PLAYHARD

There is no 250 - 300 yards, 30 feet over the top of that hill that I just posted a picture of is where the trail turns.  I guess I didn't hear the whistle because my helmet was on and I was breathing heavy trying to lift the back of my sled by myself.

First of all I'd like to thank everyone for not passing judgment before I got to post the facts.  Everybody makes mistakes, including Tom.  He missed a Chevron sign himself and blew off the trail 3 days after this incident.  It happens.  The decision was made to turn around; I would never, ever go on a recon mission 30 seconds after the decision was made by both of us to turn around.  Tom's sled was never buried.  I was leading with a 121 track.  He should have been leading with his 144, but that's my opinion.  My snowmobile will not move in 4' - 6' of powder as Tom said the Scandic did.  From where I went off trail is 30 feet, not 30 yards as Tom stated that he would have to walk.  Also, by looking at the picture, anyone can tell that it's not a 35 - 40 percent grade. Plus you can see that it's about 300 feet not 250 - 300 yards as Tom stated.  If he would have walked that 30 feet of powder, he would have saw me, but that didn't happen.  I understand that Tom has asthma and the best thing for him to do is turn tail and run for help, which he did and I am grateful.  I just wanted to state the facts and correct the inaccuracies of this thread and do a followup on my 2-1/2 hr. experience waiting for help.

Touch down NY! Long drive(s). Never knew there were so many flavors of Monster Cafés!

La Tuque's a decent diversion too, but that 73's a RIPPER so you'll still be in early:  
 
http://www.viaexplora.com/snowmobile/index.html?unit=mi&lat=47.530573&lng=-72.708555&zoom=8&force=1&ewaypoints=4689930,-7292636,75396,69249,-75304,42177&cst=1.0,1.01,1.05&csts=1.0&cstr=1.01&spd=50000,50000,50000

You won't regret it:
 

La Tuque's a decent diversion too, but that 73's a RIPPER so you'll still be in early:  
 
http://www.viaexplora.com/snowmobile/index.html?unit=mi&lat=47.530573&lng=-72.708555&zoom=8&force=1&ewaypoints=4689930,-7292636,75396,69249,-75304,42177&cst=1.0,1.01,1.05&csts=1.0&cstr=1.01&spd=50000,50000,50000

Day 8:  Friday Jan 20th
Pulled out of the Roquemont in Saint Raymond at 6:00am with a temp of 26*F.   The plan was to get in a full days sled ride but still be at the truck by early afternoon & hit the black trail towards home.  This weekend is the "free weekend" and I for one plan to sit it out.  Busy trails are not my thing.
Took 73N and ran the railroad bed towards La Tuque up to Riviere-a-Pierre then continued 73 up thru Zec Batiscan & Reserve de Portneuf.  Trails were perfect.  Fast, smooth with some fresh on top.  I haven't been up this section of 73 in many years & forgot how beautiful it is.  After about 50 miles we backtracked down to Saint-Raymond & got gas.  Continued 73S, 3W, 302N, 23W, M4, LT to truck.  Loaded up & started for home at 2:45pm.
Was a great trip with fantastic trail conditions thruout our travels!  No reason for anyone to hesitate heading up for a ride.  
234 miles for the day
2165 miles for the trip
 
 
 

Reggie!  Welcome to QuebecRider!  It was great to meet you Friday morning, and I look forward to staying with you next week!
Wishing you the best of success!  Salud!...

Reggie!  Welcome to QuebecRider!  It was great to meet you Friday morning, and I look forward to staying with you next week!
Wishing you the best of success!  Salud!...

Reggie!  Welcome to QuebecRider!  It was great to meet you Friday morning, and I look forward to staying with you next week!
Wishing you the best of success!  Salud!...

Reggie!  Welcome to QuebecRider!  It was great to meet you Friday morning, and I look forward to staying with you next week!
Wishing you the best of success!  Salud!...

