After we got the half-foot of snow yesterday, I knew what had to be done: I would blow off work and take Darrin Jr out of school to go for a ride before we get hit full bore with the next Thaw!
The snow really helped the Indian Lake village trails tremendously and the groomers were packing it down. The heavily traveled trails were still snirty in places, but I wasn’t clanking carbide much. Sabael trail had nearly no frozen water hazards. Indian Lake was a nice run with the fresh snow. The campsites were typical bumpy. Lewey Lake was nice.
2 Miles of Hell had PLENTY of snow on it, but needed grooming BADLY! Perkins Clearing Road was pretty good from top to bottom, snirty at times with some scratchy corners. Jessup River Road was more of the same story from HM6 to Sled Harbor. After Sled Harbor all the way back to HM116, it had deeper snow, but more bumps. C4/C8 Big Brook trail looked really rough where the road ended, so we didn’t bother with that.
S41/Mud Lake Road was the prize of the day. That was the best of both worlds in terms of snow coverage and smoothness. The only blemishes were some scratchy corners as we got closer to HM110/Perkins Clearing Road.
Ride Video:
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The appetite of a 13-year-old boy is a force of nature. Junior got hungry and I didn’t bring any food, so I decided to take a run down to Speculator. C4/LP3 down to Speculator village was snirty and choppy from top to bottom. I was scraping carbide almost all of the time and dodged more than a few loose rocks. Melody Lodge was closed, Oak Mountain was closed, Logans was closed, Common Grounds was closed. We ended up at the Mountain Market and ran into Mr. and Mrs. Rick Swift eating lunch there. Rick recommended that I get the roast beef and horseradish sandwich on grilled toast and that was great. I think Junior ate just about everything else there.
Our pursuit of food led us around the Speculator village trails. All I can say is they need more snow, badly! The trails were tired and brown from the billions of sleds that were there last weekend. Hands down, the snow conditions around Indian Lake were better than around Speculator village. From what I heard, the C4/River trail past HM100 enroute to the Tree Farm was still a mess.
On the way back home, we hit S41/Mud Lake Road from end to end, then back to Perkins Clearing Road to maximize the great riding. On the 2 Miles from Hell, we encountered a couple of riders who had ridden out to Inlet. They told us Moose River Plains was is great shape until the Big-T, then got really thin toward Inlet.
Once back to Indian Lake late afternoon, we found the Sabael trail to be recently groomed. We took a run up S84/Blue Mountain trail as far as Rock Lake to achieve Junior’s first 100 miler. It was choppy from Benton Road to the big hill past Cedar River bridge, but then it evolved into a halfway decent ride to Rock Lake. Then we doubled back to town and hit 42nd & Broadway, Lake Adirondack and Little Canada between Lone Birch and One Stop. All of that was great riding! We rolled back to the compound with 105 miles for the day.
Bottom Line:
When the weatherman blows off work to ride before a thaw you KNOW bad news is coming! Conditions may hold together into Wednesday morning. But it will start to unravel Wednesday afternoon and the computer models are spanking us with HEAVY RAIN for Wednesday night, perhaps 1-3 inches worth! Unfortunately, we are not going to dodge the rain bullet this time.
Weekend Outlook:
How about this: I’ll tell you what’s left once it gets cold again Thursday morning. We’ll get some lake effect snows on Thursday but it will be too little, too late. Maybe the diehard hangouts like Perkins Clearing and Moose River Plains will offer something. I can’t imagine the Speculator area trails are going to be worth anything by this weekend based on what I saw today and what is expected to come.
At least I got my licks in today and had a great ride with my son. You can see a few pictures here.
