2pm Update-
I took a ride up Parkway Rd to see what the trails north of C were about. As I went the snow got a lot deeper and the trails looked like they handled the warm spell better. I wouldn’t hesitate to ride there, and if I had more time today I would as planned. I couldn’t tell about the tighter woods trails from the truck, but the open field trails that crossed the road all looked good to go with full coverage. They might not be perfect, but they are ride worthy. My next ride will likely be there and up toward Goodman.
We stayed cloudy today and so far haven’t gotten above 36 so there isn’t much melting going on.
RJB
AM
Greetings and welcome!
Sorry for the brevity yesterday. I was in a genuinely foul mood and didn’t want to share it.
There was a special weather statement this morning warning of some locally heavy snow showers that could bring up to an inch, along with some reduced visibility. The little blob was clipping right along and has come and gone. It only amounted to a light dusting here, but if the radar zoom is fairly accurate, it did hit between about Benson Lake Rd and Hwy 8, and went on to hit between Crivitz and Wausaukee. The loop also showed a duration of about 30 minutes start to finish, at least for the snow that was heavy enough to show up on radar.
As I mentioned yesterday I don’t have high hopes for the weekend. The Iron Snowshoe was marginal last week, saw a weekend of traffic, and has now had two 40ish days with no freeze in between. We did freeze up last night, going down to 21. With two more 40ish days on the way before Saturday conditions there are pretty doubtful.
When I was in Lakewood Sunday it was looking pretty well used. After the warm weather the Paul Bunyan site is reporting poor conditions. Red Arrow said that woods trails were getting snirty, the RR grade was blowing through north of Townsend, but there were still conditions to be had on unplowed forest roads.
I am going out to survey the north end of Iron Snowshoe later this morning, and the central area later this afternoon. If I like what I see this morning I might come back and saddle up, but I am pretty skeptical about that.
We are still looking at 40ish temps today and Friday and mid-30s and sunny for the weekend.
We have an interesting scenario for the weekend. (Oh goody) The way that the high and low pressure systems are set up in the western US and the Pacific they are conspiring to pump a bunch of warm Pacific air up into Canada. Yellowknife, Northwest Territories is looking at a high of 34 Friday and Saturday, and their normal hi/lo is -1/-13 today. That will eventually come our way and warm up the weekend and Monday. Normally I associate weather out of the NW with bone chilling cold and clipper systems. Not this winter..
A recap of events for the weekend includes Ice Bowling at the Parkway Inn, a brat Fry with the Dun-Good Riders at Hi-8, the Chute Pond Fish-O-Rama, and the Sugar Bush Snow-mo-Wheelers. See Tuesday and Wednesday’s updates.
That is news this morning. Have a good Thursday and thank you for visiting!
RJB