The guests at Saturday Night’s Snowarriors Party told me that snowmobile riding was great on Saturday.
That made sense because the groomers were out and the very cold temperatures kept trails firm and the weekend traffic relatively low.
I was bent on getting there to ride Sunday morning, no matter how cold it was!
So, here I was, after 9am about -10*F at the Bear Trap Swamp:
Before that, I had taken a ride to Sabael. The trail was in pretty good shape with the muck holes groomed over and frozen tight. The only real annoyance was occasionally clipping a rock top with carbide.
Indian Lake had plenty of tracks on it, forming a drag strip. This is good in that ice will freeze thicker under the drag strip. I wasn’t ready to ride on that lake yet, so I turned tail and headed back to town.
Remember that riding lakes is always at your own risk – I’m just reporting what I saw.
On to Newcomb!
S84 was freshly groomed and I encountered the Parks and Rec groomer coming back into town. The trail was board flat with the occasional clack of carbide.
The grooming might have been too much of a good thing, only because the trail surface was very hard packed and not giving up enough free powder to keep the heat exchangers happy. The overheat lamp tripped a couple of times. So, after stopping the sled and allowing her to cool down for several minutes each time, I pressed on.
Extreme cold was causing my visor to frost up somewhat, but I maintained enough vision to keep going.
538/Newcomb trail to the Essex County Line was a pretty good ride. There was some slight ripple, but it was a good trade-off for the inch of powder on the trail to keep the heat exchangers happy. I did encounter several snowmobiles, but nothing resembling weekend traffic.
From Essex County Line to Newcomb-T was more bumpy, especially over Joseph Mountain. But it remained a serviceable weekend ride.
Since my helmet shield was slowly becoming more frosted over and the Newcomb House is permanently closed, I had no desire to press C8B to Newcomb. To be honest, I probably strayed further out of town than I should have riding alone in the bitter cold.
Back to Indian Lake
Trip back to town was as good as the trip out. The meager traffic did little to tear up the trail. S84 was still looking like this Sunday afternoon:
Incredible, eh? 😉
After I got back into town, I got inside for about a half-hour to thaw out my helmet. Then I could zip around the local village trails and enjoy totally clear vision.
Spin around town
Local trails were in great shape! The only trails beaten up and rough were S86/Little Canada between One Stop and Lone Birch and the spur trail to the Indian Lake Restaurant. I even ran the Sabael trail again, which was better than it was in the morning. Looks like the groomer might have hit it while I was out of town.
And yes, I did run around on Adirondack Lake:
Guess I’m not a complete chicken after all.
Remember that riding lakes is always at your own risk – I’m just reporting what I saw.
The home stretch
After I had my bit of fun around town, I made it over to Stewarts to fill my tank to the brim with the 91-non ethanol before calling it a day.
Rolled back to the compound with 78 miles, which is about 78 miles more than I usually get on a Sunday. So I’d call it a good day at the office.
Turned out the max temp today was -3*F. No wonder there weren’t a ton of riders out there. It was a crank-your-handwarmers to the max kind of day…
Weather Outlook
No significant snow for the next few days at least with the brutal arctic regime in full control.
Most of the model-ology is tantalizing with a massive storm lurking offshore on Thursday:
Unless this thing does a serious coastal tuck that isn’t indicated now, I don’t think this will be our storm. But we do have some time to watch for changes.
Regardless of what happens, it’s getting mighty cold in the wake of this beast. These are MAX temperatures for Saturday, January 6th projected by the ECMWF. You gotta be kidding me…
Really?! I don’t care how good the riding is, because I wouldn’t be out in that kind of cold!
That’s all I’ve got for now…
If you go riding, dress for survival out there! This cold is no joke.
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
This report is brought to you by Progressive Motorsports, celebrating their 25th year. They live, eat and breathe snowmobiling. Stop in today and see for yourself! Be sure to tell Karen that Darrin @ ilsnow.com sent ya.
