A Very Snowmobile Weekend

This past weekend was a truely impressive weekend for snowmobiling. I had the good fortune of being able to go on Friday, again on Saturday, and again on Sunday. All 3 rides were very different.

On Friday after work I decided to take a ride. I knew that it would start warming up on Saturday, and I prefer riding on the trails when the snow is colder and powdery instead of wet and compacted. I left the house at around 5:30, and found that the trails were ungroomed and very bumpy. Sections were as bad as I've seen them in recent memory. I have to admit though, that sometimes I really enjoy thrashing the bumpy trails, and I had a blast pounding 2' moguls at 50mph. While I was out riding, I came across all 3 groomers, so in addition to the major bumps, I also got to ride some perfectly smooth virgin groomed trail. There's nothing quite like a perfectly smooth snow highway with not a single snowmobile track in sight. I managed to get in a good 65 mile run and was home by 7:30.

On Saturday morning, Kristin and I got ready for our ride together. This was Kristin's first ride, and she was nervous about going. I certainly wasn't nervous, but I also really had no idea what to expect. I was excited to get her out there, but was also fearful that I was going to wind up with one of those major pain-in-the-ass situations that would result in a ruined day and an unhappy wife. Fortunately, that couldn't have been farther from reality. She did great all day, and she had a blast. We found something that we can enjoy together, which is really something great. She managed to ride almost 60 miles on her first trip, and the more she rode the better she got. I need to make some adjustments to the sled so that she'll have less trouble with darting and turning, but once I do that I think she'll quickly get good enough to be able to keep up with us on a normal ride. She can't wait to go again, and I'm looking forward to it too.

On Sunday, I rode with Mike and Ben. Rather than ride the regular trails, we decided to head East past the Harriman Reservoir, and down to the power lines, then up to Jacksonville, which is a route that we don't typically take. Unfortunately, shortly before we got to the power lines, the trail turned into garbage. We continued on until we reached the power lines, but the trail got even worse, so we turned around and headed back to the main trail. We took the main trail to Jacksonville, where we got some lunch at the store, then headed home. Riding over that way is a very different experience than the usual Woodford riding that we do. Woodford trails are big, wide, and usually well groomed. They're also pretty much all in the woods. When we head east, we ride smaller, bumpy trails that go through individually owned segments of property. This includes many trails that pass right through people's yards. It's an interesting experience to ride through these more populated areas. All said and done, when we got done, we'd racked up about 60 miles on Sunday.

I tried to get a lot of riding in, because this week the weather is warming up, which is going to ruin the trails. I won't be able to ride again until we get colder temperatures and more snow. Hopefully it won't be a long wait.

I should have pictures to add in the next day or two.