Greetings and welcome!
Happy new year to everyone. Thank you to those that met me over the weekend.
As mentioned before, the weekend storm brought mixed results. I took a trip to Lakewood and Carter Sunday and got a look at trails along the roads.
The trails along F by Waubee Lake and up to the golf course looked like the base survived well in most spots. There were some sunny spots that were burned through. The golf course looked bad in some spots and ok in others. Roads were mostly bare.
The railroad grade in Lakewood looked ok at F & 32, and that sunny stretch between there and Townsend was better than expected, but still had spots with some missing base. Townsend north to where the trail crosses 32 was mostly bare. The snow from the blizzard blew away there, and it was thinner to start with. The stretch between the crossing and Valley Inn, and where it branches off there looked like it had most of it’s base.
Locally here along C by Jungle Jim’s a lot of the base survived, but there were a few spots.
Dan from Chute Pond left a comment yesterday- Chute Pond trails are open, but in poor and icy condition. We need more snow for conditions to improve. (TYVM Dan!)
His post summed it up well. It’s icy or bare, we need more snow for conditions to improve.
To the best of my knowledge the Iron Snowshoe trails remain closed. The Paul Bunyan Riders report poor conditions with trails are either an ice base or bare.
Plowed roads suffered in sunny areas. In the case of my driveway it has a decent ice base in the shady areas and is bare gravel where the sun hits it.
The short term snow forecast is not in our favor. There are a couple of chances for light snow or snow showers this week, and maybe a clipper storm over the weekend. There are no major storms obvious on the 16 day GFS, but there is a possible 3-6 storm next week. There are also no huge bitter cold waves between now and 1/18. Since that is kind of unusual, I am kind of expecting changes in the two week forecast at some point.
The storm could have brought a lot more rain, and missing that was ok. It unleashed a massive blizzard on the Dakotas and Minnesota, and didn’t even bring a dusting of snow here.
The wind and cold behind the storm made me happy that I wasn’t an outside critter. The wind was roaring in the trees and the temperatures in the teens gave it a sharp bite.
I worked at Rapids New Year’s Eve and that was fun. It was good to see the folks from the web site that visited. I was a good boy because I was working, but I had Chris take me out Saturday to ring in the new year.
With 35mph winds and -15 wind chills, a place where I didn’t have to take my filthy habit outside was the first order of business. That narrowed it down to Curve Inn, which has a heated attached smoking room, and the Firelane Bar, which has a place out back that is heated and has a TV. The Firelane won that one since the Badger game was on.
It is not hard to get me to go to Firelane anyway, and as it turns out I had some business up there. They wanted me to update their web site to let people know about the smoking room as well as a large area that they keep clear for a snowmobile and ATV Park and Ride. Done.
Well I am off to get back to work. I have a web site project coming to completion and there are some details to attend to. Once that and normal web site and computer work is done I am planning on some shop time so that I am ready when it snows this time. Winter’s not over yet.
Happy new year and thank you for visiting!
RJB