It was just WAY too nice of a day not to ride around locally. I knew the trails would be passable and I did see a handful of snowmobiles swirl around town.
After work, I fired up the 4TEC and got into the game one more time.
As I figured, the inner Indian Lake arteries still had mostly good snow coverage in the woods, even though it was slushy in many spots and skunky on the tight corners:
Crow Hill Road shelf was still there, but won’t be for long:
And the main trail (S86) heading toward Indian Lake Restaurant and Stewarts was getting baked down to dirt by Crow Hill Road:
But, you had good riding in places like S86/Little Canada out by Lone Birch, which I used and abused:
And, S87/42nd and Broadway was spectacular by Cedar River:
Adirondack Lake was incredibly fast and flat with enough slushy slime on top to slosh over the slides and heat exchangers. I was LOVIN’ IT!!
After I thrashed Adirondack Lake for all I could take and enjoying the great scenery, I decided to make a run over to Indian Lake to chase the endorphin cascade.
C8/Sabael trail was absolutely ball-bashing brutal with nearly non-stop studders and low rollers. So, I just stood up and surfed the bumps through there. It was entirely passable, but the trail is starting to fall apart in the usual places:
Furnell’s Field was holding up better than I had expected, but the bare streaks are showing:
Got down onto Indian Lake, and it did not disappoint! I wound my way around and over the islands on the east side of the lake. It looked like I was traversing a lunar landscape:
Ended down onto Johnny Mack Bay and ran up on shore for this little slice of Adirondack heaven looking at Snowy Mountain:
After that, I made my way down to the boat launch and mashed my way through the brutally rough campsites to rip across Lewey Lake.
For giggles, I ran C8/Two Miles from Hell for about a quarter-mile. It has a couple of skanky corners and was bumpy – but it wasn’t as bad as I would have expected. If the north end of Perkins Clearing Road was open, I might have went for a Perkins Clearing – Upper Speculator Tree Farm glory figure-eight. But I didn’t want to bash my way through S82C/Old Indian Lake Road and I was enjoying riding on Indian Lake way too much to give that up so I headed back.
Off the drag strip, the east side of Indian Lake was smooth as glass and scary fast! How fast? Well, I’ll just say that I was cranking along at the speed of a major-league plus fastball with a quarter throttle to spare. WHAT A RUSH!!
After I had my fill of that thrill, I meandered around Indian Lake some more and found Shawn and Cindy Morrow with their catch of the day:
After I shot the breeze with them for a bit, I meandered down the east side of Indian Lake back down to Johnny Mack Bay, thence ripped back up Indian Lake to make the run back to the compound.
Rolled back in with 56 miles clicked and a mega-watt smile that could keep my hometown lit up during the next power outage.
Yeah, this winter won’t go down as an all-time great. But this ride was better than the best day that #summersucks could ever hope to give me. Don’t tell me to get a motorcycle, ATV, jet-ski or a boat. I’ve been around the block a while, and if they could give me half the fun I’d have on a snowmobile, I’d have one by now! 😉
Outlook
We’re not past the point of no return yet, but this week will push the plunger on rocketing us into die-hard season. Pretty soon, I’ll have to trailer to Perkins Clearing or Lake Durant to hit the Newcomb trail to get in my kicks. I did throw fuel stabilizer into the tank before the ride, just in case I don’t get back out there again. But you know I’ll try get in one last kick before fading into black…
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
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