Jump to content

Whitney or Barry's Bay?


Circuit

Recommended Posts

Booked:

Arrive North Bay late Friday night (leaving after wife's work).

Saturday: North Bay to Pembroke. We have all day so we can sort of take our time.

Sunday: Pembroke to North Bay. Ditto.

Monday: Drive home.

Should be a great trip. The trails are turning green. All except North Bay which is yellow right now and a very short red stretch on the way to the hotel in Pembroke but I am sure we can pick our way across 3 kms of closed trail along a road or something.

Thanks for everyone's comments!

Between Deux Rivieres and Stonecliffe, you may want to consider trying out the #195 and/or #197 trails. It may take a little longer, but these trails are gems...they're wide, twisty, up and down high speed trails with a lot of scenery. It breaks the monotony of the straighter, higher speed pipeline A trail. Maybe try one loop on the way down and try the other on the way back. They are usually in better shape too, due to less riders and more snow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Between Deux Rivieres and Stonecliffe, you may want to consider trying out the #195 and/or #197 trails. It may take a little longer, but these trails are gems...they're wide, twisty, up and down high speed trails with a lot of scenery. It breaks the monotony of the straighter, higher speed pipeline A trail. Maybe try one loop on the way down and try the other on the way back. They are usually in better shape too, due to less riders and more snow.

That sounds great. Thanks for the idea. :right_on:

My only question now is, how is the fuel situation along this route? Is it clearly marked where we can go to get fuel? This is my first long trip with this sled and I don't really know what to expect out of this 800r powertek yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fuel in Stonecliffe, I guess in Mattawa too, not sure where. I think you have to go off main trail a ways into Mattawa to get gas.

Petawawa you will pass gas stations. Ya those trails Grimm menitoned are nice. 191,193,195,197. The poker run is Saturday

out of Stonecliffe, and will be on the east trails I believe. Have a good trip

Link to comment
Share on other sites

800 pt is great on fuel. Make sure you run high octane fuel though. There is fuel in mattawa, pettawa and pembroke. You won't have a problem find fuel. This is a well travelled route of the rap tour. Signage is usually great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tomorrow night we will be in North Bay. Saturday we will be riding. :hyper:

I was extra paranoid about fuel but have since recovered. About to go outside and put the spare tire on the trailer and give it the once over.

Thanks to all for the help with information. A friend of mine who has been snowmobiling longer than me said that after this weekend my wife will either love snowmobiling or hate it to death. I said an 170 mile day is a good introduction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I wonder if they made it. Weather wise a perfect day for them. We just finished the local poker run in Stonecliff and trails were awsome. Cards on the other hand wern't. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back home.

We never made it to Pembroke but still had a lot of fun. For her first time ever on a snowmobile my wife did well. We ended up doing 98 miles Saturday and another 90 miles Sunday.

Here's the story:

Arrived 12:20am Saturday morning. We didn't get going until 10am Saturday. Some people we talked to told us not to take SSR710 since it was all washboard so we headed south down the lake to use SSR701. My plan was to show her the basics in the parking lot then head to the lake and let her get some turning in and such. Well, her Mother had some friends that died snowmobiling on ice so she has instilled this primal fear in my wife of driving on any body of water on anything other than a boat so she was petrified. She couldn't get herself to do more than 20 mph (she says 30) even after I showed her the ice shacks, trucks and trailers on the ice.

We get off the lake and on to SSR701. Third turn in she drives off the trail. Thanks to me and a few helpful others we get her back on track. We get to a road crossing and I get on top of the plow mound and as soon as I did it I thought, "I hope she doesn't try to follow me up here." She did and proceeded to fall off the other side into deep snow in the ditch. A pick-up and a few more helpful people and she is back in business again.

SSR701 to SSR700 and I miss the turn to A101D. That took us 8 miles too far south before I realized we missed it. Back north to A101D. We get on the nice old rail bed stretch and by now she is getting a feel for the sled and I get up to speed then wait for her to catch up. We get to where it turns north into the bush and a few turns in she dumps it off the trail again. She got too close to the side where it wasn't packed and that was it. I struggled with it for about 15 minutes and was resolving myself to try to use my sled to pull her out with my rope when an army of 5 people showed up, picked the sled up and put it right.

