Late afternoon
I saw a little more trail today, and it varied a lot. Along the roads and across fields it was great. Plowed roads are getting thin. The woods trail between Chickadee and L11 was good enough but getting thin. It is very rideable, but 3″ of snow yesterday would have made it great.
Mark had a comment that summed it up very well, both for trails and ice conditions. For some reason it won’t post, so here it is..
I rode the trails yesterday (Thursday) from Red Pine. South of C, they were snerty with patches of dirt from the groomer doing their best with little new snow. Rideable, but only fair. North of C, the trails were better – fair to good. They are driving trucks on High Falls and Caldron, for those interested in ice fishing or crusing. Pig Stop in Critiz has 93 O with no alcohol.
The afternoon in the blue room went well and today’s ride was quite enjoyable. The secondary clutch service was just what the doctor ordered, and the sled is snappy and fun again.
The addition of a high windshield and hand warmer repairs made it a lot more comfortable even at 10 degrees colder. The big carbides are a blast, even on glare ice.
An important thing is that the circle of trust got a lot bigger. Now that I have close to 100 miles on it and a couple of afternoons in the shop, I trust it enough for long runs into remote places. It is an annual ritual for working out the bugs. The first few rides are on forest roads where rescue/recovery of a broken sled is a snap, and short rides find the problems. That part is done.
Chris tells me that there is a radar run on High Falls Flowage Saturday. I did not know about that one, I just found out. She also let me know the the first pass of Fisher’s Camp’s new web site is up at Fisherscamp.com.
Morning Update
This update deals primarily with weather, since the only trails that I have seen since sunset was the ones along the rod by Jungle Jim’s, which looked great in the dark from the car.
The storm yesterday was a head scratcher. It snowed all over the midwest, it snowed in Atlanta, GA, and we get freezing rain. Sheesh. Always the bridesmaid I guess.
Someone asked about warm temps ahead. It looks like we will be wishing for them over the weekend and cursing them next week. The short term looks like highs in the low teens, lows a little below zero, and some wind to keep it brisk. Sunday and Monday pick up a few degrees all of the way around with a hi/lo of 20/10.
Next week the GFS is showing a small disturbance early week that could bring minor snow. Behind that is not the usual cold wave, but rather temps around the freezing mark. My info is showing both Wednesday and Thursday above the magical zero C mark, and quite a few days like them between now and the end of the month.
There are no big storms shown coming our way over the next few weeks, but rather above normal temps. While I am as skeptical of the warm long term forecast as I would be of a big storm a week or 10 days out, the possibility clearly exists. At that point I am off to the blue room to track down a few bugs.
Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB