After I got my snow removal chores done Wednesday evening, it was time to RIDE!
Heading out
Indian Lake town trails were all powdered up when I headed out of town this morning. Indian Lake and Lewey Lake were sweet powder bowls, with the snow getting deeper further south I got.
2 Miles from Hell was in great shape and I was the second track to touch the powder. Perkins Clearing Road was a huge bowl of powder chowder. Even the Southern Perkins Bypass trail was a nice ride.
Ran C4/LP3 into Speculator which had some lumps, but was a fun romp into the village. Got to Village Motorsports and waited for Darrin Jr to show up, so we could rent him a sled for the day.
Perkins Clearing Powder Chowder, and a surprise!
Decided to get back up to Perkins Clearing from the back side. Business-Access-Trail was a beautiful ride. Then we hit Lake Pleasant and Sacandaga Lake, which both had steep and deep powder throughout. LP1/Page Street trail was excellent. Fawn Lake and Big Brook trails were like riding a cloud and difficult to steer.
By the time we got up to Perkins Clearing, I was hoping that nobody had hit Carpenter Hill Road. And sure enough, nobody had done it yet. So we smashed through a foot of fresh pow-pow all the way through LP9/Nichol Vly trail.
Darrin Jr had spotted a huge moose off Carpenter Hill Road and tried to point it out. But I missed it.
So we decided to run LP9 back to Carpenter Hill Road to smash the untouched powder on the other side. And perhaps… Just maybe…we’d see the moose again.
And we certainly did!
I couldn’t get much closer than that for a picture before the moose sauntered off. That is the third time in my life that I’ve seen a moose. It’s always something awesome to behold. 🙂
We looped back over Old Military Road then hit the side trail by the Perkins-T that people like fly by. Glad we didn’t:
That was another great serving of powder chowder! I think Darrin Jr was having a pretty fair time of it:
We even had a bit of fun with the phone camera to shot this little clip. Wait a bit, then watch the blur go by:
On to Speculator Tree Farm…
We ran the “Whittaker Lake” trail down to Wolf Hill Road, which was a nice, plush ride. S41/Silver Hill was lumpy, but was a fun slalom down into the bowels of the Tree Farm. C4/Cave Hill Road was lumpy, but fun with the fresh powder.
We tried running LP4A back up into Speculator. But it was still a little “green” with the highway plow bank pushed over the trail. After a couple of decent stucks and near stucks, we turned tail and headed back to Cave Hill Road. C4 heading back to the River was bumpy, but the fresh stuff kept it reasonably fun.
Over to Powley Road…
After topping off for gas at Mountain Market, we decided to make the run over to Oxbow Inn for lunch. We got to blow through the steep and deep lake powder again. 🙂
Fish Mountain Trail-Oxbow Trail was lumpy in places and plush in others. Holy cow, it was LIGHT YEARS BETTER than the last time I rode that thing a few weeks ago.
Lunch at the Oxbow Inn was great as always! It sure was busy in there. Not Saturday busy, but lots of people for a weekday. I think a lot of people wanted to thrash the pow pow too. 🙂
Then we pressed onto Spy Lake trail, which was recently groomed and a plush ride most of the way through with some lumps closer to Route 10. I actually clipped carbide several times, which wasn’t terribly surprising because that trail was SHOT before we got all of this snow. The twisty turns force snowmobiles to push snow off the trail as well. We did take the left at the clearing to horse around on more deep powder on Spy Lake.
Powley Road was recently groomed and an AMAZING ride from top to bottom. To ride that back and forth is the stuff that dreams are made of.
Back to Speculator…
On the way back, we took Fawn Lake and Big Brook back up to Perkins Clearing. It was a lot bumpier the second time around, but the steering was much easier. All of Perkins Clearing was groomed today, so it was a really nice ride over the top through Old Military Road, back down Perkins Clearing Road.
The Southern Perkins Bypass trail had been groomed and it was one of the better rides I’ve had through there. C4/LP3 down into Speculator had been groomed, but the day’s traffic made that lumpy in spots.
Back to Indian Lake…
We dropped off Darrin Jr’s rental sled with 139 miles for the day. He was happy to have the nice warm car ride home while I had to bang through a groomed and outstanding ride through the 2 Miles of Hell. 😉
Seriously, if I’ve seen this trail any better, I can’t recall. As good as it was this morning, it was even better on the way home!
When I rolled back into town, C8/Sabael was in great shape aside from a minor water hazard. I got back into town with 198 miles of the day, so I victory-lapped it to make the mega-miler official. Perhaps it wasn’t really 204 miles with all of the track spin through the powder chowder. But that’s what the odometer said and I’m sticking to my story.
42nd and Broadway and Little Canada were terrific. But you can’t top what I found on the Ski Hut trail:
Incredible, eh?
Bottom line
One of the best days I had on a snowmobile and I got to share it with Darrin Jr! A lot of the riding we did through the powder was stuff you’d see in a western skiing magazine. I was actually hoping we could smash the Perkins pow-pow before the groomers would come out to “ruin it.” Now, you know I’m just joking about that. Always happy to see the groomers out there. But powder riding like that doesn’t come every day around here. 😉
Don’t get me wrong: Indian Lake has great snow now, the best we’ve seen all season. But Speculator’s snow is almost in another country code. Whereas Indian Lake has picked up nearly a foot-and-a-half of new snow in the past week, Speculator has picked up nearly 3 feet!
Weekend Outlook
I can tell you one thing for sure: This powdery snow will make it difficult to keep the trails flat. After the groomer goes by, a couple dozen sleds going by will churn it back up. So, get here early to take advantage of the best riding, then roll the dice on Saturday afternoon and find your favorite less-trafficed places.
One more thing: People are asking me WHERE to ride and if the trails will hold up for NEXT weekend. Ummm….. Just get up here and ride! There’s more winter behind us than ahead of us now. And to boot, we’ll get another dose of fresh snow Friday night. Precip this weekend will be a mixture of wet snow and rain at times.
Now…get here and RIDE!!
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin and Son
By the way, Darrin Jr. is actually 3 inches taller than I am. He’s sitting on the sled and I’m standing. He can also throw me like a rag-doll.
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.
