Update 3/28/14: As of 7AM we have 2 inches of fresh snow, and now we’re having a mixture of snow and sleet. It will eventually turn over to rain, but nowhere near enough to wipe us out. Come up and ride this weekend! We didn’t build Rome in a day and it’s not going to fall in a day either!
Ride Report 3/27/14: I took my own advise and blew off work today. Rode from Indian Lake’s freshly groomed trails, down through back side of Perkins Clearing down to Piseco Lake via Big Brook/Willis Mountain. Then did Powley Road from end to end. On the way back up, did C8/S81 Wagoner’s Loop. Back through Perkins Clearing and caught Mud Lake Road and S82C/Old Indian Lake Road.
Got back to Indian Lake to be greeted by freshly groomed and awesome trails. Got the kids after school, did a ride up S84 to Lake Durant which was exceptionally GREAT! Newcomb trail was the biggest disappointment, it was rough with deep rollers that were not fun with my daughter riding on the back, so we turned tail and came back to the good stuff. Ate dinner at the One Stop then rolled back to the compound with over 165 miles on the day after poaching Little Canada and Ski Hut trails, both freshly groomed and hardly a snowmobile track on them. It was 8PM in the evening when the ride ended, but I could have been out there all night if I didn’t need to work tomorrow.
No need to get into a trail-by-trail, blow-by-blow of the conditions. Most of the riding I encountered was good-to-excellent. The notable exceptions were the studder-chop and rollers on Willis Mountain trail and C8 between Oxbow and Piseco, despite recent grooming. C8 from the north end of Powley Road to Spy Lake Road was pretty brutal and rough. But it improved dramatically once I reached where the Tucker takes over and was a decent ride back to Oxbow Inn, although there were a few bald spots on Jack’s Hill.
Fish Mountain/Oxbow trail was snirty and ground down to ice in a few places, but was holding its own nicely. I didn’t make it over to Speculator village so I can’t really comment on the trail conditions over there.
Powley Road and Perkins Clearing were mind blowing amazing, WOW! I slowly cruised through most of them so I could savor every mile, every foot, every inch. 🙂
Wagoner’s Loop is an interesting goat path ride that can be fun when the snow is deep and the trail is groomed flat like it was today. You have to be in the proper mindset to take the slow boat to China as opposed to getting from Point A to Point B really fast! I encountered two oncoming snowmobiles on a trail that wasn’t any wider than my snowmobile, a very interesting predicament indeed! 😉
Seeing is believing!
All I can say is, WHAT A DAY! Simply incredible riding for March 27. Probably better than December, January or February 27th. It was just one of those days where almost everything I touched was white gold. Even got to share some of this with my kids, which will make it a ride I’ll fondly remember for a long time! 🙂
When the trails start out like this, you just know it’s going to be an epic day:
Weekend Outlook:
We’ll have rain later on Friday but the deep snow pack will absorb a lot of it. The usual low lying swampy areas will get messy, but I doubt anything will flood over badly. We’re not going to melt off our 18 inch to 3+ feet snow pack in a few days. If you weren’t able to ride this week, come on up this weekend anyway for winter’s last hurrah. Mashed potato rides can be some of the most fun! If we’re lucky, we’ll score some wet snow Saturday night into Sunday. This will be the last true riding weekend of the winter before snowmobiling becomes domain of the diehards and local vultures.
Darrin @ ilsnow.com
