RoadRunner

You guys had the best spring run in years! Real jealous that I parked the sled the end of March! Great reporting 603. December is only 8 months away!! Happy Trails RR

Groomer, we have all lived life in the Gaspe thru your pics so being able to share a few from our trip was fun. On this trip we had a great photographer with us, Josh Bingle, from Lab City. He had done a few of the drone shots that I had posted earlier. He is going thru his camera files now, what a difference a nice camera makes! We have talked about how open and barren the Long Range Mountain highlands is. These pics.from Josh... on a blue sky day!😁.... depict how wide open it is. Also, we saw lots of Moose and many more fresh signs. Those of us from Maine found it interesting that the Moose In Labrador came from Maine. They were introduced in 1906 to Labrador. They have flourished since!

Great report Bob. We have many guys in our group looking at the new Expeditions both in the Extreme 850 version and the 900 turbo SE!

Mxz, yes, the amount of snow in many areas of Newfoundland is more than some have seen 30 years according to some of the lodge keepers. Jackstraw, that 16x16 Hut definitely was getting smaller by the hour! It would have got real interesting if you were hunkered down for a couple of days lol.😳 As we now have done this loop of the Great Northern Pennsylvania of Newfoundland, you certainly get a better understanding of the Long Range Mountain highlands. You really cannot do this loop and ride both regions, Deer lake/ Corner Brook and St Anthony, Hawke’s Bay. Regions without hitting this range two times! And you definitely want good weather each time! Having said that all regions here and on the mainland can get dirty, but the terrain, lack of any good shelter, adds to the complexity in the highlands. Still the beauty of a good day is well worth the ride!! Until the next ride Happy trails RR

Sm and Playhard, well we didn’t get cheated on our adventure ride for sure! Thursday and Friday did not disappoint us😁. Thursday started out so nice but high clouds up in the Long Range mountain highlands in the distance had other plans for us. As many of you saw earlier in the week, The highlands, a few days ago had a beautiful blue sky, and felt very inviting. 😉 As mentioned , We had heard several stories of trouble and tragedy in these highlands all week. Well we got taste of just how wild it can get. By mid morning our clear view morning ...had changed into a slow crawl, dirty visibility and several dig outs of drifts as we crawled our way up into the highlands. Wow we still got a long ways of to go! This is what its like when the weather goes bad😉 , This is going to be slow going! Just before noon we decided this is not going to work! We had just got to a rough shelter about half way in. This looks like our chalet for the night! 😊 As we settled into our very.........rustic accommodations, some gathered fire wood , others water, an inventory of overnight supplies started popping out on the rustic picnic table in the shelter. A wood stove provided heat, but that was about it. The wind howled all night, but by 3:30 am it seemed like we had a window of opportunity and visibility was better, but we had 10 sleds buried in snow and we needed to get rolling. With winds forecasted to pick back up to levels we experienced yesterday, we knew we had a a narrow window. Robert Gardner and Dixon Clements, both Cain’s Quest Champ’s and old pros at these types of riding conditions , gathered the troops and said well...it’s now ...or ....we most likely will be here another day. So at 4:40am, sleds are all running and we are heading down out of the range, at a crawl. 3 hours later, and 35 miles under our belt, we dropped down into the tree line. Lots of stories and laughs to share, but also a reality of just how quick things can change in the high country! It’s always an adventure. With 10 experienced riders it was awesome to see all the safety and overnight equipment pop out of everyone’s bags. Multiple Garmin in reaches, Spot tracker devices, food, food lines for hanging gear to dry, fire starting equipment, jet boils, tarps, ect. You guys get it because we all tend to carry those items whether adventure riding or groomed trail riding, and at times thinking, wow, do I really need this stuff? Well yes, on occasion you do! The other neat observation was to observe your riding partners under challenging conditions. This group all remained calm and focused. Good attributes for any type of ride, especially when conditions change. As mentioned a few days ago, we had planned to get into the Gross Morne Park, but do “unforeseen circumstances” we ran out of time!! We did get to see territory and ride a regions that even many locals have never done. We catch the evening ferry back to NS tonight. We will be back to the Rock again! This has been another great adventure ride. And many more things to see and experience here! Happy Trails! RR

