We play Grey Bruce in Durham next sunday.  Wondering if I should grab the sleds for the balance of the day

We launched this morning from the Dufferin Drift Busters club house in Shelburne, parking lot filled quickly this morning and was by far the the busiest I’ve ever seen it when we got back, 30-40 trucks and trailers.  Lots of people out enjoying the trails today, thank you to the Dufferin Drift Busters, Klondyke Trail Groomers, and Durham Trailblazers for all the hard work that went into the trails we rode today.  Trails coming out of Shelburne were definitely thinner, a few sections of gravel mixed with snow, nothing too bad and snow increased as we headed north.  Markdale has much more snow, the parking lot in Markdale is not plowed but people are staging from it.  The snow especially closer to the entrance is packed down.  We headed into Durham for fuel and lunch, roads were snow covered so the road running sections were decent, and we saw mixed conditions on the trails into Durham, very good to thin sections.   We did go through a few muddy crossings, nothing deep or very wide but enough to get some mud on the sled.  We stayed north out of Durham and headed back to the B110 as we heard things weren’t as good to the south.  Overall we had a very good day, 170km,  3 years since this group rode together and it was nice to see everyone again.   To everyone looking to get out, the snow is light and will get beat up with the heavy traffic the trails are seeing.  I can see conditions deteriorating as the days go on.  Lots of trailers heading north as I was on my way home.     Some pictures of the good stuff….

Came home to Michigan today. Snow is spotty at best. Dub/Hawk/Wawa are very light on snow depth, no real grooming, only packing, and no real new snows since the 2 warm ups. I went up to shovel December 14th, came home the 17th. We returned on the 31st, came home today, we never had to shovel at all, from arrival, to departure. That should give you an idea of how little snow we received.    Snow depth fluctuated greatly between Red Rock Lake, and Montreal river hills, from very little, almost non existent, to "rideable". More snow around Frater but, not sure I would bet my lower control arms on it. From slightly North of Batchawana Bay, to Just South of Soo Michigan city limits, snow was pretty good. St Ignace, Mackinaw city have zero snow, and even less ice. Guessing no treeline to Mackinac Island this year.   We need one good storm or 2 smaller ones to start grooming. With the new powerline from Hawk to the Dub mine sites, that trail may be iffy for opening very long, or at all so, we may be running the Magpie all wither. With last years no grooming, no trimming, the club will have it's hands full trying to open all 3 trails, north, south and west. Everything we saw up there, was grown in pretty heavily. Ski

Looking forward to a ride report.     I would like to go on Thursday or Friday but if the trails are going to be a rock/gravel with a bit of snow thrown in combo, I will pass.     I have wrecked enough stuff over the years riding in marginal conditions that I would rather leave my sled parked now instead of riding on crap.  

Thanks for that update!   .