December 15th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

10:30 am

It was indeed a cold one last night. According to the NWS Rhinelander had -20, and the coldest was Land O Lakes at -24. There were a lot of numbers in the upper teens below zero.

Yesterday I made a trip to Lakewood, Townsend & Carter and got a look around. I naturally took some pictures. It turns out that while the last theme had a nice header image, it wouldn’t let me do picture galleries or other Javascripts. This one, while a little blander, lets me do more stuff. By the time that I finished wrestling with the theme and the slide show last night it was 3am and I was getting pretty tired. I never did finish my update.

MixerKing left a comment this morning that went where I still needed to go..

Took a ride @ High falls area yesterday most trails look good but we need more snow. You are able to ride but, trails are so so. Roads driveways and any other areas that get plowed are gravel (not good on slides) They were getting beat up by 7 pm last night on my way home. I did see 20 some other sleds out, some at a few bars so I’m sure owners were happy with that. Keep your fingers crossed and ask Santa for some more of that beautiful white stuff. Happy Holidays to all!

Thanks MK! You are right on.

The long and short of it is these are early season conditions. There is no base, and with the snow being very fine and powdery it will take a little thaw-freeze to compact it into a base. It has been too cold for it to consolidate and set up. Not only will it leave bumps and rocks in the trail to be found under the powder, as MK mentioned, there is no ice layer on plowed roads and driveways. When I plowed the driveway a lot came up brown. I also broke a couple of trip springs on the plow hitting rocks and stuff.

I will submit that 10-12″ of snow is just a good start. Unless we have an ice base or the snow is wet and heavy and freezes into one, a foot is about a minimum start for the season. Ideally we would get conditions to freeze this into a base and then get more snow. There is without question enough snow to ride in, but you will see the challenges that come with early season conditions. That is one of the things keeping me sane as I am so buried in work that I can’t go fix and play on my sleds.

The trails had a nice layer of freshly groomed snow on them. The only thin spots along F and 32 in my travels were along the open fields north of Townsend. There the grade was a little snirty. Otherwise it looked like a good first dose of snow.

A friend that I talked to last night said that they were still a little loose. It’s true. He also mentioned burying it once ditch drift hopping. No surprise there either..

Anyway here is a new experimental kind of photo gallery. It seems to work OK and look nice, but I haven’t wrestled it enough to make it display captions yet. The pictures were taken along F by Waubee Lodge, and along 32 in Lakewood, in Townsend, and just south of Carter. Use the arrows on the right to switch pictures.

Let’s do pictures..

[popeye]

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Also new today, I added a Recent Comments widget to the side bar. Often comments come in and because I update the next day, they don’t get seen. Frequently guys like Mixer King or Slug leave valuable info in the comments, and it is good to have it seen.

In response to Mike’s question this morning.. I am planning on working at Rapids Resort on Saturdays again this winter. I am not sure about this weekend, I haven’t talked to them yet. Usually I end up waiting until the holidays when more snowmobilers come around.

Well, time to get back to work..

Have a good Wednesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB