Riding with Dan & Dylan, Weekend of February 21, 2009

Friday, February 20, 2009. Weather was 20 degrees.

Dylan came up early today and brought our new sleds. He had some fuel issue with his, and it's at the mechanic getting fixed. I came up later with Sablu, and we rode over to Kitty's Grill & Bar for a fish fry. We called it an early night.

Saturday, February 21, 2009. Weather was 12 degrees at 8:00 am

We rode over to Doze Inn to set up for the Club Slaloms and cookout. Our board meeting started at 9:30, followed by the general meeting at 11:00. The slaloms and cookout followed the meetings. Sablu was the Grillmaster- thanks for a fine job. Congratulations to Dylan not only for a great job organizing today's slaloms and cookout, but also for winning the event and the coveted Secretary's Travelling Trophy with a winning time of 22.25 seconds. Pictures of the event will be available soon here on the website. Dylan stayed at Doze to cover bartending for Tony, who is at Mardi Gras, so Sablu, Geoff, and I took off on a late afternoon ride. We left Chute Pond about 5:00 pm on the Doze trail and headed west on 2112. We turned south on the RR grade and two of us got gas at Rhode's Oasis in Breed (one of us wishes he would have also topped off the tank on his new 800 triple Panterra).

Trails so far were in decent shape- a little worn from the day's traffic, and a little icy underneath. We came back north on the grade, and headed west on 2112 to the tunnel trail out to Pine Grove Bar & Grill. It was Sally's birthday, so we bought her a drink, and made final plans for next Saturday's R4RD lunch at Pine Grove. Sally has some great food planned- make sure you stop out for a bite to eat, and check out the great R4RD raffle they have going on.

After some smart talk about Sally's age, we headed north, then west on 18 W towards Langlade County. Trails were still decent, but icy turns and even some slippery spots in the straight-aways require some extra caution. My new sled rides like a dream compared to the old one, so I hardly noticed the washboard at times. We made a loop into Langlade County, where the trails were slightly worse than the CPSC trails we just left. We came back into the Paul Bunyan trails and worked our way past Animal's Bear Trail. I normally would have  stopped for a visit with Animal, but at this point I was getting nervous because my gas gauge was moving way faster than I had planned (I'm the one who didn't top off at Rhode's).

We continued south to 4 Corners, then left at the "Y" on the 18 E trail. Geoff said he had a tow strap if I ran out of gas, but thankfully we made it over to the RR grade and down to Parkside BP before we needed it. I need to make sure I don't pass up any gas pumps with this sled. We said good bye to Geoff as he headed home and we headed down the grade to 2112, then east to the Doze trail. We had Della's famous chicken dinner and bothered Dylan while he was bartending (see picture on trail report page).

Overall, the trails we rode were in fair to good condition. We saw the groomers were out in Langlade County, and our CPSC groomers were out as well. This should help get the trails ready for a Sunday morning ride. We rode 82 miles this afternoon, and a total of 98 miles today.

Sunday, February 22, 2009. Weather was 15 degrees at 8:00 am.

Dylan (on the Bullpen Puma), Sablu, and I met Geoff on the lake and went off the Pond at the County Park to get to the Chute Inn for breakfast. We were served quickly, and the food was delicious and plenty of it. We'll be back next week with AWSC Miss Snowflake Brooke Murdock and her family. We crossed back over Hwy 32 and went off the lake at Doze Inn. We went east on 2112, cutting across Anderson Lake and gassing up (yes, I did, too) at Rhode's Junction. We took the trail to the pipeline and went south. All Chute Pond trails were freshly groomed and in very nice shape. The pipeline and the loop of Bag & Bra trails that we took were not groomed. The road trails were ok, but any trail that was not a road was very rough. You'd think with only a few weekends of riding left that a club would groom so that the weekend riding would be good. We were very disappointed that they were not groomed. We worked out way back onto the pipeline just south of Crooked Lake, and went north into town. We picked up the freshly groomed CPSC 18 W trail through the woods back to Chute Pond. Our trails were great today. If a groomer had been out, the Bag & Bra trails would have been just as nice. I hope they groom this week. I'd like to take that same loop next Saturday morning to start the R4RD Benefit Ride . We rode 62 miles today on some very nice trails.

Next weekend is the R4RD. We've worked very hard to set up the three events and a ride that make up R4RD. We hope you can find a way to participate. We'll be at Schoolhouse from 4-7 pm Friday for food and raffles. We'll be having breakfast Saturday at Chute Inn at 8:00 am, then leaving from Mountain Springs Motel parking lot at 9:30. We should be to Green Lake Tap for some raffles around 11:30. or so, then out to Pine Grove for lunch around 1:00 pm. They'll serve lunch from 11 am- 2 pm. Then we'll see which way the trails take us before we get over to Kitty's I Grill & Bar on Chute Pond for dinner, spinwheel and other raffles, karaoke, dancing, and lots of fun. You are welcome to ride along with us, or meet us anywhere along the way.

Hope to see you next weekend.

Dan & Dylan

Comments and questions welcome at info@chutepondsnowmobileclub.com