up outside, it won't be long before athletes are back outside doing things like skiing.

"I'm pretty excited," said Andy Johnson of Eau Claire. "If it's going to be cold, we might as well have snow."

Snowmobilers are getting excited about all this snow too. After all, their season technically started back on December 1. The problem is that snowmobile trails tend to go through a lot of farmland where a lot of corn has yet to be harvested.

"We're marking trails now as best we can, until we hit a cornfield, then we gotta stop," said Eau Claire County Snowmobile Association President Jerry Vetterkind.

It means the only snowmobiling he will be doing for a while is around his backyard.

Vetterkind says he's talked to farmers, and found that the cold weather won't affect corn drying even though the snow might.

He also says being a good neighbor means letting farmers get their work done.

"We still gotta respect their property too that we can't go through their cornfields until they got em' picked, and they're hurrying up because they don't want to be in the snow drifts as anybody else."

Vetterkind says when that will be is anybody's guess.

"When it's time to go, we'll be ready," he said.

For now it will be other people taking center stage on a new blanket of snow.

"I've got a couple small children so playing out in the snow will be fun," Johnson said.

That is, until snowmobilers can reap the benefits of the hard work of volunteers and farmers,and the snow they'll find right outside.