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Day 1 Saturday Put me in coach I’m ready to play. Time for another jaunt. After a long week of work, Snohorse arrived right as planned at Chez Ice. Unfortunately, I was not home yet. However the Mrs. was home and provided the needed Budweiser. Soon after I arrived to get this party really started. Well not so fast, I had to stock the firewood for my bride for the week so she and the cats won’t freeze to death. Firewood finished and got showered up. Time to head out get some food. We got all the errands done and back at home. Next affair is to install Snohorse’s new communicator on his helmet. Trying out some new Sena 20s radios this run. Not to big a job and before you know it its now after midnight. Time to sleep a bit. We are in no big rush but have a big day ahead. Up at 7:30 get organized finish packing. We unload Snohorse’s backcountry and load up. Dressed and helmets on just before 9am. Typical for us. Right out the gate I can see the trail has improved greatly from last weekend, cold and a few CM new snow really helped alot. TQ3 through Shawingan and its not too shabby. Cold this morning-22c. Up to Grand Mere and the river all good to Junction with TQ23. TQ23 direction Cabanon. Yes 2 weeks in a row I’m headed for St Michel on a Saturday. I must need my head examined. Anyone who knows me Knows that I hate weekends but it’s a necessary evil in today’s world. Is what it is. I’m expecting traffic but surprisingly it’s not bad, maybe it’s the cold. 23 is great just after Cabane Chez Natalie I’m seeing some snow dust ahead. First traffic. Unfortunately trail is way to small to burn them down. Even worse there’s 8 of them. Not good. Fortunately we arrive at a spot I know well. The trail veers off the road into the woods. If you know then you just follow the road and it comes back to 23. Plenty of snow on road and we scoop all 8 no problem. Smooth sailing up to Cabanon. i take $20 in gas just to get to the real gas in St Michel. In and out at Cabanon. Arrive in St Michel at Noon. Gas in town next to Ski Doo, then off across the road and to 63/33 to Head for Lac Repos. Near St Michel was the usual conditions. Just after on 63/33 was awesome all the way to Repos. No stop at Repos it’s Kanawata express. Arrive into Kanawata just about 3:30. Gas and go. 345 well just stay away(really) you will hate it. This trail seldom disappoints and today was no exception. A superhighway and we run. Up and to Casey then on to 83 west all spectacular 10/10. Unbelievable. Tabletop flat and fast. Kanawata to Barrage Gouin in 1 hr 30 minutes. 145 km. I think the trail was good. Into Barrage Gouin said hello to Carol who was on her way out and enjoyec a great Roast Beef dinner with a side of Chicken Wings of Course. Served by the wonderful Louise. Happy to be here. All good first day. New radios work sweet and trails were immaculate. 302 miles. Big discussions on where to head next. Talked to some guys who came in from Lac Fallon. i think decision is Made. Go west young man. After all west is best. Stay tuned 6 more days to come.

I really rusty. Having troubles entering more pics.

Hope you are having fun with this build, I have built a half a dozen sleds over the last 20 years, still own them all. built every one of them from new sleds and painstakingly tuned them to be trail reliable. A 99 srx with 175hp and 10k Quebec trail miles with out a single break down, also built a D&D 1010 out of a 2002 zr800, 200hp torque monster that is still as fast as just about anything on the trail, Also built a Hooper 1107 3 cylinder out of a 1999 800 pantera, with jaws pipes and a 4 tower clutch,and a 136 inch snow cross track , Boss seat, etc., 235hp. Then I moved on to Yamaha and built a supercharged Vector, what an amazing ride, 200 hp, silent , very drive-able, a real sleeper, still gets 16 mpg, HAS BEEN THE MOST DEPENDABLE SLED I HAVE EVER SEEN. 10k Quebec trail miles on the original belt, oh yea, did I mention you do not want to race this sled, it is amazingly powerful, will take your breath away if you are brave enough. All this stuff is still show room and unfortunately sits around while I ride my new sled, a 2018 850 backcountry.So Gutz, I know how much fun you are having, and yes those crazy little performance things for 600 here and there, if you want to add to your collection, I would be happy to sell you some of mine, 60 years old here and moving on from tuning and racing, first half went by so fast, just want to slow down and enjoy the second half, happy motoring.

