Our two-and-a-half feet bounty from Pi Day 2023 Storm has been whittled away, but remnant snow pack remains deep for early spring.
Southern exposed areas are getting bare, with snow cover receding from highways, buildings and parking lots. Elsewhere, snowpack Friday morning ranged from several inches in thin areas to 1-2 feet in the woods. Traditional snow bowls into the higher elevations of watersheds still hold over 2 feet of ripe snowpack.
Weekend outlook
Based on what I encountered Wednesday and that we only got 0.20 to 0.30 inch of rain on Thursday, I can’t say it would be wholly unrideable here. In fact, we’ll be one of the few legitimate snowmobile riding options in New York state as other trail systems are closing for the winter and dropping like flies.
Obviously, your best options are seasonal road snowmobile trails such as Perkins Clearing, Newcomb/Old 538 trail, Powley Road and Speculator Tree Farm. If you try Moose River Plains, you’ll probably won’t make it into Inlet, but you can spin into Big-T and Red River-T dead enders to pad riding miles in there.
Many narrow woods trails are likely to remain passable, but with spring snowmobiling conditions – including bald spots and areas where water is eating away from the trail from the sides and underneath. Anything along, near or crossing roads/highways will be skanky or bare.
Some good news
Temperatures dropping into the teens Friday night should tighten things up nicely. Weather system moving through Saturday into Sunday morning should drop enough wet snow & slops to keep slides and heat-exchangers happy for those who want one more roll of the track before calling it quits until next winter.
Guess I’d call it diehard-plus.
One more thing
Finally was able to get my webcams up and running again. I’m really glad to get that monkey off my back. I know the cams were sorely missed the past couple of weeks.
Getting close to last call for ilsnow land! Ride now, really soon or next winter.
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
This report is brought to you by Charlie Johns Store and Speculator Department Store. Two great stores, One Great Snow Town! Groceries, deli/hot foods, hardware, gifts and more. They have it all.
