After work, I had a bit of time to spare so I took a late afternoon & early evening stroll.
In the shady woods, the snow pack is still 12-18 inches. The exposed areas and southerly facing hillside hold much less.
With temperatures rising to into the lower-40s this afternoon, we switched back from winter to spring in just a few hours today.
If all trails were like S85/Ski Hut trail, life would be great:
But alas, life doesn’t work that way for the die-hard. The Indian Lake inner village trails were entirely ride-able, but the base is starting to get thin in spots. Bear Trap Swamp was passable, but water is eating away at that. Parks and Rec did cut away the trees that were knocked down by Saturday night’s wet snow storm.
I didn’t bother with C8/Sabael trail because half of that trail is on a swamp and was probably a big mess anyway.
So I ran S84 up toward the Newcomb trail. The part just prior to the Cedar River Bridge had been flooded by the river, but still passable.
The sun-baked sharp corners on S84 were fairly skanky until I got over the top:
Once I got into the shady woods, the base was deeper, but still some thin spots and plenty of places where the water was eating away at the trail.
At Rock Lake Marsh, I encountered this nice brook crossing:
I saw that other sleds had crossed this today, so I gripped it and ripped it across. Thankfully, the submerged bridge had enough flotation to guide me to the other side.
The remainder of the ride on S84 was pretty good spring riding.
538/Newcomb trail was a nice spring ride for the most part. But there were some places where the base was getting pretty thin. Then I ran into this beautiful stream about a couple miles from the Essex Country Line:
Incidentally, 538/Newcomb trail became a bumpier ride after the stream crossing. I didn’t press past the Essex County line because I wanted to get back to town before dark with the hazards out there.
Bottom line:
This would have been a good March 27th ride, but not so much for February 27th. Hey, it is what it is…
With the increasingly marginal conditions and the next big warm-up & rain for Wednesday, this is probably my last ride until (or if) we get a significant dose of snow. My skis were occasionally clipping rock tops that I hadn’t seen since early January.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any significant snow before the weekend. But at least it will get cold again by Thursday. I’m sure the intrepid snowmobile rider can find something to ride this weekend in Perkins Clearing or something else, but most people aren’t gonna give a crap enough to find out.
Unless we can muster a significant or major snowstorm within the next 7-10 days, we may be playing out the string…
NOTE: Indian Lake Snowarriors meeting for Saturday, March 4th has been cancelled. Next scheduled meeting will be for Saturday, April 1st to wrap up the “grooming season.”
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.
