BigSnowPage.com

6PM

It is a little early to drop the gavel, but I think we might have dodged a bullet today. It was sunny out, but it was also in the mid-20s. There was not a lot of visible melting around the yard, though there had to be some sun erosion on sunny hills and such. From here it doesn’t look like we lost much. Yesterday’s tracks are still in puffy snow, the roof isn’t dripping, and it is cold out. Unless tomorrow gets really out of hand, we should be golden for the weekend.

Looking at the info, tomorrow has a chance of being not as bad as it sounds too. The cloud cover is only about 20-30 miles off of the west shore of Lake Michigan and moving this way. Hopefully that stifles tomorrow’s sun before it has a chance to get carried away. At the least we should have high clouds filtering it a little like we had today. SuperTomorrowView9000000-X shows full clouds by late afternoon Friday, and light snow or flurries by midnight. The half inch to inch of snow Saturday sounds festive too.

Today was a work day, so I that I can tell you so far is what I see off of the front step. It was a very full and productive day, but I haven’t left the house, let alone go ride my new toy. I have very different plans for tomorrow.

The weekend forecast is a good one, cloudy and light snow or snow showers with highs in the low to mid-30s. If all of these forecasts hold together, it should be a good weekend.

Specifics..

The new snow benefited from about Caldron Falls Flowage and points west. There we saw 2-4. Trails should be improved toward Lakewood, Crooked Lake, Mountain, and up 32 into Forest County. We did not lose much to melting this week, the trails should be like last weekend with varying amounts of new snow. That should continue to bring good conditions to the north and west as well as the areas that saw snow. Iron snowshoe still has some trails closed east of Parkway and south of C.

Happy trails and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Noon Report

Greetings and welcome!

We have a sunny day outside today. Happily it has only gotten to 26 so far.

According to the latest from the NWS and the TV, things are going our way a little. They now have the clouds and light snow chances moved up to Friday night. The TV actually shows snow moving overnight and a chance of some (light) new stuff on the ground for Saturday morning. Now if we can just move it up to Friday morning, or better yet, Thursday noon…

Today is a work day, but I am going to try to get out for a ride a little before sunset. I haven’t decided on heading north vs heading toward Lakewood or Crooked Lake yet, but those are the leading choices at the moment.

Last Friday I was depressed about the melting snow and the fading season, and I did one of my favorite things. I went for a ride in the woods in the truck. It was very therapeutic. Along the way I shot a few pictures of recently opening spring creeks along the road..

Thanks Randy.

I forgot to put it in a subsequent post, but the water slide video was real? fake? It was a very well done fake. They used 3d and compositing to have the impossible look like it was done. They came out with the truth so that folks at home wouldn’t get any ideas.

One last item, Dan from Chute Pond left a comment and verified that they had 3-4″ too. As Monty Burns would say.. Excellent…

Overnight Report

Last Call?

Greetings and welcome!

I almost have to think that this weekend is last call for most people for trails in these parts. Mostly I base that on my look at the GFS for next week, which looks like sun, sun, and more sun. The sun is getting hot to the point that it did burn 2-3″ off of the sunniest hillsides in only a matter of a few hours of full sun yesterday. Most places fared fine, but plowed roads, road shoulders and the sunniest of spots saw sunburn. If next week brings a week of mostly sunny days and temps in the mid-30s or higher, the following weekend will probably be a non-starter, at least around here.

There is still a very nice storm for that weekend, about 3-7, but at the moment the GFS has it coming in Sunday night which won’t help most of you.

In addition to the sun, our normal high temp is climbing past freezing. In Rhinelander yesterday the normal high is 31. When I look at the variability of the area’s climate, I see swings of +/- 10ºF as normal and very likely, and swings up to +/-20 within normal variability. Add that to a normal high in the low or  mid-30s, and you will understand my concern.

Along that same line the forecast for the next 2-3 days has me a little nervous mostly because of the sun. Today’s predicted high of 27 & partly cloudy is bad enough, but when the NWS starts with the mid-30s and partly cloudy Friday and Saturday I am a little nervous. There is nothing worse than reporting good trails mid-week and watching them melt Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

There is still a chance that the big low out east could move west a little and not only cloud us up, but bring light snow for the weekend. The NWS is showing that for Sunday, but today, Friday and Saturday still in the partly cloudy category. The GFS is a little better for Saturday, but Friday is up for grabs.

Zooming back to the present day…My travels yesterday showed me that the snow was very area specific. Even a few miles east of here totals drop dramatically.

C & I in Silver Cliff

Athelstane had less than an inch new. It got to be a little more at the Silver Cliff line and west. West of about Rapids Resort seemed to have 3+ or better, at least as far as the county line. I haven’t been west of there or north yet. The radar showed the snow hitting nicely from Carter south probably well past Mountain, and they probably saw a nice boost of fresh stuff.