The time is here, Bucky, Mike and I decide we are going to leave Ottawa Wednesday night for Mont Laurier, ride Thursday to Saint Michel, take in the entertainment at Le Central, ride back Friday and drive back home to Ottawa Friday night. Plan is simple... but this is sledding... Wednesday night over some go go juice we decide a 400 km plus run to Saint Michel is in order. The plan, take the 13 out of Mont Laurier to the 319 to Mekos, onto the 53, then the 33 to Manawan, Lac Taureau and into Saint Michel. Early start, 8 am, no breakfast, room coffee only... On the 13/319 Mekos The 33 after Manawan Right about here we start to run into problems. The Apex just had a new stator put in and it started to act up again. We run fast and hard to get to Saint Michel for the night before the battery is dead. Well we make and go for dinner at the Steak house to figure what the plan of attack is for tomorrow. We put the Apex on a trickle charge that we borrowed from the hotel. Decide to take a short nap before going to the bar... well game over, after not riding for a year and doing 430 km my body is so sore. I was out for the night. Friday morning is here... no skipping breakfast and we are all fresh as Daisy's. The plan is to disconnect all the electronics on the Apex. Bucky is going old school, no lights, no hand warmers and no heated shield. Not taking chances we take the short ride home in the park, 33 to the 63 to Mont Laurier. Turns out the sled is running good and seems to be keeping it together so as we get closer to Mont Laurier we decide to make a few loops to make the best of the day. We take the 53, 224 and then the 230 back to Mont Laurier. Ended up being over 300 km. All trails were fantastic.

Mike: You don't have to out run the wolf just Joe... 😏

Has anyone been to La Cache since it has been updated? See on Google Earth, some pictures of a very modernised interior. This is certainly an intrigual part of touring the Gaspesie

This has a Skidoo exhaust, It should not be an ear bleeder!. Money Back! LOL It a 15000, 2000.00 dollar sled. The dealer ship hs a note on my account, "DO NOT CALL THE HOUSE" it may be the last part they sell. Later GutZ

Thanks Viper. The picture of the wolf track is pretty clear, what isn't clear is that is the front of my size 13 boot next to the track, which, knowing that, shows how big his paw is. I wasn't scared, I was waving Joe to pull up real quick so he could see it, and because if the wolf was hungry, Joe is bigger than me. mike

Gutz, this is the slowest sled I have ridden in a long time, when I am out on the trail saddle bagging I really try to be a good citizen, as much as I love the power, I respect the land owners, other sledders, and all the folks who have worked so hard to give us this great sport, but I am well aware that most guys building these type of sleds have hurt us over the years. you can ride a Harley with an Izod shirt and khaki pants and really enjoy it without breaking everyone's ear drums on main street, and you are catching on fast, it takes a great deal of time and effort to get that stuff right, and you never get the money back, I would sell any of this stuff for way less than you spent playing around building yours, I have learned my lesson, I will never tell my wife what I spent over the years!!

We can't keep up with Sandy now on the 1200, 850.....fuuuudgicles! LOL GutZ

Most likely it will make the News, Causing EPA disasters, loss of life, international incident, the usual. GutZ

I will start a BCX thread tonight with his feedback. I can tell u he loves it. Allgood so far

Rock & Roll Guys! West is Best indeed. Have fun! I will be back in PQ on Thursday!

Phil, Regarding the hi fax wear, we all put on the DuPont hi fax, they extend the hi fax life greatly. RR

I'm sure even though Mrs. Ice showed the old Apex who's boss, she won't get too worked up about her cozy-couples ride not counting as #2!

Having commo is so much better than not. We use Senas also. Is the road mostly always snow covered or only when you hit it right?

