Despite the Blizzard Warning remaining in effect Friday morning, apparently for flurries and some blowing snow on the lakes, I took the calculated risk to go for a long ride.
The State highway crews had worked well into the night, repeatedly plowing bare roads so they would be passable for the morning commute.
The ride started on a great note with a fresh groom leaving the compound:
C8/Sabael trail hadn’t been groomed yet, but was still a pretty good ride out. Indian Lake and Lewey Lake were windswept crossings with snow dunes, but I didn’t encounter any real slush. Campsites were bumpy as s#it.
C8/Two Miles From Hell was a pretty good ride from bottom to top. Couldn’t complain much about this:
But, S82C/Old Indian Lake Road was a bump-and-grind all the way through. Fortunately, it would turn out to be the worst riding I had today.
Perkins Clearing Road hadn’t been groomed, so I dealt with some studders.
C4 down into Speculator was actually a highly decent ride, with just a few rollers here and there. But Melody Lodge down to Oak Mountain was a snirt trail down the southerly hillside.
River trail over to the Ballfield Parking Lot was a pretty good rip. I spied over a dozen trucks/trailers in the lot.
Lake Pleasant ended up being the roughest lake crossing I had today with some exposed areas of frozen slush.
LP1/Page Street trail was freshly groomed for a great ride. C’mon, does Page Street trail get much better than this?
Sacandaga Lake was a windswept crossing with a few areas of exposed frozen slush.
C4/Fish Mountain – Oxbow trail was freshly groomed for a nice ride up to the cemetery. Then there were some bumps and thin-snirty spots enroute to Oxbow, but nothing terrible.
Oxbow Lake was a blast to cross. C8 connecting over to Piseco Lake was actually pretty good, despite not having been groomed by Friday AM.
The morning crossing of Piseco Lake was relatively uneventful with half-way decent visibility. East end had snow dunes. West end had a nice drag strip.
Went to take a look at Evergreen Lake and did not like how the Panther Mountain Stream was looking – nothing better than slush ice on it. Plus, nobody had ridden on Evergreen since the new snow.
So I doubled back to Piseco Lodge and took C4/Sheriff Lake trail to get into Morehouse. It hadn’t been groomed yet, but was still a nice ride through that rabbit trail. Lots of low hanging branches banging on my helmet had my ears ringing by the time I dropped down to the Route 8 crossing.
C4 through Morehouse ranged from smooth to small studders until I encountered a fresh groom past the Rec Building for a really nice ride to the Ohio town line. Got my bell rung quite a few times through there too.
I had been deliberating whether to run Jones Road or try S46/C4H. Well, Jones Road won in a landslide with this fresh groom. I was the first tracks on this awesome sauce!
Believe me, that run was even better than it looked in the picture. What a RUSH!
Continued on C4 where the groomer had laid down a great snowbank trail along the side of the road. C4B was a splendid run down to the Ohio Tavern.
You can’t go wrong with any of their burgers. I tried the Texas burger because I heard someone from a neighboring table order one. Trust me, it was every bit as good as it looked – or even better!
Really, how can a burger with BBQ sauce, bacon and a side of sweet potato fries disappoint? 😉
Whilst I was eating lunch, I asked another neighboring table about trail conditions (ALWAYS collecting intel!). “Chuck and Jim” recognized me and wanted to say HI to the ilsnow nation. They had ridden from Speculator to Salibury over to Ohio and wanted to do the loop back up through Morehouse. So I shared my intel and advised them to bypass Evergreen. By the time I was ready to ride again, a large number of snowmobiliers had showed up at the Ohio Tavern.
After lunch, I elected to run the counterclockwise “Ohio loop” via C4B over to Grant, thence C4 down from Hinkley State Forest and C4G back up to complete the loop. In general, the east part of the loop was groomed for excellent riding. The west part of the loop hadn’t been groomed, but was still a pretty good ride – there were some fallen trees that needed to be removed in places. There was enough snow along side of the paved roads to slither through those sections. I only found one short stretch of choppy riding though a narrow wooded trail.
Going back home
I went back the way I came, because I knew that would be good and don’t usually get to ride it more than a few times each winter. Hit another fresh groom at the Morehouse Rec building and rode a cloud on C4 all the way back to the Arietta town line. Many of the low branches had their snow knocked off, so I didn’t get my bell rung anywhere near as much.
Encountered a snow-squall on Piseco Lake – about the last thing I wanted. So I guided myself by keeping the faintly visible north shore of Piseco Lake to my 10 o’clock all the way down the lake. Only missed the trail on the east end by about 100 yards to the left. Not bad for flying nearly blind down a lake I’m not that familiar with. 😉
Oxbow Lake was an uneventful crossing. C8/Fish Mountain – Oxbow trail was fairly beaten and bumpy from the day’s traffic.
Sagandaga Lake was another low-visibility crossing. I had gotten a bit disoriented and headed toward the wrong bay. After I turned around, I spotted a pack of 4 snowmobiles heading toward Moffitt Beach, so I plotted an intercept course and followed them across.
I had thought about doing a big figure 8 through Speculator Tree Farm and Perkins Clearing to pad the miles. But it was already 5PM when I had gotten to Speculator and I didn’t want to have a repeat of my Piseco Lake experience on Indian Lake in the pitch black.
C4 from Speculator up to Perkins Clearing had been groomed today and was hands down the best ride I had through that avenue all winter!
Perkins Clearing Road had been groomed to flatten the studderbumps for a nice rip through there. S82C/Old Indian Lake Road had been groomed and was a far better ride to Mason Lake than it was in the morning. C8/Two Miles from Hell had some bumps from the day’s traffic but was still a pretty decent ride back up to Lewey Lake.
Lewey Lake and Indian Lake were wind swept crossings but I was able to get off those lakes before dark.
Home base
C8/Sabael trail and the Indian Lake main artery trails were studdery in places from the day’s traffic. I gripped-and-ripped through the victory loop and was sure to thrash S86/Little Canada thrice so I could roll back into the compound with 180 miles for the trip. Adirondack Lake was almost scary FAST!
Whilst I was refueling my sled at Stewart’s to have it ready for the next ride, as per ilsnow.com standard protocol, a group of riders who were heading toward Speculator recognized me. I chatted with them a bit and shared my intel from today’s ride.
And here’s a picture of S85/Ski Hut trail, which is usually a fun rip:
Bottom line
Assuming the groomers are swirling around Saturday morning, I’d say you’re good to go from almost any location you decide to ride here in ilsnow land. Early bird gets the worm on the good stuff – thence you roll the dice for the afternoon. That’s just how it goes.
Get up and grab it, because we’re entering the Back 9 of Winter. Weather is looking dodgy for next week. Pray for limited damage and a fresher upper of snow before the next weekend.
Just a hunch, but I think I’ve still got hundreds upon hundreds of miles left to spin off in March. 😉
It has become a “good” bad winter. 🙂 Certainly have had worse!
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
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