Greetings and welcome!
I don’t think we are going to make it for next weekend.
Forest and Oconto Counties are closing trails Sunday night. Part of Langlade is already closed. Coleman and Oconto Falls have closed.
The sun is getting brutal and the only day that will go below 45 degrees is tomorrow at 43. Thursday through Sunday are forecast to be sunny and 50+.
Yesterday my travels took me to Crivitz and Peshtigo. I can see why Coleman closed trails. There was a lot of flooding in low areas and there was some dirt where the sun had eaten the trail. Trails along the road between here and Crivitz (all north of Hwy X) all still had full coverage. They looked a little dirty and there were a couple of sunny spots.
When I got home and shuttled my stuff up the driveway on the snowmobile I was a little shocked. All but the most sheltered areas had a big stripe of dirt down the middle. I ended up side hilling the snowbanks. When I went out to get firewood the trail to the wood house had about a half inch of slush on top of the ice on the north side of the house. The east and south sides had blown out to dirt. For the first time in a long time I didn’t need my ice cleats.
That is when it really sank in. We probably won’t make it to this weekend.
That having been said, there was still a lot of ice in the really sheltered areas of the driveway. It was the melting with water on top insanely slippery stuff, but it was still a good base of it. That gave me hope that there might be some last chance riding in forested areas and north of Benson Lake Rd and up by Hwy 8. It is very common for them to have an extra weekend or two after our trails give out.
If you want to ride one last time you probably want to get on that sooner than later. It breaks my heart to see the end of the best snowmobiling season in memory come so quickly but here we are.
Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!
RJB