Phil, I took the 2.5 track off, that came on the Freeride and run. 2.0, it’s kind of hard to find that perfect combo for my riding off ...and on trail style, so this comes close. I run 2 sets of scratchers when needed, but otherwise find this to be a good compromise. We all talk how the 850 BCX with the 1.6 is very close to the perfect mix! RR

Mike, got a question for you......how many vinos / blue moons last night??? I think you might need to ease into this retirement buddy. That 'wolf' was probably just a neighborhood house cat that looked bigger at a distance! Congrats on your new life, and remember to bring a newspaper with you when you return home! Ride safe and have fun, will be looking for daily reports. Terry

We are in val dor the 19th and 20th 2 days we like that area and like the hotel so we usually stay 2 days then we will head to Temiscaming on the 21st and head back home to Ohio the next day hopefully we all have a great ride so many bad years we had to change our plans and cut our trips short. We are going to start riding the 12th will up-date nightly to give trail reports. Greg

OK here is one I haven't seen before! I can guess but comments please! Jack & Sandi

Hmm, salt water and tides that far down, his transponder must have been stolen by a crow or a clever drone operator.

We were up at Lac St Jean last weekend, Jan 25th thru the 29th. It turned out to be a little hectic and I didn't get a chance to post. So here is a quick overview. We planned on trucking to St Raymond, riding up to the Lac for a few days and then back to St Raymond. Reservations were made and we are good to go, we thought. We stop at Valcourt to get the trailer and sleds, that's where they live for the season, and Sandi's 1200 antifreeze leak isn't fixed. We managed to "borrow" a sled for Sandi for the weekend. Thursday afternoon and we are off to St Raymond. Now I don't want to have the truck in St Ray and us at the Lac in case something happens to my sled or to the borrowed sled. Change of plans and we truck to the Lac Friday morning. Make some changes with the hotel reservations. Friday we take a short ride in the afternoon to Relais du Lac. Friday night we see Bill, FarmerOld, Daniel, Snobeeler, and many others. Its good to see everyone. Saturday we ride to Milot for lunch with FarmerOld and Tammy. The trails are great. Sunday we run down 83 to L'Anse St Jean. 83 is perfect. Monday the map shows 93 has been groomed to La Chappel. I haven't seen 93 this good in a long time. Tuesday off to the blueberry fields. This area I really like. A nice variety of riding and not much traffic. Wednesday we drive back to CT. Below is a pic of the sled Sandi managed to get her hands on. This is the third year on her 1200 and we only keep them for three years so it is her time to get a new one. This may be the one. Is she going back to a two stroke? She really likes the feel of the sled. Pic near La Chappel. Pic behind the Delta. Time will tell but this one is at the top of her list today. Jack & Sandi

of course !!! i guess bigger the rack is...pricey seat !!!...ahaha jean-guy

Quick update that almost ended it all. So we unloaded it in Quebec and it again started right up and drove very smooth to the Sled Pen. We were hoping to put a couple of test miles on it. This did not happen so as I was putting it away until later this week. Well.... it is f..a..s..t! and it is quick fast. As i was bringing it around I started giving it a little gas, It felt like the valves opened and it went from 0-100, the track just spun and polished the parking lot and through the RR in to a spin\dounut. i quickly let off and the spin slowed down. Just as the ride was coming to an end the outer carbide on the Simmons ski dug into the ice and in slow motion it picked up and rolled over on to the side. Being the Hulking figure I am, i flailed on the ground helplessly in the middle of lot trying to roll it back over, No-Hair ran over and rolled it back upright. It appears that no damage happened. So hopefully a little breakin time later this week. Later GutZ

hi tom !!! as you can see.....the operator left from the gaspesie !!!!...ahahah jean-guy

Groomer Water Skips! I wonder if he is going to catch the trail to the left on the way back? GutZ

Day 9 – out of the truck compound at 7:00am heading back to the States. Minus 26F when we left and we beat the weekend crowd. 1600 miles for the week (had to make a quick trip around the lake before we parked them just to turn over the 1600 😊). For this trip we went where we saw snow – made some changes before we left and then one time in the middle of the trip. Every trip is an adventure. No issues for any of the 7 sleds (although my reverse would not engage after day 2; that was more of a nuisance than an issue; read something about that happening on some Ski Doo’s riding lots of miles in Quebec; maybe creates a ridge or groove on one of the gears preventing it from shifting into reverse? oh well, it’s at the dealer now under warranty; we’ll see what they say). We had another great trip!! We took a vote at dinner – good vs. not so good trail conditions for the week – the score was about 40% good vs. 60% not so good. Not sure we’ve ever had that. Oh well; still nobody complaining. Hopefully they get more snow and the groomers can do their magic.