Yesterday’s test ride was a blast. Ol #2 gave me a lot of grief in the shop, and needed every imaginable service, and yesterday was my turn. My ride took me down Landing 11, across to Chickadee and to where Chickadee meets C and back. They clearly had some good snow that way. The bad trail between the two roads had been panned by the Iron Snows, and was glorious compared to what that stretch looked like a few days ago. There was no dirt, a couple of puddles, an icy base, and otherwise good trails. Chickadee was a riot as always, and had plenty of new snow, at least 3-4″. I didn’t have the camera for that because it was a 10 minute test ride in shop clothes that was so fun that it went 30 miles.

RXL #2 is my new dirty girl. There has to be a mod chip in there or something. It has a non-Polaris no name EFI box, and is really snappy. It is head and shoulders faster than my other one with a fresh rebuild on the engine. Just wow, what a little snot for an old sled.  Even the neighbor came back grinning from his test run. The suspension is softer and was a nice ride. Add a high windshield, and I am one happy fat guy. Hey did someone mention a sundae bar? (stomach growls..)

As always, Chris did a better job of collecting events for this weekend than i did. We have some good ones..

At the moment my advice would be to ride as soon after the snow as possible. There will be nice trails. Areas that did not see much snow should look a lot like they did last weekend. What the next two or three days will work out to be is the question now.

Have a good Thurssday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

2:30- Ok, so I’m happier than a fat guy at a build your own sundae bar right about now. Not only does RXL #2 live, it runs great. I think the last guy might have put a performance chip in it. Oh the pain. You have heard about RXL #2 ad nauseum, now it is time to meet her.

That is exciting, but it gets better. It seems that my front porch is a bad place to do snow measurements.` When I got out into the yard a little it was easilly 3″, maybe pushing 4″ in some spots. Note the ski tracks in the picture. Three miles east there is an inch less.

Well, I am off to put the air box on, go get some gas, and take a longer test ride.

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Noon- It did cloud up about 11am, great news. No more snow has fallen yet.

10am-The snow added up to almost 2″”, but the sun came out this morning and has started to do it’s thing. Supposedly there is another small upper level disturbance is going to pass through today bringing a little more snow and a muzzle on the sun. Any time now would be good. The good news is that it is only 24º out.

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Greetings and welcome!

11PM-The snow stopped shortly after my last update with no additional accumulation. It redeveloped about 10PM and we are up to about 1/8th-1/4″ inch additional.Hopefully the snow will continue. It is expected to, and add up to 2-3.

The Pepsi was cracklin cold and delicious.

Work kept me out of the shop until late afternoon, but I still got out there and made progress. The #2 was fighting me the whole way, but I am winning. The list is much shorter now, and I expect to ride it tomorrow.

The way that I see it from here, we have what we had last weekend for trails, with minimal additional melting, and now an inch of snow that could go three. The snow mostly fell from about here to Carter, and most of Oconto County saw the heaviest early evening wave. The late news was just on, and the TV said that some areas saw 4-5″ and he kind of gestured toward the central Oconto Co area. Think Lakewood, Mountain, maybe to 64. He wasn’t too clear about it, but I will try to track it down.  Different waves will hit different spots, those are just the ones that I saw today.

Not much has changed otherwise, so this is pretty much the overnight report. I will update with snow totals in the AM.

7:15PM-  1.25″

5:25 A puffy inch so far, still snowing.

3PM- We had a dusting of snow this morning, but so far that is it. The heat of the day has come and gone, and it peaked briefly at 35. We have a heavy overcast and have all day.

Morning Update

Look what the GFS brought us on the latest run this morning! It is for day 15, but I love what it says!

They also added an inch of accumulation possible from Wednesday’s snow showers on the NWS forecast. Is it my birthday or something? I thought that was in summer..

Overnight Update

Monday was a mediocre day for the cause. I saw it get as high as 38 on the car thermometer. The good news is that the sun only peeked out of the clouds a little over the course of the day. We did see some melting, but it was not significant. The easy stuff is gone, now it is the big ice base that the sun is chasing. At that point it should be about what you saw last weekend.

There is snow in the forecast. The NWS is looking for up to an inch today, and an inch or two tonight, with snow showers into Wednesday morning. It is not a big snow event, but I will gladly take any snow that we can get. It still isn’t expected to get sunny until Thursday, then it is forecast to be partly cloudy all weekend (NWS) .

A  check of the latest GFS moments ago actually has a little light snow showing up Saturday and Sunday. That also enters the possibility of a cloudy weekend, and only one or two sunny days this week. It also showed a little bigger snow possible the following weekend, and a bigger storm behind that one. It is a glimmer of hope, but it is still a 2 week out forecast.

Right now my guess is that the trails this coming weekend will look about like they did last weekend, maybe a little better, if we see 1-3. Hopefully the snow gets way out of hand.

We definitely have late season conditions. There are some ugly road shoulders and sunny hillsides here around C in Silver Cliff. As you go north of Brandywine it continues to improve toward 8 and beyond. The feeder trails between Chickadee and Landing 11 and from there to Kosir Lane are pretty ugly, and thankfully short. The above named roads all have nice ditch trails in good shape. They are still reporting good conditions north and west.

The snow looks promising, and if true, it will spruce things up for late week. Otherwise go north young (wo)man.

