11AM Friday (2/24/23) breaking update! Town of Indian Lake is out grooming. S85/Ski Hut, S86/Main drag into town freshly groomed. Saw groomer crossing the highway by Mountain Fitness gym, heading out. Looks like I’m gonna bang out a local ride today for more recon. 
On the Sparkle City front, DRAG of Speculator is grooming their trails. River trail remains closed, so use the Business Access Trail (BAT) from the Ballfield parking lot.
Groomers are out trying to make chicken salad out of chicken scratch. Don’t expect perfect, you’ll find some good, meh and bad. Seasonal roads and probably lakes (at your own risk, of course) are your best bets for smooth riding. But you won’t be completely limited to them either.
2/23/22 Report
Wow… It’s been a long time since I’ve shouted that from the rooftops.
As of Thursday morning, I’ve picked up 7 inches of white gold at the ilsnow storm center in Indian Lake. Trained weather spotter in Inlet reported 8 inches. Southern Adirondacks experienced very dense snow/sleet with 4 inches reported in Piseco and 5 inches reported from Oak Mountain in Speculator.
We’ll never make up for lost time, because a day of snowmobiling lost is lost forever. But we’re back from the dead, with opportunity to score more snow events and salvage some riding into early March.
With how this winter has shaken down, I’ll gladly take that!
There are a number of people disappointed because their weather app was showing over a foot of snow projected from this storm from days ago. I’m just happy we got snow and didn’t get to 50*F again.
Do yourself a favor: Take those 10-day snowfall forecasts with a grain of salt or ignore them altogether. I pay no attention to them…
Lay of the land
Snow cover ranges from as little as several inches in the exposed/thin areas to scattered 12-18 inch pack in the shady woods.
Seasonal roads such as Powley Road, Perkins Clearing, Moose River Plains, Newcomb Trail and Speculator Tree Farm are re-opened for business!
Narrow woods trails will be clinically rideable. But low snow conditions pretty much guarantee rocks and water/mud holes. Grooming on these trails will likely be done on a limited case-by-case basis by clubs and municipalities. Basically “at your risk” riding until we get another dump of snow.
Despite our snow drought, we never had a gully-washing 2 or 3 inch rainfall to blow everything open. I won’t call that a small victory. But it did minimize the hurt and give us the chance to live for another day. That could really help us into the Back-9 of Winter if we capitalize on snow chances.
A word on lakes: If you choose to risk riding on lakes, make sure to stay far, far away from inlets/outlets. Ice thickness is little better than half of what it typically should be by late winter. If you have doubts, always better to stay off. I’m trusting that we’ll be adults in assessing the risk, so that I won’t have to read about your sled (or mine) sinking to the bottom of the lake in the Hamilton County Express.
Bottom line
If you’re looking for perfect, look waaay up into Canada/northern Maine or play out west on a paddletrack. Otherwise, you’ll need to discern whether what we have here now is good enough for you to try this weekend.
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
This report is brought to you by Pine’s Country Store. Their motto says it all: “A little bit of everything…” Conveniently located in downtown Indian Lake, NY at the corner of Routes 28 & 30 and proud home of the Pine’s Cam.