Day 8 - Thursday 1/25 - Mekoos to LeCabanon. We step outside our cabin at 7:00am to this very loud howl. Takes us a minute and we realize the sled dogs live just on the other side of the woods from us. They must have been hungry for breakfast as they were all howling in unison. Pretty cool to hear. We had planned to take the southern routes back to LeCabanon, but Bobby says to stay North. Parts of 319 and 63 along the rail bed are closed due to lack of snow. Decision made, we head North the way we came in. Yuk; back through Manawan. Out 319, up 53 North onto 33 heading East. Manawan was worse than yesterday. We had checked the grooming reports before we left and it looked like Manawan to Repos had been groomed. We all have our fingers crossed. 33 towards Manawan, across the bypass, and boom; there were the fresh groomer tracks. Thank you! Groomed nice into Repos. We stop for gas and lunch again, déjà vu. Out of Repos on 33 heading South, jump onto the lakes and head all the way down until we can jump back on 33. 33 for a short bit until we hit Canada Adventure, and then onto Lac Taureau. Quick stop at the tepees for some pictures and then South to Saint Michel and then 63 into LeCabanon. In around 4:00 with 165 miles for the day. The trails around Saint Zenon could use more snow, but again they had done a great job with the snow that they have.

Day 6 - Tuesday 1/23 - Fer A Cheval to Windigo. We wake up to some new snow which was great to see, but now it’s spitting a little freezing rain. We hear reports of LOTS of freezing rain to the South. Right where we are supposed to be heading for the day (Saint Zenon area). The area was a little light on snow when we started, so now we’re a little concerned. Executive decision time – after breakfast we make a call to Martine at Windigo. She says no problem, see you tonight. We’ve never been; we were supposed to go last year but had an issue and never made it there. Out the door around 9:00am with a “nice easy day planned”. No such thing as we all know 😊. As we’re leaving, it’s still freezing rain a bit. One of the guys says “well I’ll take this over rain any day”. Sounded good at the time. Wrong! We head North on 13 to catch 83 towards Parent. We gas up in Parent and the freezing rain starts to pick up as we leave. Do we stop for lunch and hope it passes, or push on. We decide to push on. As we get closer to Wemo, it’s REAL bad. Everyone is plugged in, but that’s no help. We could only go about 2 miles at a time and we’d have to stop altogether to clear shields as they were completely iced over. You could ride for about a mile using your left hand as a constant windshield wiper (and I mean constant), then lift your shield and ride for about another mile until the pain was unbearable, then it was time to stop and start all over again. This was going to be a LONG day. We make it to Wemo and stop for gas. As we’re there, it starts to turn to snow. Thank goodness. We leave Wemo on 83 and most of the freezing rain had passed. We’d hit it occasionally, but it was at least manageable now. East to the local trail down to Windigo. We get in around 5:00 with 200 miles for the day. Again, we have the place to ourselves. Excellent meal, hospitality, and accommodations! Sorry we haven’t been here before now, and we’ll definitely be back.

Beauceville Clubhouse is a great starting point. Although it isn't "secure" (gated, fenced/locked up) Mike, I and many others have left our rigs there many, many times without incident. (and I have never heard of any issues there - ever) I believe someone is there 24x7 and the HUGE lot is lit. We unload, go inside, get dressed, and grab something to eat before heading out. It is also right at the junction of 55 N/S, 75 N/S. I like to support these clubhouses because when they close, it hurts all of us.