With an unexpected day off Monday and a beautiful March day underway, I wanted to get a ride in.
Usually I don’t bother riding Mondays because the trails are thrashed from the weekend. So, I didn’t start first thing…but waited until mid-late morning to give the groomers a head start.
I know that Newcomb trail on the Indian Lake side and Moose River Plains from Cedar River HQ to Silver Run got horribly rough over the weekend. So I didn’t want to head off in those directions.
Wanted to maximize easy miles, which meant making the run down to Perkins Clearing via the lakes. With the past two morning starting sub-zero, I figured the shoreline ice had buttoned up to the point where I felt “safe” about getting onto the lakes.
Heading out
Once I left the compound, I found fresh groomer marks all around town and saw them headed down C8/Sabael trail. Indeed, the first 2+ miles of the Sabael trail was good to great riding. But the next mile or so was bumpy and rough through the swampy sections that the Town crew obviously doesn’t want to risk damaging their grooming equipment on. However, the hazards were passable by snowmobile if taken with extra care. Furnell’s Field had thin snow cover but good enough to make it across.
Pathway from Route 30 down to the lake was passable, but starting to get bald at the bottom. Beside a bit of rough frozen slush near the shore, Indian Lake was an absolute rush all the way down on the drag strip from end to end.
I could have easily done over 100 mph if I wanted it. But that’s not my game. I had plenty of fun cruising down the lake under an absolutely beautiful cloud-free sky!
At the south end of the lake, I had to cheat left to avoid the open water/thin ice from the river cutting in front of the boat launch.
The campsites were the usual washboard-snowcross mogul hell. Lewey Lake was another fast zip from end to end.
2 Mile from Hell was freshly groomed. Aside from several thin spots and one mud hole at the lower end, it was an amazingly good ride all the way through! On a Monday morning, no less… WOW!
Perkins Clearing and beyond
The Lake Pleasant groomers were out working their magic in Perkins Clearing. Here is a sample of what I saw as I worked my way to the back side:
Took C4/C8 down through Big Brook trail which was freshly groomed and a pretty good ride all the way down to HM7/Outhouse intersection, aside from some thin spots on the southerly exposures and one frozen mud hole.
I continued down C4/C8 through Willis Mountain trail about a mile for a look-see. It was fairly lumpy and bumpy, but was entirely passable. Didn’t want to waste much more valuable riding time on that trail so I doubled back to the Outhouse.
Then I followed the fresh groomer tracks on C4/Fawn Lake trail, most of which was very good riding. Even after I overcame the groomer, it was still a decent ride.
Fish Mountain-Oxbow Trail
I zipped across Sacandaga Lake to take a look-see of the Fish Mountain trail to see whether it had been reopened. It was fairly bumpy and rough all the way to the cemetery with one significant water/rock hazard just past the pits.
Shortly after the cemetery, the trail was closed and blocked off:
On to Speculator
After back tracking to Sacandaga Lake, I headed toward Speculator. LP1/Page Street trail hadn’t been groomed yet, but wasn’t terrible. From Route 8 down through the trailer park was getting bare in spots. Lake Pleasant was a very speedy crossing.
Crossed the highway in the village. River trail had some studder-roller chatter, but wasn’t the worst I’ve seen it. Most important, I didn’t encounter any significant water/muddy hazards.
C4/heading out to the Tree Farm was in pretty good shape once I got away from the river. Only a couple of dirt spots along the way.
Down the Tree Farm
C4/Cave Hill Road was hands-down, by far, the best ride I’ve had on it all winter.
Old Route 30 was like riding in Canada. It was simply incredible!
Attempt at Griffin Gorge
Continued on C4 down toward Griffin Gorge. It started bumpy with a few washout spots, but decent enough to keep going. I took the upper left fork and quickly got to this:
I’m adventurous, but not THAT adventurous. So I doubled back and took the right fork. After a couple of decent washout crossings, I gave up on that too. That trail probably would have at least a dozen more washouts in store for me. So I doubled back to Old Route 30.
Attempt at Wells
I decided to take a run down S42 just for the heck of it so see if I could make it down to Wells. The strong March sun was killing the roadside exposures but I did make it through to the deep gorge, which was still pretty good riding with abundant snow cover.
