rockerdan Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Hey gang, Hoping to get some input from my fellow OC members about the Midland and Honey Harbour regions.... On my quest to head in different directions each ride, my mind has been wondering southwest. I am attaching a Map of what Im considering, and it is adding up to be approx 150km each way, for a total of 300km day ride. 180 Mile days have been rather typical this winter, and when they are groomed to a tee just perfect for us. Questions: If we come into Honey Harbour, can we jump onto the bay(severn sound) below HH near Brandy's Island, then run due south across the bay next to present island and snake island, into Midland? How are the ice conditions on this very large bay(severn sound)?? If we can do this, is there a well travelled area easy to follow, and what are some good sled friendly restaurants to eat at in Midland? anything else you can add for Midland or HH info i appreciate! thanks gang, aiming to put this together for this coming fridays ride..as long as the mild spell doesnt wash us out. thanks! Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 That's an interesting proposal, Dan. Not sure about the choice of Friday, given the weather, but of course that's a little difficult to predict. I would make two suggestions: 1. Instead of taking Muskoka Lake to 12, you might consider exiting the lake at Trail 10 (Campbell's Landing) instead, as it will give you a quicker and better experience traveling to the junction of 12 and C101D. 2. I would recommend using Trail 11a, to save you some time and provide you with a really nice run on Six Mile Lake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yukon Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Hey gang, Hoping to get some input from my fellow OC members about the Midland and Honey Harbour regions.... On my quest to head in different directions each ride, my mind has been wondering southwest. I am attaching a Map of what Im considering, and it is adding up to be approx 150km each way, for a total of 300km day ride. 180 Mile days have been rather typical this winter, and when they are groomed to a tee just perfect for us. Questions: If we come into Honey Harbour, can we jump onto the bay(severn sound) below HH near Brandy's Island, then run due south across the bay next to present island and snake island, into Midland? How are the ice conditions on this very large bay(severn sound)?? If we can do this, is there a well travelled area easy to follow, and what are some good sled friendly restaurants to eat at in Midland? anything else you can add for Midland or HH info i appreciate! thanks gang, aiming to put this together for this coming fridays ride..as long as the mild spell doesnt wash us out. thanks! Dan Hi Dan, Stakeline is in from HH town dock running of trail #16 to midland which will take you over Present island... I would suggest sticking to the stakeline, lots of pressure cracks are starting up.... The stakeline from HH to Midland is a friendly stakeline which is non OFSC... So as always use at own risk..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canuck Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Check the local trail map for Midland sponsors. Not sure if Henry's Fish n Chips supports the club, but have found that they are convenient to reach from the ice (and a Ski-Doo dealer is just up the Wye river, lol). Careful on the river, past Henry's - it's often jagged ice, and you're better off taking the land route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockerdan Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 That's an interesting proposal, Dan. Not sure about the choice of Friday, given the weather, but of course that's a little difficult to predict. I would make two suggestions: 1. Instead of taking Muskoka Lake to 12, you might consider exiting the lake at Trail 10 (Campbell's Landing) instead, as it will give you a quicker and better experience traveling to the junction of 12 and C101D. 2. I would recommend using Trail 11a, to save you some time and provide you with a really nice run on Six Mile Lake. Blake! Good call on 11a, i see it now and will surely take that short cut.... As for Campbells Landing off Lake Muskoka(trail 10).....I guess I wanted to "easily" find the trail exiting the lake without a tricky search into and around those islands near 10.....Or are the trails "very obvious" heading in an around those islands on that shore? Mostly concerned with Midland area and Honey Harbour areas....hoping more local people from that area can chime, looking for great place to eat down around there. thanks Blake! Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockerdan Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 Hi Dan, Stakeline is in from HH town dock running of trail #16 to midland which will take you over Present island... I would suggest sticking to the stakeline, lots of pressure cracks are starting up.... The stakeline from HH to Midland is a friendly stakeline which is non OFSC... So as always use at own risk..... wow fantastic! so there is a stakeline from HH down to Midland, perfecto!!! thanks! Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
02Sled Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 With all the ice we have this year you may be safe in parts of Severn Sound down near the south end of Honey Harbour but there are indeed some hard to see pressure cracks in that area as well as there may be some thin ice yet to be found based on current. Yukon provided the best route which is the stake line from the town dock in Midland trail 16/19 which will take you to Midland across the ice. As you leave the town dock bear left. When you get to Midland you will be getting off the ice near the fish huts and a parking lot. Run up the hill toward the road and you will hit trail 305. If you head right (west) you will come to The Boat House right on the waterfront. It's popular with sledders but this is part of district 8 and I am not sure if they support the club or not. If you turn left on 305 east it will take you through town and a subdivision for a bit and will eventually cross hwy 12 where it intersects with C trail turn right on C and it will take you past Timmy's and Boston Pizza. There is another option which is to run to the tip of Beausoleil Island from Honey Harbour. When you leave the town dock there is the option to bear right and follow the stake line to Beausoleil and then onto the island. There is a trail runs down through the middle of the island and a stake line that runs from the south end of the island into Penetang. If you have a little bit of extra time you can run the stake line and get off at the first basin on the west side of the bay (Jug City) and take 304 into Maple Valley. It's a local watering hole that is a long low building the trail runs past the front door. If you are running short on time you can keep running down the bay to the bottom end and get off the ice at Dock Lunch. Neither Maple Valley or Dock Lunch are anything fancy but they are fairly popular with sledders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockerdan Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 ^^ Thanks 02sled! Its wonderful getting these local tips and suggestions, i truly appreciate it! I guess now I just need to watch this weather as its looking like rain for thursday night and friday