Thank you guys for your comments on sponsoring a second rider. I will let that stew over the summer. My predisposition now it to try to sell a few sponsorship ads to get him started and let his tip cup fill itself. In theory the bigger range and more comprehensive reports should bring increased donations on it’s own merits. I still have to resist the subscription idea. I would clearly make a lot more money, but I like the idea of free will donations.

This is not a money maker for me, and I am OK with that. I am the richest man in the world because it has brought me together with literally hundreds of really nice people that I now call my friends. You guys generously donate hard earned dollars that defray my riding expenses significantly and make a lot more possible. You bring business to my web site customers and make them happy too. I have good friends that have been visiting with me a very long time, some over a decade. Somehow when I get really down in the dumps, as if on cue, a group of you will walk through the door and make me smile. I don’t know how y’all do it, but it is really priceless. That is how I get paid. The donations help huge, but are not the focus.

I just want to be better at it. This was an unusual year with so much time spent on work this fall and early winter, and my sleds being far less ready than I had thought they were. Ongoing work has cancelled more than a few planned trail days. It left me very happy about having the work, but unhappy about not being better here. I will keep doing my best, hopefully for a very long time to come. I do really like the  comments this year, and am very appreciative to those that offered reports and events.

The prospects for the weekend are good if the forecast comes true. At this point I’d say ride any weekend you can like it might be the last. There is continued snow in the forecast beyond this weekend, but it is just a forecast. The weather hasn’t exactly been swinging our way this winter.

The plan today is to try to get RXL #2 on line. If I have my way the day will start in the blue room and end out on the trails, test riding it as it snows. That apparently sat for a long time, and that explains the nice cosmetic condition. It came at a price of the steering frozen, mouse nests in the airbox, muffler and engine, the engine blown from ingesting mouse nest, and every shaft and bearing on it seized or close to it. That is ok, I didn’t pay much for it, and having gone through the whole sled, I should come away with a good ride.

I almost forgot, I promised someone a link to the giant waterslide stunt. It is pretty nuts.

That is it for the overnight report. I will keep you up to date if anything changes.

Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

It is warmer than we would like to see today. Our high of about 32 is really 36, but at least it is mostly cloudy. We could see some flurries later today and tonight. Tomorrow brings hope of an inch or two, and more light snow is possible for Wednesday. Let’s hope that it comes true.

In the meantime north is still the hot ticket. People are reporting good trails north of C and especially north of Hwy 8. Townsend and Lakewood seem to be holding up well too.

On the other side of C Iron Snowshoe is closing trails. The F trail (to Crooked Lake) will stay open and trails north of C will as well. See their site for details.

Here are some people that visited Rapids Resort last weekend. Thank you!

I made a business proposition to a guy yesterday, and now it is time to bring it back to you. I have a friend that rides a lot. Think 200+ miles on a slow day, Copper Harbor and back on a good one. He rides almost daily. He is one of those 8,000+ mile a year guys, and he knows the trail conditions not just here, but anywhere within a couple of hundred miles. He just retired his ‘02 Doo with almost 50,000 miles on it. Yes you read that right.

So I want to bring this guy on board. It is going to cost a lot, but I think that it will be worth it. It will take significantly increased donations and probably a sponsorship or two to make it happen. The upside is that the scope of the area covered will increase exponentially.

Now the question is are you guys up for stepping up the donations? Not just the same 25 people that generously donate every year, but the other 1,800 or so of you that visit regularly. I really hate the idea of a subscription based site and strongly prefer not to go that way.

The bottom line is that I don’t think that my 50 or 100 miles once or twice a week is keeping up with your needs. Rather than go all #4 on you or continuing to keep it as it is, I would rather improve and excel. Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Have a good Monday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

A lot of people were around to ride this weekend. Conditions varied, but the word north was spoken a lot. From C north was the hot ticket according to reports across the bar.

There was agreement that a little snow would go a long way. Though the sunny spots are growing a little, there are still good or good enough trails to be found north. I saw quite a few old friends, and will post some pictures tomorrow. There were also some big groups around, with 10-20 riders. While challenging logistically, that just has to be fun.

While there are no big storms to be excited about, a lot of our coming week holds promise. The storm that is missing us will recirculate back off of the east coast and give us a little wraparound snow from the back side of the storm. There are also other changes for light snow later in the week. Remembering the trails that I rode last week before the warm days brings me hopes of a repeat this week. It only took two snows totaling 2.5-3″ to make those trails nice.

The other weather item that might help is that the week looks mostly cloudy. The first non-cloudy day in the NWS forecast is Thursday with partly sunny & 26 for a high temp. Early week we should peak at about 30 or 32. Midweek hi temps drop a little into the mid-20s, and late week and weekend temp go back to the 30 degree range on the NWS forecast. Today is another warm one with a high of 35 as of 1pm. It is cloudy and that helped yesterday too.

There are also a few indicators that our weather pattern may be easing. There has been significant cooling in the ENSO regions, some of the indicies are showing change, and eventually we will hopefully see some change in the weather.

The moral of the story is don’t give up yet. From what I am seeing right now there is a chance for at least one or two more weekends based on the GFS, and I have a hunch that the farther reaches of that might and bring the possibility of a change in patterns or at least a break, and a chance at some bigger weather.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB