It really sucked to be without my snowmobile for the past two weeks, which may end up being the best riding conditions of this winter. But I’m thankful the problems with the track suspension that landed my sled in the shop didn’t leave me stranded out in the woods somewhere. I guess the cumulative wear and tear of 12K miles and smacking into rocks earlier this season were more than the old girl could handle.
Crazy Cal and I hooked up the ilsnow mobile command unit and headed to Village Motorsports in Speculator to pick up my sled late Sunday morning. They were so busy with rentals, I was told to take my snowmobile from the lot and settle up later – as long as I didn’t upgrade by taking someone else’s sled.
We unloaded at the Speculator ball field parking lot. As soon as I started rolling around in the lot, the grey funk that hung over my head the past couple of weeks instantly vanished. The track was rolling under the tunnel flawlessly – like new!
We headed down LP4A and C4B/Gilmantown trail down to Wells. Plenty of weekend chatter bumps through that avenue. But for a Sunday, it was about as good as we could hope for. It was certainly awesome to be outside in the bright, late-winter sun:
S42 getting down to Lake Algonquin was a decent ride with some bumps. S44 down to the Sacandaga Campsites was a beautiful ride and hanging out at the bridge never gets old:
Pressed down S44 to Pumpkin Hollow Road and found a nearly perfectly groomed shelved snowbank. So we continued on and found S43 which was goat-path heaven. Literally single sled-width riding. So glad we didn’t encounter oncoming traffic:
Hung S47 back to Wells. The roads had enough packed snow on them to get by. But we missed the trail off Buttermilk Hill Road and rode the road all the way down into town, then fumbled a short distance to the gas station to make it down to Lake Algonquin. The whole thing did make for a nice loop that we weren’t originally planning to do.
We doubled back to Speculator the way we came, then made the run over to Oxbow Inn for late lunch.
The lake crossings were FAAAAAAAAST on the drag strips. So nice not to deal with large swaths of slush and nasty frozen ruts.
LP1/Page Street trail was being groomed. C4/Fish Mountain-Oxbow Trail had typical weekend bumps west of the cemetery, but was manageable.
Lunch at the Oxbow Inn was great!
Even left room for dessert:
Then we ran C8/Spy Lake trail which was quite honestly the very best you could hope for on a Sunday afternoon.
Powley Road was absolutely awesome riding. The S88 pathway up to Piseco Lodge was good riding with just a few small areas of bumps. The new trail over to Piseco Lake was bumpy, but hardly enough to ruin the day.
And Piseco Lake? That might have been the best ride I’ve EVER HAD on that lake. Fast and flat all the way down the drag strip. How could you not love this?
C8 from Piseco Lake back to Oxbow Lake was good riding – as good as you could hope for from a weekend.
Once we ran back over to Sacandaga Lake, we ran C4/Fawn Lake and C4/C8 Big Brook trail up into Perkins Clearing – as good as you could possibly hope for at the tail end of a weekend.
Ran Carpenter Hill Road and Mud Lake Road over to Perkins Clearing Road and then C4 down into Speculator Village. Some bumps here and there, especially into the village. But considering it was a weekend – nothing to complain about at all.
Cal didn’t want be left short of 100 miles before calling it a day, so we ran back onto Lake Pleasant a bit and got back to the truck with 100.1 miles just as it was getting dark.
Midweek Outlook…
All things considering, this ride was exactly what I needed. Never thought I’d have to wait until the tail end of February to get in a meaningful ride with Cal or have lunch at the Oxbow Inn. But I take what I get, when I can get it.
Can’t make up for lost time but I can try to make the best of what the Back 9 of Winter has for us. We’ll get a fresh infusion of snow on Monday before day time temperatures edge above 32*F mid-week. At this point, I don’t see a game-wrecking rain or thaw. So you should be good to go for riding here, especially as the groomers make their rounds.
I know I’ll be riding EVERY… CHANCE… I… GET this week for sure.
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
This report is brought to you by Progressive Motorsports, celebrating their 28th 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.
