With the family scattered to parts known and unknown this evening, there was only one thing for me to do: GO NIGHT RIDING! I went over to Crazy Cal’s house to see if he wanted to ride with me, but turns out he’s too cool to ride with me. 😉
So, I had to do the night ride solo. All I can say is Cal missed out, BIG TIME! All Indian Lake village trails were groomed and in good to excellent condition. I clanked a few rocks on the Sabael trail, but it was by far the best shape it’s been all winter. Ski Hut trail was fantastic. 42nd and Broadway was good enough to make a grown man cry.
The big surprise of the night was S84/Blue Mountain trail, which was actually a nice ride all the way out to the Newcomb trail. Aside from a few thin spots under the tall pines past Rock Lake, this was the best ride I’ve had on that trail IN YEARS!
Past the Newcomb trail, S84 had some soft bumps to Lake Durant. The Old Stage trail hadn’t been groomed yet, but it was still a nice soft ride for most of it. The final mile or so was more hard and rough due to the local traffic. The new trail between Blue Mountain Rest and the Ole Station was a bit rough, but now it has enough snow to groom it when that time comes.
Note: The Ole Station has 24 hour gas pumps, but is otherwise not open. Blue Mountain Rest is also serving food on Saturdays. So now you’ve got food and gas in Blue Mountain Lake.
On the way back to the Newcomb trail, I cut across Route 28&30 and down to Lake Durant. The lake had some small snow dunes, but otherwise a nice ride back to the campsite.
Since I was out there, I sampled the Newcomb trail for about a mile to get the flavor of it. By no means it was perfectly smooth, but it was groomed and an enjoyable ride. Being out at 10PM by myself on the XP with almost 9,000 miles on it, I decided to turn tail and head back to town. Based on what I saw, the Newcomb trail would probably have been a good ride to at least the county line. Past that, I can’t say what to expect. I would assume Newcomb is grooming their end.
After I got back to town, I found Little Canada between Route 30 One Stop and Lone Birch groomed board flat with not one snowmobile track on it. I was sure to zip that a couple times before calling it a night. WOW! Even better than SEX!! Rolled back to the compound with 40 miles of smiles. Aside from a pack of local kids running the local village trails, there was scant traffic this evening. For the most part, it was just me, the XP, the great outdoors and God who created it all. Nights like this make living up here worth it!
The only trail I didn’t get to sample was C8 out to Cedar River Headquarters. Based on the good to excellent riding I had everywhere this evening, I would say the groomers have worked their magic out there with the new snow.
Weekend Outlook:
What are you waiting for? GET UP HERE! When S84 out to Blue Mountain is in good shape, you’re playing with house money. 🙂
Temperatures will be ideal for the groomers to maintain the trails. But as always on a weekend, get here early for best results.
I’ll give Cal a second chance and see if he’ll ride with me Saturday. Should be fun!!
Darrin @ ilsnow.com