Made it about a mile south of the Route 8 & 30 intersection when I saw this and finally gave up on getting any further south:
On the way back up hill, bowling through the skank got the ole girl hot under the collar and the overheat lamp tripped on before I got back into the gorge. So I stopped the 4-TEC and opened her up for full cool down mode:
At the same time, I traded my under-fleece and mittens for a tee-shirt and gloves because I was getting hot in the March sun too! In all reality, I should have given up on that trail when it rejoined Route 30 at the bottom of the gorge. But I wanted to see how far I could go before I ran out of snow.
Wasn’t terribly disappointed about not making it all the way down to Wells, because I wasn’t in much of a mood to wrestle the C4B/Gilmantown trail back up to Speculator anyway. Especially after my awesome ride on Old Route 30.
Back to Speculator for lunch
Ran back up to the Speculator Tree Farm. I was sure to rip Old Route 30 back and forth a couple times, because you don’t find riding like THAT every day around here. 🙂
It looked like DRAG of Speculator had detonated a cold fusion device on the village trails (away from the river) because most of the weekend bumps were nuked flat as a board, the best I’ve seen it all winter.
Lunch at the Mountain Market was its usual good fare:
Back up to Perkins Clearing
The short spur of C4 over to Charlie Johns needed a pass with the groomer, but wasn’t bad. Took LP3/C4 out of Speculator, which was generally a good ride, save for a few thin/bald spots.
Took S41C/Hatchery Brook trail to Wolf Hill Road/Whittaker Lake trail, which was freshly groomed and amazing riding. But the parking lot on Route 30 was absolutely painful because it’s being used as a staging area for logging operations. Trail section from Route 30 back to Perkins Clearing Road had a few thin/bald spots, but was otherwise good.
LP9 and Carpenter Hill Road were great riding. I stopped at my favorite place on LP9 to soak in the sun for a bit:
Looped around Perkins Clearing clockwise to intersection HM6 and made my way back home to Indian Lake.
Victory Lap
Indian Lake village trails were in good riding shape when I got back to town late afternoon. The sun-baked sections were starting to show some baldness, but trail base remained solid for the most part.
The back side of Benton Road held enough snow/ice coverage to bang out the victory loop through S87/42nd and Broadway:
Adirondack Lake was a tad rough in spots with frozen slush. Sawmill Road was a bit painful to get by. S86/Little Canada was great, especially on the Lone Birch side of things.
Stopped at Crazy Cal’s house to see if I could get him to ride a bit after work. He got home a bit late, so I ate the dinner that Annie had made for him. But I did leave a fried-chicken drumstick. Cal really needs to do a better job of picking his friends. 😉
Cal and I had to make the same meeting at 7pm. Cal took his truck, but somehow I still beat him there by sled. All in a day’s ride, right?
After the meeting, I did a S87/42nd and Broadway night run before calling it a day after 135 miles.
Bottom line
This turned out to be better ride than I was hoping for! Groomers were out in force, for sure.
I saw groomer marks on C8/toward Cedar River Headquarters and S84/toward Blue Mountain Lake, so I’m assuming those are good. Not sure how Moose River Plains (Headquarters to Silver Run) and Newcomb trail (to Essex County Line) are. But I do know they needed some heavy duty grooming after the weekend.
Midweek Outlook
Snow pack is a foot or less in the exposed areas with bald areas starting to return, but ranges upwards to 18-30 inches “in the woods.” So you’ll have terrific late-season riding away from the roads as groomers continue to make their rounds around the trails.
If you’re able to break away from work to do a mid-week run, I think you’ll come away quite happy that you did! And you’ll pretty much have it to yourself…
As for lakes, I’m pretty conservative when it comes to riding them. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether you venture out on the lakes.
Come and get it! Time is ticking away on our snowmobiling season…
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
This report is brought to you by Steet Ponte Auto Group. Many of the vehicles here in Indian Lake are bought from the Steet Ponte. Co-owner Joe Steet is a huge fan and booster of ilsnow.com. If you’re looking for a new truck, give Steet Ponte a good look.
