Some guys from the Mulleyville Snowmobile Club wanted to park in Indian Lake and ride out to Old Forge with me.
Didn’t sound like a bad plan, so that’s what we did!
While I was waiting for the guys to show up in town, I spotted Parks and Rec groomers heading on C8 out toward Cedar River Headquarters and S84 out toward the Newcomb trail.
The day started at -1*F, but the sun was already starting to warm things up. I just knew it was going to be a great day!
And we’re off!
I met Aaron Jenks of Toasty Tot Handlebars, Chaz Albertson VP of Mulleyville Snowmobile Club and their friend Kevin at the Town Garage parking lot around 9am.
C8 out to Headquarters was in good to excellent shape all the way through. Even after we overtook the groomer several miles in, the riding was super. The only real blemish was a large slushy area that has the potential to get UGLY with the end of week thaw and rain.
I think my guests were having a decent by the time we got to Headquarters:
Moose River Plains was awesome all the way across. Inlet Loop trails were their usual stellar ride.
Ole Barn to Gilbert Road was aces.
We hopped on to 4th Lake and ran it to Daikers. It was incredibly fast and mainly flat with excellent visibility.
Old Forge
Trail 5 was a good to occasionally excellent ride from Daikers to Rondaxe Road. Roads had good snow coverage.
Ran the Old Forge loop trails over to Elise Lookout. Everything we touched from Trail 9 over to Trails 6 & 7 were magic!
By this point the sun was feeling really warm and I had stowed my heavy head-sock and mittens away in the diaper bag. The crew wanted to run up to Big Moose Station for lunch and that’s what we did! Trails 1 and 2 were great and we overtook the groomer as it got up to Big Moose – Stillwater Road.
The way back
Aaron needed to be back to the truck by 4pm, so we drifted back toward Indian Lake. Old Forge trails were still magic. Even Trail 5 was holding up well all the way to Eagle Bay.
After a fuel stop at Big Moose Yamaha, we pressed through Inlet and headed for home.
The Inlet side of Moose River Plains had some shredder bumps and icy turns until the Big-T then was a good rip back up to Silver Run. The Indian Lake side was starting to get rollers with some icy turns as well.
Seemed like the typical wear pattern for moderate traffic. Indeed we saw a good amount of snowmobiles on the trails today. I think a lot of people had the same idea. 😉
C8 from Headquarters back to Indian Lake was still in decent shape on the return trip. But the day’s traffic had generated corner scuff and carbide clank, which became more pronounced the closer we got to home.
Got back to the former Arctic Cat dealer by 4pm. I led the crew on my customary victory loop around town via S86, Adirondack Lake and S87 before getting them back to the truck just a shade before 4:15pm. A bit late, but I don’t think that bothered anyone. 🙂
But wait, there’s more…
After the Mulleyville crew loaded up and headed for home, I ripped over to Stewarts to refuel for the next ride and took a swirl around town, just to get the daily trip odometer from 139 miles to 150 miles before returning to the compound.
There were plenty of people riding in the evening, so the inner village trails were getting a bit shredded. But the little hidden gem of S85/Ski Hut trail was still mint:
Bottom line
What an incredible day! The weather was perfect and I rode with awesome people today. I met some old friends along the way and made a few new ones.
One of the most amazing things about snowmobiling and running ilsnow.com is that it allows me to meet great people that I otherwise would never cross paths with. There’s a bind that ties us. The general public can’t understand it. The tree-huggers who want to flush out snowmobiling don’t want to understand it. But I get it. And God-willing, I’m going to keep at this for a long time to come.
I think the trails in ilsnow land will hold up into Thursday. But then we’ll have to play spin the bottle and see what Thursday night through Saturday brings us. So glad I made it out today and I hope you did too….
For this 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.
