Temagami to Timmins Ride, Feb. 13-14

[irREVerent]

After being back home for a week, I've finally found the time (and the resolve) to do a trip report on our adventures in the north last week.

Mrs. irREVerent and I decided a couple of weeks ago to take a few days and do a mini-saddlebag tour of a portion of northeastern Ontario....as a "warm-up for our upcoming week in northern Quebec.

So, we sussed out some possibilities on our District 14 map, and eventually decided to trailer from home (Huntsville) to her brother's lodge in Temagami, and ride north from there. So, we departed from home mid-day Tuesday the 13th, stopping in North bay to run an errand, and arrived at Northland Paradise in Temagami later in the afternoon. Unloaded our sleds, unpacked our stuff, packed our saddle bags and then settled in for a nice relaxing dinner and visit with my brother-in-law and his wife.

Day 1 -- Wednesday February 13th

Next morning, we saddled up about 9:00 AM and headed north on TOP A from Temagami toward New Liskeard...here we are getting loaded and ready to go...

A Trail north had been groomed the night before from Net Creek bridge (a few kms from the lodge), and was in awesome shape up the power line and then Roosevelt Road (seasonal forest access road) all the way to the ice crossing at Latchford. Very fast running, and we made the 52 kms to Latchford in no time. Carried on north on A from Latchford to Liskeard...unfortunately, this stretch of A was much rougher, as the terrain is more rugged, and it hadn't been groomed for a few days.

Nonetheless, we still made decent time and got to New Liskeard too early for lunch, so we decided to carry on north and get lunch and top up our fuel in Englehart. So, we ran A Trail up the river, then cut off onto the club trial L189, which heads north across the farm fields north of New Liskeard, toward Earlton. This trail was in great shape, and we hit A108 east of Earlton in what seemed like no time. We then followed A108 west toward Earlton, losing our way once due to poor signage (the A108 signage in town is virtually non-existent), but eventually got to and through Earlton and followed A108 north toward Englehart. Here's a shot on A108 between Earlton and Englehart...

When we reached Englehart we got fuel just off the trail (MacEwen's), and stopped for lunch at Cousin's, which is also right on A108, across from the mill in Englehart. the meal at Cousin's was quite tasty and the service was great...definitely a recommended stop if you are travelling through that area.

After lunch, we carried on north on A108 toward Kirkland Lake...generally reasonably fast running, but the closer we got to Kirkland, the rougher A108 got, and the more overcast the day became, with very flat light making it tougher to "read" the trail surface. the temperature had risen to just below zero, so conditions were also a bit damp. We got to the A110Q trail intersection on the south side of Kirkland Lake about 2:15 PM. I'm very glad I was familiar with that spot from a previous visit last year, because the signage there was very poor (when approaching from the south, as we were, A110Q wasn't even identified.) Anyway, we were destined for the Comfort Inn in the west end of town, so we followed A110Q west a few kms to the appropriate local trail turn-off (again, not identified), headed north to the nearby Canadian Tire to re-fuel, then back-tracked to the side trail to Comfort Inn. Checked-in at Comfort Inn about 3:00 PM, after a very pleasant ride of 210 kms...a gentle snow had begun to fall, which carried on into the night. Here's a pic of our simple but elegant idea for protecting the exposed DESS post of a Ski-Doo from the elements while it is parked for the night (Patent Pending...LOL):

Based on my experiences in recent years, the Comfort Inn is (IMO) by far the better spot to stay of the two hotels in Kirkland Lake...it is clean, comfortable and up-to-date (unlike the former HoJo's, now called the Kirkland Lake Inn.) However, the lack of accommodaton choices and competition in Kirkland means that their rates are very high by typical standards in other places...we paid $140 for the night, and that was with a sledders' discount! One other down-side is that Comfort Inn has no dining room, so you have to either walk or take a cab into town to find some restaurant choices. Tim's and McDonald's are less than a 10-minute walk away, so we decided to just hoof it over there for a simple dinner, since the next night (Valentine's Day) was going to be a special meal.

Day 2 -- Thursday February 14th

After sampling Comfort Inn's basic continental breakfast, we got packed up, cleaned the 2 cm of new snow off the sleds, and back on the trail around 9:30 AM. The temperature had dropped substantially overnight, and the weather when we started out was cloudy bright, making for good visibility on the trail. We decided to run A110Q west about 10 kms to local club trail L103, and head north on it up to A Trail a few kms north of Sesikinika, to avoid the section of logging activity on A108 north of Kirkland (thanks for that tip, Ultrafrozen.) A110Q west of town was in need of a grooming, but certainly wasn't terrible.

When we got to L103 and turned north, it had clearly not seen a groomer for a while, as we were pushing 6" of powder snow and there were only a few fresh sled tracks from recent days. L103 was a very pleasant route through the remote bush northwest of Kirkland...here's a pic a few kms up the trail:

All was well until we got about halfway up the 18 kms of L103...we came to a fork in the trail where the few fresh tracks went left (straight north) on a totally ungroomed route which was full of nasty moguls...no sign of any previous grooming at all. The right-hand fork had only one set of older tracks, which appeared to be on a smoother trail base...although the most recent snowfalls had obliterated any sign of a groomer drag "cut" edge. There was absolutely no signage indicating which of those forks was the correct choice for L103, so after a couple hundred yards of BIG moguls following the majority of recent sled tracks going straight north, we gave up on that and back-tracked to follow the single set of tracks on the right fork. That route took us through some open areas which had been looged in recent years, and as it turned out, that was the correct route...we eventually came to a power line heading northwest, which eventually took us out to A Trail, which was in great shape. Not too far north up A, we met a groomer headed south, so after we passed him until we got to the junction of A & A108, ours were the first tracks on the freshly-groomed A. By this time the sky had become heavily clouded-over and it started to snow steadily. Again the temperature had warmed up to just below zero, so the snowfall was quite damp.

A further quick 12 kms north on A Trail (from the A108 junction) brought us to Butler Lake Truck Stop, where we stopped to stretch our legs, and experienced that sinking feeling that is the fear of every saddle-bagging sledder...one of our bags (a green knapsack with a few tools, spare oil for my wife's E-TEC, flashlight, spare gloves, cable lock, etc.) was gone! We quickly decided we had better back-track in the hope that we would find it...so back south we went. All the way down A 16 kms to the L103 junction, no sign of the bag...and no fresh sled tracks aside from ours. Turns out the southbound groomer we saw had turned off on L103, so we decided to see if we could catch up to him, in case he had seen our missing bag and picked it up. A further 9 kms down L103, we finally caught up to the groomer and flagged him down...sure enough, he had seen our green knapsack lying on the trail and picked it up...talk about both thankful and relieved!!! So, after securing it back on the tunnel of my wife's sled with umpty-four bungies...we were NOT going to run the risk of losing it again...off we headed north again.

We got back to Butler Lake Truck Stop an hour (and more than 50 kms) after being there the first time, and continued north on A, through Ramore to Matheson, where we stopped for fuel and hopped across the highway to the little Chinese restaurant for lunch. The proprietor there is a very friendly and pleasant Chinese woman, who actually remembered me from a lunch stop I made there while passing through last year, and we enjoyed a very nice lunch.

By the time we left Matheson after lunch, the new snow was falling harder and was very wet...great packing snow. We carried on north to Val Gagne, then followed A west to its junction with A111C, south of Iroquois Falls, where we headed west on A111C toward Timmins. By this point the falling snow was making visibility much more of a challenge, as evident in this pic...

We also started to notice that the packing snow was building up in our skid-frames in very large quantities...to the point that it was adding noticeable weight to the sled and actually inhibiting suspension travel in a big way, and forming big "ice balls" in between the rails which caused bottoming out on bigger trail bumps. In all my many years of sledding, I have never experienced this problem to nearly the same degree as we did this day.

