Thursday brought the goods with over a half-foot of fresh snow. I felt like a kid just watching it come down but also like a caged animal.
After work, I got my sled out of the yard for the first time this year. Seems strange that I wouldn’t have ridden yet. But I usually don’t get much riding done in December for various reasons. So I just crank it January, February and March…and April if need be. 😉
Anyway… The Indian Lake village trails had been groomed, but the kids on vacation did a decent job of shredding everything up. It takes a while for a dump of fresh snow to become assimilated into the base.
Here was my first touchdown onto the Indian Lake trails this winter. Not bad, eh?
I took C8/Sabael Trail which was groomed and passable. But there were at least several muck holes and a couple of small stream crossings. I noted that nobody had crossed Route 30 to go onto Indian Lake. I wasn’t going to be first…especially after dark.
Got back to town and tried my luck on C8 out to Cedar River Headquarters. There were recent groomer tracks and the trail was in pretty good shape until…the groomer tracks turned around at Route 28&30. Past the former Arctic Cat dealership, C8 was rough with stretches of washboard bumps. I hung with it a couple of miles for the sake of a trail report, encountering more water hazards the further out I got.
Unless C8 is groomed out to Headquarters on Friday or the weekend, this trail will be a long and tedious ride out to Moose River Plains. I’ll admit that I don’t know what else lurks after a couple of miles.
Got back to town to hit S87/42nd and Broadway which was groomed and a pretty nice ride over to Adirondack Lake. With ice shanties on the lake and reliable reports of 8-10 inches of ice, I gave Adirondack Lake a good rip across and plowed though some nice pow-pow!
I think you could tell that I was having some fun. 😉
Snowmobile night riding in Indian Lake 12/29/16
S86/Little Canada was nice on the Lone Birch end, but rough on the Route 30 One Stop end. After a fuel pit stop, I doubled back to thrash the Adirondack Lake powder chowder once again.
Then it was onto S84/Blue Mountain Trail. Overall, the ride was pretty decent with plenty of fresh powder to pack down…which I gladly did. But there were more than several gnarly water hazards and small streams.
My original plan was to turn around at Rock Lake marsh. But I saw it was UNTRACKED beyond the marsh bridge. Who can resist a half-foot of untracked snow? So I pressed on with designs of making a run to Lake Durant or the Newcomb trail. It was really fun for a while, but eventually I started encountering water hazards again.
Then about a mile before the Newcomb trail, I got my front end stuck down into a big muck hole. Thankfully, reverse pulled me out. Like an idiot, I tried again and got stuck again. Thankfully, reverse did its good work and got me back out…again.
I finally got smart and headed back to the compound with about 35 miles spun off. I gotta say it felt AWESOME to be back on the saddle after such a long layoff. Aside from the early season washouts, it was probably better than almost anything I saw last winter here in town.
Looks it was a dang shame I didn’t make it to the Newcomb trail because the Indian Lake Snowarriors performed their magic on it tonight:
Weekend Outlook
Assuming that grooming is in progress, it would be obvious that Moose River Plains, Powley Road and Speculator Tree Farm should be great to start the weekend.
The south end of Perkins Clearing Road into Mud Lake Road is closed for logging, probably well into January. The bypass trail into the south end was reported to be a very rough ride this week. You may have better luck parking at Mason Lake parking lot, then start in from the north end of Perkins Clearing Road and working your way in from there.
I would imagine that the Speculator woods trails would be a similar story to Indian Lake, being groomed…but watch out for water hazards.
DON’T ASK ME ABOUT ICE. RIDING ON FROZEN LAKES IS ALWAYS AT YOUR OWN RISK! I CAN ONLY COMMENT ON MY RIDING EXPERIENCE ON THE LAKES THAT I ELECT TO RIDE ON.
Bottom line is that the new snow did us a world of good. More places will be groomed than last weekend, but the typical early-season water hazards will continue to be an issue until we get some bitter cold to freeze them over. Snow pack is over a foot pretty much everywhere and we’ll add some more to this pile this weekend.
I’d recommend getting up here this weekend, because next week is looking way too “up-and-down” for my liking.
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
This report is brought to you by Adirondacks Speculator Region Chamber of Commerce. Speculator has long been one of my favorite places to ride! There are lots of options, whether you want to ride around Speculator for the day, or launch a 250 mile mega-miler. Speculator is loaded with businesses eager to cater to snowmobilers. Look them up at the Speculator Chamber and grab a copy of their snowmobile trail map. Be sure to tell them that Darrin @ ilsnow.com sent you.
