I had some time before work this morning, so I took advantage and embarked on a 40+ mile stroll around town and a little beyond. Here’s what I found:
Inner Village Trails:
All groomed: Good to excellent conditions. The heavily traveled trails had some snirt and you may clip the top of a rock a couple of times, but most of the trails were as flat as a board! What more can you ask for?! Indian Lake Parks and Rec filled in the water holes on the Sabael trail with snow then groomed over them.
Out to Moose River Plains:
C8 spur out to Adirondack Mountain Sports was a bit thin and bony under the tall evergreens, but there was nothing worse than light ripple on that section. If you want to see what may lie beyond Adirondack Mountain Sports out to Moose River Plains, check out my report from Tuesday and Cal’s report from a day later. It hasn’t gotten that warm yet, so the conditions probably haven’t changed much since Cal’s ride.
Out to Blue Mountain:
S84 from the end of Benton Road to Rock Lake marsh was a grade lower than what I saw around town. But I can tell it was recently groomed and it was probably the best ride I had on that section of trail in a couple of years. Beyond Rock Lake marsh to the Newcomb trail junction, there were lots of bumps and rollers. If you’re content to bee-bop along at 20mph, you can make it through there OK. If you try to blast through it in a hurry, you will kiss a tree then spit your teeth out. Watch out for the occasional water holes. I didn’t ride the Newcomb trail due to time constraints, but that trail USUALLY gets better the closer you get to Newcomb.
The spur over to Lake Durant Campsites/Northville-Lake Placid trail head was freshly groomed and in better shape, but there were some water holes to contend with. Old Stage trail was nothing special and could use a comb-over with the groomer to make it a really fun ride. There was a fallen tree over the trail that needs removal, but I got under it.
Lakes:
I did a grip-it-and-rip it run across Lake Adirondack to make the quick connection from 42nd and Broadway to Little Canada. I made it across no problem, but the numerous frozen slush ruts made it a rough ride. At the end of the Sabael trail, I crossed Route 30 to take a peek at Indian Lake. Several others had the same idea, but NONE of them ventured onto the lake. Indian Lake barely froze over the day after Christmas before we got dumped on with nearly a foot-and-a-half of snow. Indian Lake is UNSAFE to ride on, PERIOD!
Speculator Area:
I haven’t heard anything really bad from there. I’m assuming that D.R.A.G. of Speculator and Lake Pleasant are up to their usual efforts. You can check out an extensive trail report from yesterday by an ilsnow rider.
Weekend Outlook:
My time is almost up, so there won’t be any multi-media presentation today. So, I’ll just give you some old-school, country hard-ball, ilsnow.com tell-it-as-it-is: Get up here early Saturday and capitalize on the groomer’s magic before the midday and afternoon onslaught. Temperatures will hang in the lower to middle 30s Friday night with most places receiving 0.25″ of rain or less. That’s not going to significantly damage what we have right now! Saturday morning will have little rain and the sun could poke through the clouds in the afternoon. Warm temperatures and heavy weekend traffic could render the trails as rough as a cheese grater by Sunday, SO GET UP EARLY AND GRAB IT!
I’ve never lied to you before. If the trails were junk, I would tell you!
