RoadRunner

We landed at Auberge 31 around noon, road off trail most of the day, as reports have said, 6-8" of concrete base, with 1" and in some places 2" of loose snow on top. Overhaul , not bad riding, no grooming but still good going. we logged 110 miles 4:00 Pm nice early ride, more tomorrow Roadrunner

Shane, We just got back from a 3 day loop from Jackman Me to St george, to edmnuston NB, Moose valley NB and surounding areas. Even after the warm up on thursday friday, the trails have held up fine. Your are good to ride the Chaudierre/ bas St laurent areas if you please. You would be safe to leave from tetford mines area ect. It sounds like the gaspe is a safe bet as well. Groomers were out in full force friday night and anywhere from a dusting to 6" of snow fell friday night in places in the chaudierre region. Have a good ride wherever you choose to go RR

Lunch at the SAQ in Audet Again, I apologize, for not getting any decent trail shots

We were in this area yesterday, rode up from moosehead lake area to the armstrong club house was good. From boundary bald mountain up the trails was in great shape. From the border to the club house at armstrong was great as usual. Over 25 to the 580 junction also in good shape 580 towards lac megantic was very good until you got to St Ludger, from St ludger, there was minimal snow in the fields but passable. The piece of 580 that runs through the bog area just before lac drolet as boney but passable. Many sleds on the trail yesterday, beyond lac drolet, we took the connector trail towards audet. This was passable audet where we had lunch. Below audet it has not been opened up. We returned off trail on the logging roads along the border to the armstrong club house for an afternoon break and back to moosehead A decent 225 for the low snow conditions in many areas. I apologize for the lac of pics RR

Another great report scorpion bowl, you have hit some really nice conditions

Nice Report Scorpion Bowl, That area is a snow paradise, RR

On the Zec, they had groomed, but the trail/road above onatchaway is very low on snow cover until you get several miles up, I would head east of the valinette ski area for the best coverage RR

Scorpionbowl, they were grooming, above the valinette ski area over to auberge 31 and half way down 93 towards sacre coure, the bras louis road was groomed over to onatchaway. Note: very limited riding below the ski area, even scratchy getting to the bra louis road, and very sketchy getting into valinette. The best riding would be out of auberge 31 imo, good snow cover up there and a nice network of unplowed roads to link to with good gps or map. hope this helps RR

Hi coldsmoke, yes it was Early Rider, and the boys from Team Maine, Great bunch to go with and Rob knows that area as well as Labrador! Nice early ride, ended up with a little over 750 on in 3 days from thurs afternoon till sunday noon. Hope to see you on the trails

We were up to Valin this weekend, big change from last weekend. A lot of rain in the last week and warm temps all weekend made for low snow conditions below the Valinette ski area. and getting into Onatchaway. Once you gained elevation from those areas towards the Auberge 31 and La Chappell and beyond, you were still in good snow cover and good riding conditions. We rode off the trail network most of the weekend on the logging roads . Great conditions for that as you could go anywhere you wanted to as long as you had fuel enough. The gps tracks and a few years of riding in that area was very helpful. Winter conditions should return shortly. Still a great 4 days of riding, good chance to break in those new sleds. Enjoy RR

Thanks Riyamaha for the note, I ordered one earlier today thru amazon of all places with the Ram mount, it was like $10 more Think Snow RR

This discussion was very helpfull,I am going to order the 550 nuvi with the ram mounting system, this will replace my 60 CSX that I have used for the past couple of years but find the screen to small for off trail riding/exploring. thank you all Roadrunner

Signed, thanks for the link

I am in lac etchemin this am and agree with gkw. We rode rockwood me up 545 to lac etch, 55, 557, 35 NB 41, Moose valley, biencourt que, trois pistols rdl. All good going but will change fast.Low snow areas are edmundton NB valley, Squa tec and at George areas. Be prepared muddy roads and southern exposed trail areas in many marginal areas. Great off trail riding in the remote areas enjoy. Roadrunner

Thank you very much Groomer for translating, I figured as much but had not been able to find out any info. We were planning to head that way next week, may have to stay on the south side, just got back from rdl yesterday and the base was holding up relatively well. Hope all is well, RR

GT, I too was thinking of riding into the HI next week, sounds like the conditions are shot for riding in the valley? How far did you trailer up towards valin before you found decent snow? thank you rr