Mike, we all ride with a group of snowmobile friends that we have met over the years. What’s amazing is these guys are from all over New England, Quebec, Labrador and now, Newfoundland. The areas we love to ride. The circle just keeps getting bigger! So when something happens on you ride in a region, they have friends who have friends to help out, share history ect. It really is the connections of people that makes it interesting. Not unlike the sharing of stories and adventures here on QR. Riding along yesterday, I said what is different here in a Newfoundland’s the other areas we ride? Some of the things that popped out. You get big woods roads, (some groomed!) high mountain plains, coastal barrens, snow bowls to play on, gorgeous views, very low traffic count . Plus at no given time are you more than 80 or 100 miles from an outfitter or Community that have great people living there. Its not that you don’t find many of these features riding the Gaspe or other regions in Quebec, it just seems all these features are so close , large and yet condensed in a relatively small region here, but as your riding, it seems like no mans land! We love adventure riding and this is a great model for it. Kind of like every type of riding that there is. We will be back here for another tour for sure! Happy trails RR Happy Trails

We have been so appreciative of everyone helping out, today’s breakdown in Main Brook was an example, everyone chips in to find the means to get you parts, a shop and back going. As mentioned before it’s a way of life in a tough land. Today we visited a memorial, this was of a snowmobiler who was not as fortunate in a bad storm. He was found huddled around this rock on the barrens outside of St Anthony. He was not able to get help in time!

The days just keep repeating in such a nice way! A tour of two former communities that its residents were resettled into St Anthony back in the 1950’s were on the docket today. One was Ireland Bite and the other was Lock Cove. You got a real good feeling of what life was like in all these communities before roads. St Anthony got a highway in the 1960’s! These communities had a history of being isolated. Than we headed to Hawkes Bay, but not without a mechanical issue again today. We had a clutch roller fail near Cold Brook, but got we fixed it in locals garage in Main Brook. Just a two hour delay, very lucky to find a used part in This small community! After that we rode many miles on the Muskrat Falls hydro line. Ironically it’s the same line in Newfoundland that we ran last year in Labrador, on this very day ladt year on our white road run. Crazy coincidences. A windy but blue sky today, Tomorrow we head for the Gros Morne National Park. Hoping for a blue sky day for this scenery! Happy trail RR

There is a trail system here in the Northern peninsular. It would not be fair to try to compare this system to the one in Quebec. So far we have been on a recognizable trail system about 20% of the time. Frequent winds and equipment breakdowns create large challenges for some communities here. Still a refreshing style of riding that we tend to enjoy. We have enjoyed the communities and people. Very warm and friendly which is the Newfoundland way for sure! Happy trails RR

Trailblazer, the ice did have a sweet taste , different than just the crown??😁 Today we had a run to St Anthony. Lots of polar bear and Ice berg sightings here over the years. A Polar bear passed thru town just a few days ago. A flat light day today made for limited scenery shots, but still a good run. A mechanical issue due to a rider finding a drift at an unreasonable speed caused us to focus on repairs. A few good contacts here got us fixed and we are ready to head south to Hawkes Bay tomorrow. Last year the school was locked down because a Polar bear was hanging around town! More happy trails tomorrow!

Here is the contacts at Harbor Deep. Adam a guide, and is originally from Massachusetts , moved to Newfoundland several years ago. He had guided two guys in from the States to stay with Bob and Linda at the Corcoran lodge the same night we were there.

Mike, it sure feels it too, i would definitely not want to get caught out there in a bad storm!

Many of you have commented on the Western side, and as you can see the eastern region we have run so far had a much more dense snow pack in many places. We will be working our way down the Western side later this week, We hope to have good weather for the scenery and strong backs for the powder! Here are a couple of drone shots , one in Harbor Deep and one in the highlands of the Long Range mountains. Also Norm from Boughwiffin lodge dropped us off some 2000 year plus iceberg ice last night. That made the Crown Royal taste very special!

The first pic was @ ww2 bomber that crash landed near the village of Inri

Mike, it is a very special experience! Again, this is not a big mileage trip, but very awesome in its own way! Today we took a ride out to the village of Inri in the Conche region. We viewed the Groais and Bell islands as well as a hearty....skipper running his out board along the ice sheets! Also a ww2 Bomber that crash landed in this region. We are learning lots of history in Newfoundland! F