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now

I recently learned of a feature on the iPhone that all iPhone users should take advantage of, ESPECIALLY if you have a pre-existing condition of ANY TYPE!  It's FREE!  We have found it very useful in the volunteer fire/rescue service.
The app is already on your iPhone and it costs NOTHING!  It is one of the icons on one of your home screens right from Apple.  The icon is called Health and is a white square with a red heart in it.  Click on it and find the app you want to complete called MEDICAL ID.  If you open the app and fill it out with all of your information it could save your life.  The app can be opened EVEN IF THE PHONE IS LOCKED!  When you click your phone's home button and it brings up the pad for you to enter your password, you will notice on the bottom left the word EMERGENCY.  Touch that and it brings up the dial pad to call 911, once you have filled out the MEDICAL ID information it will show as *Medical ID on the bottom left of your screen.  First responders or friends can touch where it says *Medical ID and all of the information you entered comes up.  I have found that sometimes opening it once all of your information will not appear, simply touch DONE in the top right and re-open and everything is there.  First responders are now becoming aware of this app and your riding partners should know about it as well.
If you have any questions please let me know and I will try and help anyway I can.  Have a GREAT RIDE!

Me too! Had it done in '88 after my dirt bike vs car encounter, a couple of revisions since. Get the locking cup! Dislocation's a drag.
Kept the wifey convinced the whole while that as long as there's a gas tank between my knees I'm safe! You will be too!
We took a stab at Mother Nature up there last year. Definitely a rush:  http://www.quebecrider.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4214-cote-nord-team-iceman-6-on-3/&
 

continued.....
So about 11am they finally put her on the operating table. He hooks up computer and is showing a "TPS" fault. Throttle Position Sensor. Great. Well not so fast. He resets that. Still a no start. Big backfire. Hmmm. Well he changes plugs. Nope not that. Checks fuel pressure it is fine. Now he hooks back up computer. Showing no faults, no codes. Just will not start. Cranks but no fire. Now it's creeping on noon and everyone here will disappear faster than cake at a fat boys birthday party come noon closing. We know this and it's not looking good. Now we have a meeting of the minds around the sled, us two, mechanic, parts guy, helper, and big boss who got us in here. They are stumped. Anyway time runs out. They say that's it for today. Game over. 
Now I made a crucial error early on in this instance. I realize it now. I should of got him set up at Dion there and made like the Wind for Shawinigan. While it was still early. If they got him going he could simply call house or text me and I would know i do not need come to get him in St Ray. If not then i make the run to get him. Easy. But now my waiting here means it's now 12:15 on Saturday and i will pay the price getting back as i must pass 100 sleds easy. I catch group after group and I am on a mission. I make it back in just about 3 hrs. So really not terrible time. Bad news is my car is entombed in snow like concrete. I had to put it in heated garage just to get it to loosen up enough to get going on the road back to St Ray. Leave here around 4:15 there by 6:30 to Roquemont they gave him a ride to there to wait for me. Back here by 8:30. 
Sled will be investigated and fixed there. I will go get it after my trip this week. They are not sure something electrical they think. Maybe the stator. We shall see. 
Trails were not bad except for traffic. Pretty smooth. Yes hard and frozen but not bad big time snow dust. 
A good run and could have been worse at least we were near civilization. Not at Barrage Gouin or Wemontachie. 
Monday to LSJ. 
I got just over 1400 miles for this run. 

Day 5  
5-6" new snow at Gouin here last night. Fluffy stuff.


Awesome to be back there at Barrage Gouin. I did not make it up at all last year and missed it there. Carol, Jonny, Louise and met Steve this time around make your time there so great. Nice to have good conversations with them folks. Like being with family. If you've never been then get up there and support them. Great place and great People. Always tough to leave but we must be moving on.
Sleds loaded and we decide it's down the road to skip the top half of the trail. We've broke enough trail and gonna be doing alot more by the looks of things. So down the road to join back up with the trail back to 83.


Man there is a lot of snow we are breaking its deep in spots here. So we get down to 83 and its just as deep. So 45km from Gouin to 83. Deep snow single track I have had enough breaking trail for this year. Quit praying to the snow gods. Enough up here for sure. Snowing and flat light.

Also trees bent over or down all along.

