CPSC Riding 013010

Dylan & Jesse trailered up to Carter today to participate in the MS Snowmobile Tour . I drove up to help with rider check-in. What a great bunch of people gathering together, snowmobiling and raising money to help fight Multiple Sclerosis. There were over 100 riders expected for this fundraising event, which raised over $250,000.00 last year.

When the riders were all checked in, they had an informational meeting, and I left to return to the Pond.

The trails around Chute Pond are frozen hard as a rock, with no loose snow for the slides. Jeff, Bear, and I are trailering up to Townsend to ride today. The MS Tour Guides reported good trail conditions up that way. I'll report more later.

Jeff, Bear, and I met up with John Brantmeier, President of Red Arrow Snowmobile ATV Club from Townsend this morning to store some cases of Oconto County trail maps in our shop. He told us that all of his trails were groomed last night, and they're in great shape. He recommended trailering to Lakewood, so that's what we did. We parked at the Nicolet Trailhead (the brand new $100,000 building with the locked bathroom doors), and cut east off the RR grade. The trails were freshly groomed, flat and hard, with just enough snow to wet the slides, as we worked our way east and north through the Paul Bunyan trails into the Red Arrow trails. As headed for the Scenic Overlook, and we were having trouble believing how nice the trails were. The view from the overlook was outstanding. Click on photos below to enlarge.

Bear's "check engine light" must have been on, because he opened his hood and found his work light (still on!) melting to his exhaust pipe. Seems he left it there this morning when he was topping off his oil. Jeff and I were happy to have some fresh material to use to give Bear some crap for the rest of the day. We stowed the work light and headed west past Kathy's Valley Inn. The Red Arrow trails were so good that rather than turn north like we originally had planned, we turned south onto the Bob Kroll Memorial trail and stayed in the Red Arrow system. I had talked to Randy, who is the leader of Dylan's MS ride group last night, and he told me his ride plan for today. Now our plan was to go the reverse direction of theirs, and see where we would cross paths. We had a smooth ride down to Animal's Bear Trail where we stopped for a break. We visited for a while with Mike (Animal) and three other "Chute Ponders" who happened to stop in.

When we hit the trail, we did not go south into Chute Pond trails. Our trails are not being groomed because of the rain vs. snow last week. We doubled back for a short ways before heading west into Boulder Lake Sno-Goers' trails. These were almost as good as the Red Arrow trails, but not quite. Click on the photos below to enlarge.

If you look closely, on the second photo from the left, Bear was "enlightened" as to how not to store and transport his work light. There was plenty of snow on the trails but just a little bumpy, but we didn't complain as we headed west and north into Lily Snow Bird trails.

We rode through a couple of logging areas which were a little icy and thin, but not bad at all. As we neared Lily, we saw our first other riders of the day- a group of about 20 MS Snowmobile Tour riders heading south. We had one rough stretch of trail heading into Lily, but later we found out the groomer was heading out to smooth that trail section out. We wound our way through Lily and found Dylan, Jesse and the rest of the MS riders having lunch at the Lily Snow Birds Clubhouse. Click on photos to enlarge.

Most of them were getting ready to leave, so we had a burger for lunch and visited with the friendly people who were staffing the bar and kitchen. They are all volunteers- members of Lily Snow Birds, a club with over 400 active members. It was truly a great experience to see all of those people working together, donating and serving the lunch to the MS riders. After a short visit with these nice people, we saddled up and got on the new RR grade and headed north. The RR grade was in great shape as we rode to Laurie's Lily River Lodge for a stop so we could regroup and figure out where to go next. After a brief pit stop, we continued west to Pickerel, and gassed up at the BP. We headed back south, cutting through Lily and heading south and east towards Townsend. We ran some really sweet trails heading east back to Kathy's Valley Inn, where we made our final pit stop of the day. As we were leaving, Jeff found a good use for Bear's work light- he shined some light on a rider who was clipping a spare belt into his sled. Glad Bear brought that light along!

We took the 7S trail back to Lakewood, trailered up, and headed home for some delicious steaks on the grill and Old Fashioneds at Bear's place. We had an unexpectedly great ride of 111 miles today. Here's how we rated the trails we rode:

As you can see, if you stayed home this weekend because you didn't think there'd be good riding, you are probably wishing you were here. We're getting ready to head out again, and we're looking forward to another great day on the trails. Red Arrow has their bonfire and cookout today at Intersection 6. Maybe I'll see you there.

These are Dylan's photos and the account of his Friday MS Tour- click on photos to enlarge:

Saturday, January 30, 2010. Weather was 2 degrees and sunny at 7:00 am, warming up slowly.

