Ole Man Winter was dealt a crushing defeat last night in ilsnow land. Despite the radar showing “blue” of snow late Saturday night into early Sunday here in Indian Lake, it rained all night with temperatures around 33-34*F with sleet mixed in at times. Needless to say, everything is mashed potatoes and gravy and the lakes are very slushy!
Cal, Mattie and I cranked out a 150 miler yesterday. In the morning, almost everything was great going: Indian Lake village trails, 2 Miles from Hell, Perkins Clearing, Big Brook, Fawn Lake, Fish Mountain/Oxbow, the majority of Spy Lake where the Tucker grooms it, Powley Road, Piseco Lodge trail, Morehouse and Jones Road.
From the end of Jones Road, C4 was a brutal road riding, snowbank scaling ride into Ohio. At least there was plenty of wet material for cooling the tunnels and slides. After we got off the road, C4B was a pretty good ride. But all the trails along Route 8 were brutal studderbumps with much less snow for cushioning the bumps.
After a great dinner at Ohio Tavern we headed for home. C4H from Haskell’s northward had plenty of snow, but was brutally bumpy riding. Thank goodness S46A was much smoother down to Nobleboro and back up to Morehouse!
Morehouse trails will still holding up well, but everything else was showing considerable mashed potato bumps on the return trip home, even Perkins Clearing.
Evergreen Lake and Piseco Lake were extremely slushy, some white knuckle riding for sure! Ran up Indian Lake in the dark, but it wasn’t really that slushy yet. On the way back home, we got soaked by the rain from above and the slush coming up from below. The usual “wet” spots” in the Indian Lake village trail were starting to fill up with water. When I got home, I literally peeled the wet gear off me. It was a fun day for sure, but I was glad to get home and dry off.
You can see some of what we hit here:
Bottom line:
There is still upwards of 2 feet of snow on my lawn, so there is still obviously snow to play in. If you don’t mind mashed potato bumps and getting wet, you can ride here today. I’d seriously think twice about riding lakes because the slush is probably getting steep and deep in spots.
Midweek Outlook:
It took until the end of March into early April, but we’re into diehard season. With mild days and sub-freezing nights, the remnant snow pack will gradually melt down but offer the diehard and local vultures their final rides of the season. My long milers are probably done, but I’m sure I’ve got a few more rides left. 😉 Let the April sun be your friend to loosen up that late night/early morning ice and frozen granular to keep your tunnel and slides happily cool and wet! By 9-10AM, trails should be soft enough to hit.
Even though we’ll have a deep snow pack to start April, the talk of riding into May is crazy talk…unless we can get a ton of snowfall in April (like 2+ feet!)
Climatological high temperature for the last week of April is about 56*F which makes it mighty difficult for our robust snow pack to last into May in places where we could actually ride it. The several inches of snow we usually get in April won’t cut it.
Darrin @ ilsnow.com