Into Wemontachie. Here we take the road right to Wemogaz.
it's open
From gas we again decide its time to stay on the road so 25km up we then turn right onto trail. Unbroken has been groomed before but has a ton of new snow on it. Halfway through here comes 4 guys with red dry bags on back. These guys are dangerous they are dangerous on their first day out and more dangerous after 2-3 days out cause now they think they got the hang of it. Hey they busted trail good enough for us. Closer to Windigo there is Logging so pay attention. Back and forth across the road and the trucks are hauling ass. Well logs but not slowly. 
Cruised into Relais 22 following in tracks busted open for us. 
News at Relais 22 heard from Louise at Gouin that 22 has new owners. We had tge pleasure of Meeting Christine who along with her husband Martin have come from Baie Comeau to own and operate Relais 22. Super nice and she speaks very good english too, just speak slowly. I hope to meet her husband on the way back by there tmmrw. Wishing them all the best and great success. Take the time to support them and tell them you are a Quebec Rider. I think they may want to become an advertiser. We shall see. 
Anyway while there we see the Suerte du Quebec truck and sled trailer there. She tells us they are conducting a search for a missing man who phoned his wife saying he was stuck on snowmobile coming from his chalet. 
This was yesterday. 
Good news is we took gas and went up 83 to check it out. At 50km we were turning back when cops pull up. They found the guy. He abandoned his sled and they followed his footsteps to a nearby chalet where he broke in door and lit the fire and waited for help. Great Job by the police. Hats off.
We ride back following the cops they were blazing a trail. Snohorse tried to get them to put on there lights so we could have a official police escort but no dice. 
Back to 22 tank again and absolutely hammer it back to Windigo. Hell one or two more passes through they won't need to groom it i will have it blown open fully. Windigo driveway a few hanging low trees but has tracks and we roll in. So nice to see Martine and nice to be here. 
We are here with only one other guy a Guide out of Lac Blanc doing some pre running for an upcoming group. If you want to stay at Windigo (crazy if you do not want to) then call soon to check the dates it's booking up fast.
thats it for now 222 miles today. 

 
Decisions Decisions 


 
Now a special message to all Team Iceman members not in QC at this time.....
"the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains, and the man with the blue shoes is not who he appears to be." Over.

I saw a post that there have been 4 deaths this season in Maine as well. Ride safe everyone!
 
Andy

Check the grooming reports before going out...

Go to:  http://fcmq.viaexplora.com/carte-motoneige/index.html  (Or the mobile app on iMotoneige)

Click "Services" in the upper right corner

Click “Delai de serfacage” (and whatever other "Attraits" you want to see)

Click "Fermer" to close the drop down box

If you switch the view from Carte (map) to Satellite, it's easier to see the Whites (those haven’t been done 3+ days)

THEN HEAD FOR THE GREENS & YELLOWS!!

Decided last wed night that myself and my buddy would leave for Shawinigan Thursday afternoon. Wifee approved, good to go!!! "Just be back on the Island by 3:00 Sun for your daughters recital !!!" Sure no problem, I reply....Basically, plan is that I leave Long Island by 2.  Well my luck, my sister in law has a baby and my wife is off to Jersey hence I'm in charge of my 3 daughters. Well wifee gets home around 6 and I'm head into nyc traffic by 6:15...😰..Uhhg..get him in CT bought 8:30 and arrive at Drakkar just before 5A.M.
Mounted, fed, fueled and rolling by 9:30 with no planned route or destination. Just need to pump out a good first ride. Hammered along 3 east beautiful trails to 23 north. Stopped by the ski-doo dealer in St. Ray, grabbed some oil and headed dew north. Well groomed trails up to Le' tap. Fresh snow, tons of dust north up to Mt. Apica. Overall good trail all the way up to Delta. Arrived about 5:00 ...271 miles.
Niether of us had ever been up to the Delta before. When we walked in, we were greeted by a gentleman holding 2 plastic cups of warm beverage. " you boys look cold, have some Caribou" having never met him or even seen a picture of him before I said "thanks Bill". An honor to be welcomed to the Saguenay region by the Legend himself.
After breakfast and some quick directions from Bill, we were off to go around the lake. Bill said it would be a long day, but dew able to make it to La'tuque. 93 west was fast and beautiful. The same down 373 and all the way to St. Felician. Although the trails were good, the signage was poor and we wasted a lot of time with map guessing, U turns and luck to make it into Roberval and fuel up. Pulling out of Roberval, we see signs La Tuque 150 Km. No problem!! We hit 83 and keep following the signs for La Tuque.....after about 30 miles I start realizing that we should have been off 83 by now to get into Lac Ed. Then I finally see a maker 83 West....WTF..??? Neither of us had ever ridden this region before.  It was pushing 4:00 and we had no idea how far relays 22 was...or if it was even open. I wanted to retreat back to Roberval, but no dice..we pushed on to 22. Now it's just about dark and I figure it would be nice to grab a room at the relais and finish up the trip back to Shawinigan tomorrow. Once again, my ruling was overturned, when my buddy said "we gotta get you home by 3 tomorrow ". With my wife's voice ringing in my head, we run down 73. Kinda shitty trail, very winding and slow especially since it had not been groomed since the fresh 8-10" of snow and maybe only a dozen sleds had passed. Into LaTuque around 8:30 p.m., fuel up and we decide that since we know from here south, let's run it in....down 355 to the power lines, heading for the pipeline and the trail turns horrible. Turned around went back to 360 and ran it all the way in jumped onto the river and took it into Grand mere. Passed the groomer and beautiful trail back to Drakkar by 11:30 with 440 miles on the clicker. Beating my high mileage record by about 60 miles.
711 miles in 2 days....pretty good for an unplanned trip.
Load up the truck, shower, eat, bar and bed around 2:30. Slept a bit and rolled out of there by 5a.m. and I slid into the resital at five to 3. Woo hoo ! Thanks to my buddy Kevin for pushing me and making me a hero to my daughter. Hope to do a couple more trips like that later this season. Need to bust Kevin's 1 day record of 540 miles 😬. 
For now, I'll be packing up tomorrow to catch a plane Wed for West Yellowstone. A change of pace to play in the mountains on 155's and be happy if we do 50 miles for the day.
Thanks again Bill ! ! We did it!