So, on the last leg of our day's trip, across A111C to Timmins, we had to stop several times to clean this accumulating snow and ice out of our skids, as the wet snow continued to fall. But despite the challenging weather conditions, we made great time across A111C, which had been recently groomed and had numerous straight, fast sections.

We rolled into the eastern outskirts of Timmins around 3:30 PM, destined for Cedar Meadows Resort, which is on TOP C on the west side of the city. Normally, the most direct route would be to stay on A111C all the way around the south side of the city and across the Mattagami River to C, then a short hop north on C to Cedar Meadows. However, this year, there is a section of about 4 kms of A111C on that south side which is closed due to nearby mining activity...thus leaving us little choice but to take "the long way around" the north side of the city, via local club trails L31 and L25 to TOP C about 10 kms north of the city, then run back down C to Cedar Meadows that way. The good news is both L31 and L25 were groomed to perfection, and that virtually the entire 9 kms of L25 is on a pipeline, so it is straight and very fast.

So, we covered the total 15 kms northwest to C in what seemed like no time, headed back down into the city, detoured on L24 into town to re-fuel, then back up to C and continued southwest toward Cedar Meadows. unfortunately, that route brings into play the really ugly bridge crossing over the Mattagami River...TOP C crosses a main street at a traffic light, requiring sledders to cross on the pedestrian walk signal (with cooperation from turning cars, thankfully), then run along a dedicated "sidewalk" along the south side of the bridge, which of course cannot be groomed, so the entire length of the bridge is one long series of closely-spaced, deep moguls of frozen slush and ice. It's one of those sledding experiences which is hard to describe, but you just have to grit your teeth and ride it out. Thankfully, we arrived at Cedar Meadows Resort just 1 km south of that bridge, just before 4 PM. Total trail mileage for the day ended up at 255 kms, including our 50 km back-track for our lost knapsack.

After check-in, here's a pic of one last time cleaning all the snow and ice out of our skids, before nightfall, when the temperature was forecast to drop significantly:

And here's a couple of shots of the exterior of Cedar Meadows, the first being the main lodge building and the second showing some of the series of separate cabins which are also available:

Our experience at Cedar Meadows was very pleasant, despite the fact that they aren't particularly geared to the touring sledder, in terms of sled parking/accessibility and security. The lodge facilities are relatively new and rooms are spacious and nicely appointed...given the calibre of the place, we were quite happy with the $112 cost of our standard room with gas fireplace. Here's a pic showing our second floor room:

We had heard very positive reports on the meals at Cedar Meadows, so had planned to be there this night to enjoy their special Valentine's Day dinner menu. The food was excellent and very good value, and there were some nice Valentine's touches, including some fresh roses in the centrepiece on every table.

I certainly wouldn't hesitate to recommend this place to touring sledders. But next time, especially for a small group, I think I would be tempted to stay in one of the cabins instead of the main lodge, as that would allow the group to park our sleds right outside the door of the cabin, for both easier saddle-bag access and better security overnight.

The remaining 1.5 days of our trip, taking us back to Temagami on Feb 15th and the morning of the 16th, is the subject of a separate post, as I am running out of alloted capacity for pics.

[TO BE CONTINUED in a separate post...]

[mooseski]

good to hear , thanks for the report.

[14 snow]

Great report!

[Ultrafrozen]

Nice write-up. Followed you all the way.

I'm trying to talk my wife into another overnighter but up to Cochrane next weekend. Wish me luck.

[slomo]

Sounds gruelling so far...Looking forward to part 2!

[RAM]

Well written report - better than the novel I'm reading. Oh ya, I haven't read a novel in 10 years. I prefer reading OC topics.

Looking forward to part II.

[Turbo Doo]

Great report..

[irREVerent]

Well written report - better than the novel I'm reading. Oh ya, I haven't read a novel in 10 years. I prefer reading OC topics.

Looking forward to part II.

Thanks, RAM...and here's the link to part 2: http://ontarioconditions.com/forums/index.php?/topic/11179-timmins-to-temagami-feb-15-16/