So by then she was feeling like an idiot and I was frustrated but got over it. We looked at our fuel gauges and they both showed less than half a tank. That made no sense but with all the slow moving and pauses We figured before venturing out the A trail we should get gas. We made it to where the A101D and the TOP A meet 3 hours after we left the hotel and I asked some guys that were there where the nearest fuel was. So off to Bonfield we go. They said 7 miles. More like 27, 11 of which are on a lake. We make it to the store and proceed to put 18 litres in my tank and 20 in hers. My fuel light was on as I pulled into the station. What a bunch of BS that was so I now dedicate Trip A to fuel range. Argh.

I already knew by then we would never make it to Pembroke so we headed back to North Bay taking A102D to TOP D North to SSR710. What a mistake that was. As the guys in the morning told us, the trail was a disaster of washboard rolling bumps. I stood up and let the sled do the bouncing but my wife decided to go really slow instead. To be honest it was really bad.

Got back to hotel, got a room, canceled Pembroke, went to the restaurant in the hotel to find it full so had to drop the trailer off the truck to search for food. Ended up at Churchill's Prime Rib House. The food was excellent.

Sunday we decided to just enjoy the day. We did a similar loop in 6 hours. She got stuck once. I got stuck twice. I told her it was to show her that we all get stuck sometimes. :icon_naughty: We did hotel to SSR701 to C110D to D to A101D to A north to A102D to D south to C110D to D102C to SSR701 and the hotel. Approx 90 miles.

Things I learned:

#1 - If there is a rookie double the time. Pembroke was very unrealistic for her. I could have done it but not her yet.

#2 - My next sled is fuel injected. My sled Sunday morning took some playing around with the choke and throttle to get her going. Her's started second attempt.

#3 - My sled will do 68 miles on 18 litres easy. 120 miles at least on a tank so switch the gauge to coolant temp and ignore the idiot light. (This really bugged me.)

Things she learned:

#1 - When I am trying to get her unstuck the swearing and ranting is so I can have the strength to lift that damn 800 pound sled plus snow.

#2 - Getting stuck happens. Get unstuck, get on and have fun!

#3 - Snowmobiling can be fun. We are a community. We help out when we can.

#4 - Don't go faster than you can handle.

Thanks to all the area snowmobilers who helped us out of the stucks this weekend. Thanks to the club that looks after the SSR trails. Those where great. Also the BF section of the A trail was one of my wow moments. The tall fur trees in the snow. Amazing. In the end we mostly had a lot of fun. The weather was great both days. She says she would do it again so I just might have converted her to snowmobiling.

TOPAnorth.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Congratulations on a successful trip. I am glad that she is ready to try it again. Lesson #4 for her is really the important one.

Thanks for the report.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Things she learned:

#1 - When I am trying to get her unstuck the swearing and ranting is so I can have the strength to lift that damn 800 pound sled plus snow.

Great report! My mild case of tourette's syndrome usually kicks in during similar situations.....watching hockey, driving in the GTA, useless staff meetings at work....welll worth the money spent many years ago hiring an instructor to teach the spouse how to drive standard transmission.

She says she would do it again so I just might have converted her to snowmobiling.

Happy outcome!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pembroke to North Bay is a big trip all in its own. Especially if you run into any trouble, or less than perfect trails, and expect you will somewhere along the way.

I only did it once, I did find it a bit long the time I did it. It was with my wife and another bud. My wife was fine, my bud on the other hand was a bit of a doddler. At the time we ran into rain, and freezing rain which made things worst but we did make it. I would do it again but

plan more accordingly. Hope you both get a chance to do the run next time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pembroke to North Bay is a big trip all in its own. Especially if you run into any trouble, or less than perfect trails, and expect you will somewhere along the way.

I only did it once, I did find it a bit long the time I did it. It was with my wife and another bud. My wife was fine, my bud on the other hand was a bit of a doddler. At the time we ran into rain, and freezing rain which made things worst but we did make it. I would do it again but

plan more accordingly. Hope you both get a chance to do the run next time.

We did a "daytrip" from McGary Flats (near Maynooth) to Petawawa in the 90s. Around 530 klicks in 1 day. Not pleasant & don't intend to repeat that again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...