Gonna put this report here as we covered more than one region today and so here it is. 
This ride came out of necessity as Iceman originally had all week to head out and ride, However that changed Saturday when my time off was canceled. So it is what it is. I now need to be back in Shawinigan to work Tuesday night. So with this in mind. Ideas of going up to Saguenay were squashed. We decided to take advantage of the early conditions and the three days we have to ride to just ride trail we probably would never choose to normally and boldly go where many here would never bother. So it was decided.
Day 1 Sunday. 
Pretty nippley cold this AM but hey it's winter. We are in no rush as we bag up and leave Relais Iceman at 9:30am. Snohorse and I are headed TQ3 ouest until it ends. So we are off. Trails are real nice as we head west and we make our way along not alot of traffic with the cold this AM. We are taking 3 and 3 and 3 . Through Yamachiche and Louiseville on to Maskinonge then further west to L'Assomption. Near L'Assomption was a bit of goat trail through a swamp they have not groomed yet but nothing too bad. We did pass a section of "no mans land" with trees bent over bad for several miles leaving only one sled wide to get through....Further yet and we arrive through Terrebonne then to Mirabel through Lachute then we come to the end of TQ3. This is where we join 317 and we are repeating the ride Trailblazer did yesterday. Up 317 to Lac Macdonald around and past Auberge du Chasseur. We continue on and now it's been dark and we are not sure where we are gonna go. I find on my gps Hotel Lac Carling. Sounds good to us both. We arrive and are struck by the sheer size of this place. It's enormous. Pull up in front 4 stars. Sold. In we go. It gets better. With taxes and Breakfast $150 Canadian. Giant room gotta love love love it. Oh and free heated garage under the building just like at the Manoir Casino Charlevoix. Sweet. They are just open again under new management, first season open in 6 years. They are super snowmobile friendly and soon the sports bar will be open right here in the same building. Had a great dinner and met the Director of food/beverages and events. His name is Luc and a super guy. I've got all his info as he wants to become an advertiser on QR. This place is well worth the trip over here. Indoor pool and hot tubs. Wanna play tennis? 2 indoor tennis courts. Full spa. All the winter sport activities you could want. You need to check this place out and if you get near here show them some love. You will be glad you did.
For Scorpionbowl theres plenty of free Ice and fast free Wifi. 
280 miles today. Long day but fun riding trails you never been on. 
Sorry camera dead. 
But check out
https://hotellaccarling.com/
Looks as if there will be no avoiding rain coming this week. So going back Tuesday is not such a bad thing. 
 

I love me some "ORANGE CRUSH!"

In case anyone didn't get this the first time:
ALL YOU NEED IS NH MOOSE IN YOUR GANG!
And these guys do a fine job, whether renting or buying:  https://www.spdirect.com/iridium-9575-extreme-satellite-phone.html

In case anyone didn't get this the first time:
ALL YOU NEED IS NH MOOSE IN YOUR GANG!
And these guys do a fine job, whether renting or buying:  https://www.spdirect.com/iridium-9575-extreme-satellite-phone.html

Still wondering how Jesus-Christ-Joann got that done?...