Jeff and Bear offered me a space in their enclosed four place trailer for the ride up to Lakewood today, so I slipped and slid across Chute Pond to Bear's den. While we were getting ready, Bear's now famous work light was sitting on a table, and we couldn't resist one more chance to give him crap about melting it in his engine compartment yesterday. I even zoomed in on the picture:

Since Bear doesn't have a computer or go on the internet, if you know him, please either print this picture and send it to him, or at the very least make sure you make a smart comment to him about his melted work light.

We loaded up and headed north to the Nicolet Trailhead. There were quite a few rigs parked, with plenty of sledders unloading when we got there about 10:00 am. It was sunny and about 10 degrees when we hit the 7N RR grade and headed for the Townsend Shell to meet up with Jeff's sister Yvonne. We gassed up, and Yvonne led us west to her place on Explosion Lake, where we picked up her daughter Robin and Robin's fiancé Joey. We passed a group of vintage sleds on our way- they were no doubt heading to the Red Arrow bonfire and cookout. Joey took the lead, and I was the tail gunner as we wound our way west, then north on the Bob Kroll Memorial trail. Part of the trail from Explosion Lake west was a road trail that the bank was hard and high, and there was too much gravel on the edge of the road, but other than that, the trails were freshly groomed, smooth, flat, and hard. We turned east and passed Kathy's Valley Inn, and went north on the 7N RR grade.

As expected, the RR grade got rough and choppy once we crossed over into Forest County. I won't go into this again, but I still can't figure out why it has to be like that. We worked our way north, and had a brief stop when Robin's trunk bag fell off, so we stopped to fix it and take a picture of the trail- click to enlarge:

We continued north to Wabeno, where Robin and Joey got gas, and thankfully the trail improved greatly as we headed north to Laona. When we decided to continue north onto the 100 Miler, the rest of us topped off our tanks in Laona, and we continued on the Nicolet grade north to Popple River, where we stopped at the Popple River Pub for lunch. Our friends Ken & Julie said they had a great bloody mary, so we ordered one with lunch. The garnish on the bloody mary was great, but the drink itself was very bland, and it didn't justify the $6.00 price tag. Combine that with a $7.50 cheeseburger, and I thought I was in downtown Chicago having a $20 lunch- it was not too far from that once you added tax and tip. I won't stop there again.

After lunch, we doubled back south to the trail leading to Argonne. This was an awesome, freshly groomed winding trail through the woods and hills. It was a great ride, and we encountered a few sleds along the way, but it sure was not overcrowded. We stopped along the trail for a break and took a few pictures- click to enlarge:

We rode a variety of trail types, all in great shape, as we wound our way south through Argonne towards Roberts Lake. We turned onto LMT 8, which was the worst trail of the day. It was very rough and bumpy, so we were happy to turn east onto another 100 Miler trail heading towards Wabeno. We gassed up at the Citgo, and took the grade south to Townsend. Yvonne, Joey, and Robin headed home, and we took the trail through the woods to Intersection 6. We were about 20 minutes late- the Red Arrow bonfire and cookout had just ended before we got there, so we continued south past the ski hill back to Lakewood.

We trailered up, then walked across the street to the Firelite Lounge for some refreshments. After that, we walked down the block to Ed & Betsy's Pour Haus where Ed, Andy, and Betsy were getting set up for Cowboy Bob and "So you want to be a cowboy" night. They have lots of events going on all the time- make sure you check their page here on this website to stay up to date. Our Area Business Members page on this website lists information on many of our business members- check it out.

We headed back to the Pond, and I headed over to Doze Inn for the famous Saturday chicken dinner. I had two very special guests join me for dinner- Della and Brenda. We enjoyed a great meal before retiring to the bar. As I was paying my dinner bill and buying Tony, Larry and myself a drink, Tony reminded me that I got more change from my $20 right then than I did for lunch today at Popple River Pub. He was right. We talked about Dylan's 21st birthday party, which is at 7:00 pm next Friday at Doze Inn. If you know Dylan, you are invited for some beer, snacks, pizza, and smart talk. Larry's even getting the cake!

We rode 134 miles today on some really nice trails. I hope it snows soon so we can ride right from Chute Pond, but in the mean time, the 15 minute ride to Lakewood is not so bad, and it's really worth it. Here's how we graded the trails:

Chute Pond trails- we did not ride Chute Pond trails because of lack of loose snow. We trailered to Lakewood. We saw several rigs parked at Schoolhouse on our way home, and we know Rob & Trapper rode to Johnnie's Resort on Wabikon Lake from Chute Pond, but we never heard back from them last night. It couldn't have been a very nice ride to the south.

These are Dylan's photos and the account of his day on the MS Snowmobile Tour . I got this picture in a text message from him Saturday- his group stopped at the Red Arrow bonfire:

I know Dylan had a great time this weekend, and he plans to do the MS ride again next year. I'm really proud of him for raising over $1300.00 to help fight MS.