Curious, sounds like the conditions around quebec city are slack? Has anyone ridden trail 3 up the river from quebec to tadousac- Charlevoix areas recently. Thank you for any feed back RR

Looks a little dry at the far east end :D

SMclelan, We missed you by about an hour , we had gotten up early and had left the point just before 7 that morning. Glad to hear you had a good ride eastward. Best regards RR Groomer, that pic does look like the same section of trail! RR

Coldsmoke, if you want to leave at Jackman, you usually can leave your vehicle in the big lot by Danas sled rental accrossed from Northland hotel in town or go 2-3 miles above town and leave it at the border riders club house., good big lot there. Also the Armstrong club house just over the border has a fenced in parking lot, 10miles past the border crossing RR

As we had discussed early in the week while on the trail in the link rimouski to amqui, two of us had a 4 1/2 day tour this week that allowed us to experience a variety of conditions which we kind of expected to find. Here is a more detailed report of what the conditions were like and I have not put them in the regional format as they cover 3 different regions We left Houlton Me saturday forenoon and rode to the border crossing at St Leonard NB, continued onto Cambellton NB and had a friendly lift over the bridge to Pointe la croix that night for a nice 210 mile ride Sunday AM departed the Pointe and headed for Albertville with good riding conditions on both the lower section of 5 and especially Groomers section of 5 into Albertville Pic of Lower section of trail 5 between the pointe and the cable bridge After a Coffee and asking about Groomer, we headed west on 587 to La Redemption and than picked up 579 over to St Gabriel de Rimouski. These trails were excellent on 587 and good on 579. All kinds on snow on this elevated section of trail Pics on 587 Pic on 5 near near st marcellin We picked up trail 5 next and headed west to riv du loop As typical and snow was less abundant on the fields around west rimouski, but from st eugene to riv du loop we found snow cover to be more than usual, with the section of power line west of st eugene having plenty of snow cover and conditions around riv du loop generous for this time of year. We ended the day with 240 miles on and generally good to excellent conditions Monday we left riv du loop and had been told by apexgt of NS that trail 5 near east of Hiboux had not been broken open so we headed east on 5 to St Bruno with great trail conditions, picked up 557 down to 35 and headed west on 35. Note, A bridge on the rail bed is closed so a detour half way down 553 takes you around the unsafe bridge. This is well marked but was not freshly groomed. We continued on 35 to tourville for lunch and than headed north on 55 to 5 again, we took 5 towards montmagny and encountered many limbs bent over in the trail and the closer we got to montmagny the trails had only been panned a storm before and were not marked or technically open in sections. These conditons were preseason and ok with us but probably not acceptable for some riders with a few wide brooks open ect. and marginal snow cover. Once we left montmagny we meet the groomer for the next club and he was doing a great job with the trails, we had groomed riding on low snow conditions from here to the jct of 545 St Gervais, we continued down 545 on groomed but marginal snow covered fields until we ran into a river crossing at St Clair that was open, we were able to use the vehicle bridge in the town to get acrossed the river and continued on our way to the jct of 35 that we picked up and headed west to St Marie where we stayed for the night and a ride of 250 miles Tuesday we took 35 east all the way and encountered freshly groomed trails on 90 % of this trail all the way to sully, the end of the line with NB. We had 2-5" of new snow on top of the groomed trails in places and plenty of snow to ride on. One note is that at Pohenagamook, the lake was still wide open so you need to take the bypass trail that pics of a piece of 544 to take you around the north side of the lake. Once we hit NB the 41 had not been visited this year. Club asno had not done anything on this trail so we picked our way down thru to claire and back into Maine for a night at long lake for a 270 mile ride and home today for a nice 1100 mile early season ride 544 trail north of pohenagamook NB 41 needed some creative work to get thru Over all 90 % good to great riding RR

thanks coldsmoke U will love ur 1200

yes groomer my friend signed the book and I thought after I should have put the quebec rider name down. We will catch u next time. Re

we are in Riv du loop. Sorry meant to put rdl not ESL

we left houlton yesterday rode to cambelton hb riding was good via mostly railbeds. Left this am from pointe la cross went to albertville on 5 stopped for a coffee at the clubhouse but didn't get to see u groomed! Took 587 to 579 to 5 at east remouski than 5 to ESL. Riding was very good foe early conditions. Snowed today in am. Rained hard this afternoon for 3 hrs. Snowing now in RDL Sorry for the chopped message on limited tech equip roadrunner