slomo Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 "The old home town, looked upside down, as I fell off of the train... and there to meet me .....was her father with a shotgun....." "Green Green Grass of Home" - performed by Tom Jones Green grass was what I was pretty well expecting on Sudbury trails this weekend as the weather looked pretty mild. But missing the deadline to cancel motel reservations, decided to come up anyway. Long slushy, blizzard like drive on Friday night up 400 and then 69 -road conditions very poor. As well, begining of flu setting in. Still, decided to get one last push in at a new sled destination this season, and it looked like my string of good luck with snow conditions continued in the Sudbury area trails on which I travelled. The only trail destination I had in mind was at a former camping area located where the North Wanipitei River flows into Lake Wahipitei as I had spent some time camping there in the past, so decided to see it in winter. Other than that, I was just pointing the sled whever it felt like going. You need a good couple of days to get a true appreciation for the trails in the area, so left the Chiniguchi Loop for the next time. Set off nice and early. About 8 inches of powdery snow had fallen the previous day and over night - for the first while no grooming had been done and wasn't necessary. Nice powdering snow for much of my initial travel and lots of fun where the wind had blown snow over the trails. Was pretty happy with having a long track machine. You can really appreciate the different terrain on which the trails travel. It was almost a disappointment to come upon a section of groomed track as the powder was nice to ride on. Rocky's was busy, but not exceptionally. Too early in the day I guess...Put some gas in - am getting 8 kilometers to a liter. A quick zip on the lake and over to the park. This was a great area to camp and catch a few pickeral around an old wooden trestle when they ran a junior ranger camp there. There are beaches to rival some in P.E.I. Since active supervision of the area has been suspended, place has gone really down hill. Returned around 2001 to find tons of garbage, piles of burned tins, house hold junk left all over the place. Hope it has improved since. After that, tooled around on the lake trails, found a few good trails south of the lake to follow, then made my way back to the motel. Do have to report one lesson learned - switched to mitts from gloves while travelling on the lake. At one point, slowed down to manuever over a pressure ridge which was clearly marked. Mitten kind of pressed on the accelerator a little more quickly than I would have liked, and I ended up on my ass on the ice, while the machine went forward a few feet and then sat there laughing at me. All this nonsense about 4 stroke 'throttle lag' is a bunch of people talking out their butts. All in all a pretty good ride. Back to Parry Sound for next weekend to re an re for upcoming Wawa trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sledjunk Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 Still looking great up there! Hope you weren't hurt. Ice is hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slomo Posted February 27, 2012 Author Share Posted February 27, 2012 Still looking great up there! Hope you weren't hurt. Ice is hard. Thanks to a conversation between Zoso and Soupkid on a forum somewhere, was aware of the pressure ridges and potential open water -even had the ice picks handy. I was at a dead stop kind of 'blipping' the sled over a crack and the thumb of the mitt didn't articulate as well as that on a glove. Consequently the sled jumped a bit which was exacerbated by the shape of the ice so I sort of toppled, no real harm done. (camera and cell phone intact) Looks to be a bit more snow and 'coldish' temperatures over the week so trails should be good for a while. I'm thinking this is the family day weekend destination next year - you can't beat the variety of trails in this area and very little road running that I could see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Quimby Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 That's a nice report Slomo. I love my 1200..smooth response right across the power band. No guessing as to when the clutch will engage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soupkids Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Glad you had a good trip up here If you happen to ,make it up again let me know and I can show you around a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo Doo Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Nice Trip.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slomo Posted February 27, 2012 Author Share Posted February 27, 2012 Glad you had a good trip up here If you happen to ,make it up again let me know and I can show you around a bit. Thanks soupkid. That ride of yours from Skead must have been pretty popular...had two groups stop and tell me about it while I was doing map checks! When I last rode around Sudbury it was so many years ago that there were no trails that I was aware of. I had bought an old very used Snowbug from a neighbour and (for those of you who don't know the area) the mining industry either used all the trees to pile in layers to smelt ore or the fumes killed whatever was left so finding a clear area to sled wasn't a problem. The Snowbug lasted me maybe a winter and a half after which parts and lack of know how were a problem. Posted about the Snowbug earlier, but some may be interested. These pictures from a vintage site: Cute eh? Some more pictures here: http://www.vintagesn...com/PP4359.html And a couple of videos. The machines were manufactured in Sudbury, by an outfit called Original Equipment Manufacturing. (so you had to use OEM parts ) As you can see in the videos it would go anywhere. Surprised I still have my front teeth with the way the steering mechanism works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soupkids Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 The run was a lot of fun, started with 31 sleds on our group and down to 30 in Capreol. Had a nice trail lunch on 78 (whole group) we had 80 entrants with 110 prizes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slomo Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 The run was a lot of fun, started with 31 sleds on our group and down to 30 in Capreol. Had a nice trail lunch on 78 (whole group) we had 80 entrants with 110 prizes. Nice trails in that area - got slightly confused around Capreol and visited most of the local trails until I saw the big sign for Rocky's! Will definitely be making an effort next season to re- visit the Sudbury and area trails. Got to thinking about other weird sleds I had seen in my yout - here is one my neighbours had - which would probably generate plenty of 'lost legs' litigation if still running these days! These photos from a vintage site: http://www.gogodiablo.com/?page_id=962 and as you can see, it was very good at packing down snow prior to flooding an area to make a skating rink. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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