Saturday December 21, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

We are watching the approach of our first real winter storm of the season as I type this at 10:30 Saturday night. It looks like the storm will mostly hit downstate, but we could see a few inches out of it. The most optimistic model at the moment shows a chance at 2-4 or 3-6. The NWS has our area for 2-3″.

It is a storm that has a good moisture tap from the Gulf of Mexico, and it promises to bring some severe weather where it hits. There is an impressive swath of watches and warnings on the NWS main page. They include flood warnings, flash flood warnings, winter storm warnings, and ice storm warnings. Hopefully it will take a left and surprise us.

In my travels today I saw a few trails here in Silver Cliff, in Wausaukee, and in Crivitz. The trail along the road here in Silver Cliff looked good enough with a little wear in one corner. In Wausaukee and Crivitz the trails were looking a little grassy but covered. I am not sure those are open yet, but there were a few tracks.

Today I got to play in the snow a little, but it wasn’t the fun kind. I spent the afternoon putting a starter in my car in the parking lot where it broke down. I would have much rather been at the Christmas party or doing just about anything else. It has been a tough month that way.

Tomorrow I hope to actually ride a little. I need to fix the plow truck, finish the sled in the shop up, and then I can start on my rides. I expect that the Indy Trail and the new RXL will be in pretty good shape and ready to ride with only standard preseason maintenance. They were in good shape when I put them into storage. The bad news is that the RXL with the bad piston is in the front of the line, so it will be an adventure to get the other ones out.

Ride or not, I am expecting to make a gas & grocery run to Lakewood and Townsend tomorrow. I will get a look at the trails over that way and report back.

If I do get to ride my focus would be north and west. We have a couple of more inches than Crivitz and Wausaukee, and it gets better north and west. I will also be looking at forest roads with the ice layer on them. From what I have seen on Landing 11, Caldron Falls Rd, Ranch Rd, and Parkway, it is a dandy ice layer.

I am hoping that the storm brings at least some snow. The trails that I have seen are way ahead of normal, but it is still early season. More snow is always better, especially if a lot of people come to ride after Christmas.

We haven’t had any real big storms yet, other than the first snow. We got about 8″ and then it rained about 1/2-1″ on top of it. The rain made a good ice base and made the snow sturdy, but it knocked it down to about 4-5″. On plowed side roads it soaked into the snow cover and made it solid ice. Since then we have had about 5 1-3″ light snows. It isn’t two feet of snow and February conditions, but it is a nice start. I just measured about 8″ of pretty sturdy snow on the picnic table.

Today was the winter solstice. That means that the sun is at its lowest point in the sky, and we have the shortest day of the year. Today also marks the beginning of winter. It looks like it is coming in making a ruckus.

That’s it for now. More to follow soon. Have a good Sunday and thank you for visiting!

RJB