AM, at least in the city...just remains to see if it will also get mild enough up here to rain too? It almost looks like saturday will be cooling down, but we wanted to be back to either gravenhurst or dwight as they both are having radar runs saturday. thanks again gang Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Dan, I know you're mainly concerned about the Midland end, but here are two postings with more detail on the Muskoka Lake end for your consideration. The first posting is a close-up on the lake exit at Campbell's. The second posting offers suggestions for approaching the Campbell's Landing area of the lake. Obviously one would take a lake route only when the ice is safe. The route on this map is good to follow at the date of this posting, because the lake ice is good right now. Once you get near Campbell's Landing, you will see a well worn multitude of tracks leading right to the Landing's docks. The marina itself will be visible as you get closer to it, and you will know which path to follow once the marina is in sight. This is the yellow dotted line. When you leave the lake, you follow the tracks across the lake level parking area, up the driveway hill past the sled shop (which has high test gas), then out the driveway and straight across the highway onto Trail 10. The yellow dotted path shown on the map below will be very evident to someone on a sled. My next posting will show two routes from the big lake to the landing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted February 19, 2014 Share Posted February 19, 2014 Obviously one would take a lake route only when the ice is safe. The route on this map is good to follow at the date of this posting, because the lake ice is good right now. On this map, once you get to the yellow dotted parts you will be seeing a ton of tracks heading toward the Landing. The question is whether you would take the pink line or the brown line, to get to the yellow dotted path. The brown line is similar to the route you've been using to get to the Narrows on the way to Gravenhurst from Indian Head Harbour. Before you get as far as the Narrows, about one kilometre out from Lighthouse Island, you go across toward the west shore and you will see tracks that go from the Narrows up to Campbell's Landing. Just make a big right turn and head up the channel between Rankin Island and the west shore of the lake. The pink line starts from up by Old Woman Island, which you would be passing anyway if you decided to stick with the original plan of leaving the lake via Trail 12 at Walker's Point Marina. Go south along the pink line and along Walker's Point and Montcalm Point. You are heading for the gap between Beechgrove and Heydon Islands. There will be a focusing of tracks there, and once between the islands you go straight in and pass between Rankin and Taylor right to Campbell's Landing. If I were you I would likely use the brown line as you already use it to get to the Narrows, and the only difference would be your right hand swing to join the tracks that run from the Narrows up to Campbell's. EDIT: I went across the lake from Campbell's this afternoon (Wednesday) and followed some tracks from between Heydon and Beechgrove straight across, just south of Browning Island, and over to the end of Trail 31. I marked this path with green dots. Lake was good but there were short patches of slush every so often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockerdan Posted February 20, 2014 Author Share Posted February 20, 2014 awesome Blake thanks for that! I am pretty good with Lake Muskoka at this point, and the GPS in my face(lol) always leads me properly if I dont see tracks! My big problem now is weather....as of tonight the rain that I spoke about a week ago seems to be a real possibility for thursday overnight and friday AM till about 11am FRI when the cold front passes thru... So after todays 4c temps and sunshine, and now calling for 10-20mm rain being a real possibility fri AM, I am going to put this ride on hold, since the deep snow on lakes will more then likely become rather slushy for fri. I will keep this route ready for maybe a couple weeks from now for sure...... next week we already have plans to do our north bay run, overnighter and checkout the radar runs up on nippissing. This weekend will probably stick to trails as long as the rain fri moves out and things tighten up for saturday, hope dwight can get their radar runs going ok after the rain....will just be a wait and see weekend for sure. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake G Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Dan, your delay makes a lot of sense. Better conditions are likely in the future. Having said that, I had some time to enjoy the sun this morning, so I took a run up Muskoka Lake to check conditions. There were occasional slushy patches, but ninety-nine percent or more of the running was good. I decided to take a real close look at Trail 12 because I was not confident that it would be good for you to use. The trail used to end about two hundred metres from my parents' house, near Walker's Point Marina, but there have been alterations in recent years, and the Interactive Trail guide is NOT accurate. The image below shows a close up of the Interactive Trail Guide, with the addition of a dotted path to show the route you would need to follow from the marina. I scribbled an orange line over the part of the trail that is no longer in use. Red dots show necessary road running, blue dots show places where you would travel on the trail shown on the Interactive Guide, and yellow dots show areas where the current trail exists but is not shown on the online guide. There is absolutely no signage when you exit the lake, and unless you are local to the area you would have a devil of a time trying to figure out where to go. Not a great way to start a 300 kilometre day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockerdan Posted February 20, 2014 Author Share Posted February 20, 2014 WOW, Blake you are a good man! I sure hope the guide can get more up to date on this trail, and im very glad you looked at this for me.... So it surely looks like trail 10 which you suggested earlier will be the way to go for sure, i will save this route for sure as we have not yet headed in that direction. thank you! Im sitting here staring at the guide as well as the weather models....LOL, really contemplating a "new" route that does not include too much lake(due to weather/rain) and does not include anything we have already done recently! and its about impossible! I always wanted to get up to Killarney and Manitoulin island but just added it up and its alittle too far for a fridays ride...now there is a chance we might do an overnighter this friday as well(we are already set to do overnighter next week to NB) which would make a Killarney run 'doo'-able but fridays my bud does not typically get away til 1pm, so that puts us there awful late. It was so easy weeks ago planning my routes for fri's and sat's. Now we either have to repeat the rides or just try to mix in new areas, but the new areas are all very far....We also are considering Pembroke for an overnighter, but that we wanted to save as we might do RAP tour on march break if weather permits. ahhhh decisions decisions! lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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