Greetings and welcome!
We had another warm day yesterday. It was sunny & 38 and it wasn’t good. So far it went Saturday 36, Sunday sunny & 45, Monday sun & 38.
My travel yesterday was limited to a couple of back roads last night, so I don’t know as much as I would like to. From what I could tell sunny spots took a beating. There were a lot of places where the icy base was breaking down and had water under it, and some bare spots too.
I found quite a few icy spots where either the meltwater had accumulated or the base had melted and frozen and left it hard on top. I also saw a few stretches of trail along Landing 11 and along Parkway that looked great and were freshly groomed.
I asked a friend that had put on a lot of miles this week between Mountain and Iron River what he had seen. The answer was the Mountain was about as far south as you want to go, and things got better as you got closer to Hwy 8. We need snow.
I am planning on a truck run later for petrol and I will get a better look around. It will be a challenge telling what is what, we had some light snow this morning.
As far as snow, the late week (Thursday) storm looks like it will go south of us. The storm for the weekend holds a lot of promise. It looks like it will start as rain Saturday night and switch over to snow early Sunday. Sunday and Sunday night could easily bring 3-6 or 4-8.
The bottom line? Look at the trails that you saw last weekend and add 3 warm sunny days of 36, 45, 38F. Sunny spots and marginal areas took a beating, sheltered and better trails took it fairly well. We have a good base remaining in a lot of areas, but we need snow for the top.
Yesterday I got a little carried away in the blue room. I went out to work on RXL #2 for a few hours and stayed for 8. Chris came outside after dinner to see if I had fallen in or what. I never stopped for lunch, dinner, or even a break for some agwa. It was a full and interesting day.
I started with the replacement engine. It had a stator coil rubbing on the flywheel magnet, and I actually successfully pulled the flywheel without wrecking the glass magnets. It got clutch service, a new throttle cable, a new ex manifold, the injectors cleaned, and other general TLC.
The old engine got yanked out and it was ugly. Apparently that one died of a mouse nest. The air box was about 20 pounds it was stuffed so full. A look into the throttle bodies found mouse nest parts stuck between the pistons and cylinders to the point that it was locked up. That probably didn’t run so good.
It also had the typical frozen on secondary clutch, and the famous Polaris frozen steering column. It was pretty on the outside, but looks can be decieving.
When I quit the problems above had been addressed and the replacement engine was in and hooked up, with only the motor mount nuts and bleeding the oiler between me and giving it a tug with some gas squirted into the intake. I don’t want to run it on the EFI until I flush out the tank and get some fresh gas into it, thus today’s mission for a petrol run.
RXL #2 became more of a priority this morning when Chris returned from her walk to the mailbox with a torn out stud and good sized chunk of track. Not good.
Well I am off to the gas station and for a better look around. There is no question that we need snow. How bad it is remains the question.
I will leave you with Bigfish’s comment from this morning..
We rode from Twin Bridge up to Florence then west on trail 2 back down the grade to Lakewood then back and came across the flowage. In the morning the trails were all good. In the afternoon the Florence area was ugly at best and the grade was soft and bumpy. Sunday was not very nice anywhere around the flowages. The trails were almost gone and it was 45 degrees at 3:00 pm. I don't know how anyone can ride this area now until we get at least 4 to 6 more. Wabeno north may be another story but it will not be great there either.
Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!
RJB