Matt, Cal and I have been talking about doing a “mega-ride” over to Tug Hill and back for a couple of years. Yesterday was the fulfillment of that dream. 🙂
We started our ride at 7:30am with a temperature near -18*F. Yeah, we like to start our rides COLD! The Indian Lake village trails were a bit scuffed up and not as nice as I had seen them Thursday night. More of the same for C8/Sabael trail. Looks like they had considerable mid-week traffic.
Indian Lake was a mainly smooth, but very cold ride from end to end. We didn’t find many frozen ruts and there was adequate powder for cooling the slides and tunnel.
Indian Lake/Lewey Lake campsites were decent. Lewey Lake was a great crossing with more powder than Indian Lake. 2 Miles from Hell was decent, with the usually scuff marks and terrain bumps on the north end.
Perkins Clearing Road and Jessup River Road were super. It was like riding Canada through there, WOW!
Big Brook Trail had some studders and small rollers down to the Outhouse. Willis Mountain trail was a pretty good ride down to the Fall Lake kiosk. The final mile or so down to Piseco Lake was even better.
Piseco Lake was another smooth and fast crossing. The strong March sun was starting to take the sting out of the bitter cold by then.
C4 through Morehouse was sensational! Smooth as a board without blemish. It’s hard to say Morehouse out did itself because it’s great riding almost every time I go through there mid-week, but this was probably the best ride I’ve ever had through there.
S46A entering Ohio was fairly bumpy, a cliff-like drop in quality from Morehouse. We encountered a couple of Ohio groomers just before Nobleboro. They told us their mogul-masher was down, but were tag-teaming the bumps with the equipment that was working. Indeed, S46A and C4H were somewhat better heading down into Ohio after we encountered the groomers, but nowhere as good as Morehouse.
One we passed Haskells and Route 365, the trails in lower Ohio were groomed flat as a board and we had super riding again! C4B was fantastic on the seasonal roads. The roadside sections were ride-able, but the strong March sun was eating away at it, even with the cold temperatures.
C4 through the Hinkley State Forest was an absolute rush! After we crossed Route 365, C4 become alternating bumpy ditch riding and groomed snowbank until we hit the gas station for re-fueling. Crazy thing about mid-week March riding: We didn’t see another snowmobile until we got into Remsen, over 85 miles into our ride. 🙂
C4 entering the Penn Mountain system was freshly groomed with more awesome riding! We stopped for lunch at the Soda Fountain Restaurant in Remsen with its 1950s style decor. Great food and clean as a whistle in there. I definitely recommend it! After getting sufficiently full and warmed up, we pressed on.
Continuing on C4 was more great riding until we got to the Route 12 crossing. Then we had some fairly brutal roadside riding until we got back onto the seasonal roads which offered more great riding.
I took the opportunity to lead Cal and Matt down to Starr Hill lookout via C7. It was a roller-rama all the way down there, but the views from Starr Hill made the lumps worth it!
As we were taking in the sights at Starr Hill, we encountered a “Boonville local” who had blown off work to go riding. That worked out great, because he led us through Boonville and eliminated the guesswork! C7 to Alder Creek was rollers all the way. Alder Creek to Forestport alternated from pretty smooth riding to bare patches to a few spots of grubby snowbank riding.
C7B along the canal was a really fun ride over to Boonville. There were a few sections burnt down to dirt, so we dipped down to the canal on occasion to skip the raunchy stuff. There was one quarter mile of painful road riding where we couldn’t dip down into the canal due to open water/weak ice. Crossing Route 12 was akin to playing Frogger. There were some spots scuffed down to dirt in Boonville, but coverage was still good overall.
C4E leaving Boonville enroute to Constableville was freshly groomed and just sensational riding through open fields. After a quick gas stop at the C-ville Nice-n-Easy we pressed on. C7B nothing special, but it got us to Turin. After we crossed Route 12, C7B was a super fast and flat snowmobile highway northbound until we hit the junction with C5A.
C7B from Burdicks Crossing Road to Brantingham was a combination of thin snow conditions and some painful roadside riding. There was just enough moist skank on the roads to get by without overheating.
Partridgeville Road had minimal snow cover along the margins. I was sure to lead the party onto C8G to hit Confusion Flats and Stoney Lake via C8A. I can tell you that was one of the best twilight rides I’ve ever had. Simply phenomenal riding through there.
Ten Mile Road into Herkimer County was pretty flat but also had some thin spots. The connector trail over to the Town of Webb trails was beaten up and rough, but we did encounter a groomer doing some night work on it.
Upper Trail 1 into Old Forge was beaten up with carbide clanking. But somehow it wasn’t quite as bad as I had expected it to be. The Pipeline trail was a sweet escape from Trail 1. Lower Trail 1 was in good shape down to North Street. Trail 3 was in nice shape over to Trail 5. Rondaxe Road had adequate snow dust for cooling, but there was tons of painful carbide scraping. After Rondaxe Road, Trail 5 was a dirty roller-rama in dire need of fresh snow.
We stopped at Daikers for dinner by around 8PM with over 200 miles for the day. The open fireplace alone was a good enough reason to come inside, but the food and atmosphere was good too.
We ran 4th Lake over to Inlet to avoid the skunky snow conditions through Eagle Bay. Inlet village to Ole Barn was snirty and thin, but not as much carbide clanking as I would have expected. Inlet loop trails were in great shape and we ran over 7th Lake Mountain to access Moose River Plains.
The Inlet side of Moose River Plains was in great shape with just the sharpest corners worn down to ice. When we stopped at the Big-T and looked up the stars with the sleds off, we hear the blood curdling yelps of a coyote. The cries appeared to get closer after a few minutes, so we just cranked out of there!
Indian Lake side of Moose River Plains from Silver Run to Headquarters has some modest rollers, but not anywhere near as bad as they were reported to be after last weekend.
C8 from Headquarters back to Indian Lake was groomed and in pretty good shape, except for the carbide clanking in the “rock gardens” between Deer Valley Parking Lot and the Forest Preserve section.
I rolled back to the compound about 11PM with 255 miles spun off for the day and a temperature back down to zero. A long day for sure, but tons of fun! Conditions will surely change over the weekend, but this report should give you a baseline of initial trail conditions going into the weekend.
We had a blast, but this kind of a ride is probably a once-a-winter deal for me. I’ve ridden out as far as Brantingham before. I’ve ridden Penn Mountain although I hadn’t done that in several years. I’ve hit Tug Hill a few times. Doing it all together in one day was really cool! Having good snow in early March is great because you get to spend the majority of the ride in the daylight. With that many miles, we did hit some lumps but there was plenty of great riding to offset the lumps. No way I would try this on a weekend though!
Weekend Outlook:
The strong March sun and rising temperatures is starting to do its dirty work on the exposed trail sections with spots getting baked down to dirt, but the trails in the woods will continue to hold their snow nicely. With no meaningful rain in sight and temperatures dropping below 32*F quickly in the evening, the riding will continue until further notice. But eventually, we’ll need a shot of snow to keep the party going. Come up here and enjoy, because we’re running out of weekends.
Darrin @ ilsnow.com
