I had walked enough on the snowmobile trails this week to know there was still a good icy base in the woods, even if the exposed areas were really thin. Snow pack was still holding at 6-12 inches in the woods.
It would only take an inch or two of new snow (or slop) to set me free for a spin, to at least run some fuel stabilizer through the system. 🙂
Last night we got an inch of snow before the changeover to freezing rain early Wednesday. That was enough to set the fuel stabilizer ride in motion.
Conditions by early afternoon were essentially frozen late-March fare with an sloppy one-inch application of white paint. The inner village trails were as flat as I have ridden them all winter:
Even the C8/Sabael trail was a half-way decent trek through the woods, with mostly adequate coverage. There were the usual washouts through the swampy spots, but nothing too severe. In the woods it was OK, but here’s what it looked like on Fernell’s field:
I was tempted to jump onto Indian Lake and make the run down to Perkins Clearing via the Campgrounds and 2 Miles of Hell. But it was raining pretty heavily and the lake ice already had a good amount of standing water on it. If something unfortunate were to happen, I knew that nobody would be out there to help, so I turned tail and headed back to town.
S86/Little Canada behind Route 30 One Stop looked like this:
So I took the, ahem, “local” shortcut around that mess down to Sawmill Road then crossed Route 28 for a zip across Lake Adirondack. There was enough standing water and slush to make me glad I didn’t try to run Indian Lake all the way down in the same mess.
Then I hit S87/42nd and Broadway and Benton Road and S84 to make a run at C8 out of town toward Cedar River Headquaters. Past the former Arctic Cat dealership, the ride was rather studderbumpy. But the base was mostly adequate with only a few really wet areas. Once I got to the logging in the Deer Valley property, the trail base got much thinner with more washouts and rocks. The skidder tracks across the trail made a big mess.
If I had pressed the issue, I probably could have made it to Cedar River Headquarters and Moose River Plains. But it was raining pretty hard, so I turned tail back to town.
Then I hit S84 out toward Blue Mountain Lake. It wasn’t as smooth as the inner village trails, but it was a half-way decent ride to the Rock Lake Marsh once I got over the top. My next stop was at the marsh, which was pretty baked:
I had half a thought of making a run to 538/Newcomb trail and extending the ride. But it was raining very hard by then and my bibs were failing to keep me dry. OK…my legs were getting SOAKED!! The bibs certainly weren’t as water repellent as they were when I had bought them several years ago.
With the soaking rain and some expected brutality past Rock Lake, I turned tail and headed back to town. I had expected to get maybe 10-12 miles in, but I spun off 33 miles…certainly more than enough distance to run the fuel stabilizer through the system.
When I got back into town mid-afternoon, water was running into Bear Trap Swamp from every direction. I had to blast through a foot of moving water to make it back to the compound. Hey, my sled was just about as clean as a whistle when I rolled back into the garage. 🙂
If that was my last hurrah for the season, I think I did alright. A lot of the riding around town looked like this when I stayed in the woods:
If Ole’ Man Winter has another bullet left, I’ll hit that too. Either way, I think I made the best of what was a pretty wretched winter around here. I was certainly home with my family more than usual, which wasn’t a bad thing.
Not sure I’ll even crack 300 miles this winter, my fewest in decades. But the 4-TEC will have many more miles left, probably at least another whole season’s worth. I almost feel like I wasted such a high miler monster on a winter like this. Oh well…something to look forward to next winter. 🙂
Midweek Outlook:
Temperatures in the 40s for Thursday will accelerate the damage caused by Wednesday’s rain. Then Friday will begin to freeze everything back up with the trails becoming very icy again in the woods and increasingly bare in the exposed areas. Any snow Thursday night would be minor and probably not help out a lot.
Weekend Outlook:
Well… If you want to start your own fuel stabilizer run at Mason Lake parking lot and work your way into the north end of Perkins Clearing Road, you could probably do that. Milder afternoon temperatures on Saturday and especially Sunday would melt the hard-pack somewhat and free up some moisture to make the slides and heat-exchangers happy. Anything beyond a die-hard experience would be a bonus.
Extended Outlook:
The failure of an Arctic outbreak to materialize for Sunday, as previously expected, probably has negative ramifications for the remainder of the dwindling snowmobiling season. The weather pattern would continue to favor any significant storms to track to our west, which will stick more nails into the coffin of this thread-bare winter.
Time’s a runnin’ out…
Darrin
