Then There Was Four (Snowmobiles)
Posted on March 31, 2008
We’ve managed to make it up north for three absolutely gorgeous weekends. This weekend was no exception. We went riding on Saturday and the sky was an incredibly clear blue without a cloud in sight. We took a ride up Little Blue Mountain and again the view was better than the last time. White Face Mountain was perfectly visible as well as some other mountains in the same range and beyond.
After a quick snack we headed off to Sevey’s Corner and beyond. Once we crossed route 3 the trails were even better. Freshly groomed with few sleds having been down them. Everything was going great until we were waiting for my uncle Wes and a few other sleds came by and told us we had a broken down sled. We went back a few miles and it wasn’t good. The supports holding his suspension up broke and his snowmobile was literally sitting on the ground. We towed it back to route 3 and my cousin Donald headed back to the truck while Uncle Jerry, Dad and I headed out to finish the days ride. Only four of the five sleds we ran with this season made it out alive.
Looking back this year we’ve had a fantastic season. We put on over 520 miles in three weekends. All the riding we did was on perfect trails. I’ve never seen better snow conditions than the past two weekends and the days we went out the sky was so blue it was amazing.
Snowmobile Tickets and Skylines
Posted on March 23, 2008
Today was bright and sunny too. They sky was so clear we had to go up Little Blue Mountain again. We did and there were actually other people at the top! Some guys were fiddling with a broken down 2007 Yamaha and I had to snicker. Give me a Polaris any day. Mine is a 2006 but my parents have a 1979, 1995 and 1997 which are all still running solid and they’ve never had to do much to any of them.
From the top of Little Blue we could see White Face Mountain crystal clear almost 70 miles away. The picture doesn’t come close to doing it justice but it’s the best I could do. Just the shear vastness of the space you can see up in the mountains like this is always impressive. I created the panorama to demonstrate.
We had our snacks on Little Blue and then headed down for some scenic riding. Along one of the main trails we hit a snowmobile traffic stop. Yes, on easter sunday the cops have nothing better to do than look for snowmobilers riding without insurance and with expired registrations. We were all valid and were just about to go when the cop noticed my insurance paper had expired a few weeks earlier. Great. I explained to him that it definately is still covered I just had forgotton to grab the new paperwork. “We have no way to tell” he said as he issued me a ticket. Awesome, now I have to deal with getting that dropped when I get home. This crap irritates me for lots of reasons but I’m not going to complain about it here.
After getting delayed by the traffic cops we headed on to horseshoe lake. The trail had been cleaned up since we were there a few days ago and it was a much better ride. It’s a good thing because I was tired of bouncing up and down on moguls.
The sun was a lot warmer today. It was just warm enough to melt some of the snow on the south side of the hills. The air was still cold however; that when the water ran down and started to drip it would freeze instantly creating some very neat ice formations.
Little Blue and Horseshoe
Posted on March 21, 2008
After the battle of the skags and a great hearty breakfast by my aunt Pauline we headed out for the day at about 11am. We got lucky lucky with fresh groomed trails and absolutely beautiful snowmobiling conditions. First stop for the day was Little Blue Mountain which is a short mile or so jaunt up a steep non groomed trail filled with switchbacks. The Scenery was stunningly beautiful from the top. It was such a clear day we could see all the way to White Face Mountain and Big Tupper’s Ski trails.
For our next stop we headed on to the most southern point in the St Lawrence County Snowmobile trail system, Horseshoe Lake. The last 5-10 miles of the trail to Horseshoe is on state land and the 4 big storms from this year have put their toll on the trail. Unfortunately because it’s on the ‘forever wild’ state land the trees criss crossing the trail can’t be cut until approval is given from the state. This made for a rough few miles getting to Horseshoe but the view is always worth it. The Lake is still frozen and a few people have ventured out on it. We were not among them. We had a quick snack in the blistering cold wind and then headed for home.
Overall we had a great ride today. We covered approximately 100 miles and met about 15 sleds. That’s what its always like up here. Beautiful and practically void of people.