Techdenis007 Posted February 28, 2017 Share Posted February 28, 2017 Well we had been looking at riding sometime around my son's birthday, so I scheduled today off sick .... last week .... so we had a passenger, our friends' 9 year old son who needed a babysitter ... we parked him on the sled and took him along ! Gassed up and headed out on the L155, which hadn't been groomed recently but was amazing ... The big hill near Val Cote ... kids always sliding here ... Near the Old Indian Cemetery .... very freshly groomed .... Beautiful new routing to the East end of this trail, it's way more funner this way ... About half way through to the Reesor monument from Mattice ... coupla guys coming down the trail, thought I'd catch 'em on virtual film .... Just past the Reesor monument the ride gets discouraging .... they're logging in there, right on the trail ... taking about 3 km of it, pretty rough & choppy in some parts. It changes daily, depending on what they're up to, IQ Turbo mentioned large mounds of dirt freshly dug out, but today it was packed and frozen. Beyond that point it was ok, but not for long. The A trail had not been groomed since before the melt, so it froze up in the slushy condition it was last ridden before . Real choppy, rough. And it was like that most of the way to Kap too. We met the groomer heading towards Opasatika, it appeared his first pass was pretty rough, still lots of holes and bumps, large chunks of ice turned up ... very discouraging. Naturally he was doing the other side of the trail, so we had to ride the ungroomed mogulfest to Kap. Some spots were better than others. (Bear in mind that I realize the weather was crap and it takes time to catch up to it all...) Once we crossed the big Kapuskasing sign, it smoothed right out. We went and had lunch at the A&W, fueled up at the Flying J, and took a shortcut back to the link to L123, by continuing East on the Super 8 access trail... a trail packed by locals follows parallel to the highway behind the houses and businesses, then pops out to a concession road. We turned South on Clear Lake road, crossed the highway and 200 meters later met the town access trail L139. We could see it had been freshly groomed, in fact it was visible heading towards town. We headed East and caught up to the L123 for our return trip. We badly wanted to avoid that stretch of moguls on the West end of town. The L139 and L123 were absolutely beautiful, table top with only a couple of tracks on them. Gotta give kudos to the Kap Sno-Rovers Facebook page, as they update regularly which trails are being done and which have been done recently. We turned North on L145 to Harty, which was groomed at the same time as the others.... very nice too, lots of heavy snow in the trees .... this was just before getting to town ... We were pleasantly surprised once we got past the village and back onto the trail, that the groomer had done a much better job with the snow he had, trail was much more rideable, all the moguls chopped off and very reasonable, considering it had been quite a while since their last run thru there. We were able to make good time riding home. We stopped in at Opaz Gas for a little stretch break and a snack.... The groomer that had done the trails to Opasatika (Reesor monument in fact) came out of the Val Rita yard ... I found this strange, as the Opaz groomers were both parked behind the town garage, and the drag was next to a dump truck everything covered in snow. The owner of Opaz Gas informed me that they had the club "taken away" without much discussion it seems. I'm guessing due to low membership and pass sales. This means the Val Rita groomer now has to do all the way to the Reesor highway crossing where they meet Mattice club. Inevitable I guess in low population areas with minimal sledders. Anyway, all this discouraging conversation had gotten me worn out a bit, needed a nap .... Nice ride home on much better trails, had some traffic heading West, I saw them coming in the mirror and slowed our group, waving them on. They happily waved back when passing us, thumbs up and peace signs. We got home around 5:30 ish, 300km for the day, no breakdowns, flips, or other incidents. Not even a close call with oncoming sledders ... beautiful ride !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
14 snow Posted February 28, 2017 Share Posted February 28, 2017 nice post, trails look great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Techdenis007 Posted February 28, 2017 Author Share Posted February 28, 2017 It was 14, just wish the trails had been groomed the day before... it'll be better for you guys though. I just wish they weren't logging in the Opaz end of the L123, it's the very best section of trail in that area, and allows you to avoid the road running up in Harty (that stretch of road with open fields on either side). Hope there's no logging next year, or they make a re-route available to get around it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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