arubenstein

I've done the Chibougamous - Seneterre - Lac Faillon - Clova - Relay 22 (93 to 83) loop twice in the last two years. Both times have been some of the best sledding I have ever done. I would not do it with less than 3 or 4 people. Lebel-Sur-Quevillon to Chibougamou is a very long and straight piece of trail. It's an abandoned railroad bed, straight as an arrow, called "Piston Alley." You guess why. If you are heavy in the thumb, you will run out of gas (like I did one time). I thought it was a great trip, and plan on doing it again in the next couple weeks.

Hello, Summary of our trip thus far. Drove up to Bernards on Sat, slept there sat night. Left Shawinigan early on 351 then 3 to rogers cabinets. Trails were good and iit was cold. Had breakfast at Rogers and decided to get to the Manior in La Malabaie. We took 3 almost all the way up, which for the most part was very very good, except for about 20 miles around Quebec City (it was bumpy). We then decided to turn right on 378 which appears to not be a groomed trail anymore. 6 or so miles of bumps, but it dumped us out on 377 which we took the rest of the way and it was really good. Today, we left there and headed up 83 to 383 to the HI. Trails were very very good, 83 from 3 was the best I ever remember it being. I am at the HI tonight, will probably screw around in Mont Valin tomorrow, and stay here again tomorrow night. I will be in the Lounge, then dinner, then JR`s, in that order.

Does anyone know of the status of the east end of 83 and 383 are doing, TQ3 and Jonquiere? Any insight appreciated. Thanks!

Where are you staying? Last time I was at CanadaVenture, there was some very nice eye candy.

I looked at the OSFC site and it says many things are still closed. Where are you going to ride up there?

Send me your waypoints, I will incorporate them into my collection, and repost them as both a gdb and a kml.

I have put together most of the waypoints I have collected. This is a Garmin GDB file. If you see any errors, please tell me. If you have a collection of waypoints, please send them to me (alex@nac.net) and I will incorporate and repost.

Ok, so here is the deal. First off, this dicussion will be biased with my beliefs and opinions, which is based on over 10 years of hard core GPS usage. So, no flames please, this is just my opinions. So, let's see. First of all, I believe that the best units for this type of activity is Garmin. Personally, I currently use a 60Cx and a 478C Chartplotter. This was my setup in 2005: http://www.nac.net/photos/IMG_0034.JPG Since then, I pretty much only use the 478C (which has replaced my 276). The reason I use Garmin now is because I've used it for some time -- more than 8 or 10 years. I find it very easy to use, handles the elements fine (my 276 was in -35 in Chibougamou without any issue), and is very programmable. I will elaborate on this. In 2005 and 2006, I grew very frustrated with the maps from the various clubs - they were inaccurate or hard to come by, and dealing with paper in cold weather sucks. I contacted the FCMQ to see if they would share the mapping data, they replied with a more-or-less "No, sorry, can't do that." So, i immediately began to collect very high resolution tracks, and also had anyone who had tracks send them to me. As you may or may not know, tracks are just that -- recorded data of where you have been. Usinig that data to then navigate again in the future is unrealistic. Most GPS units can only handle a small number of stored tracks, perhaps 20 or 50. In my day job, I am a programmer. I began investigating as to how I could create my own maps to be used in Garmin MapSource, and it was actually a lot easier than I had thought it would be. I found cGPSMapper (http://cgpsmapper.com/), which allows you to import all sorts of waypoints, tracks, whatever, and create real TDB/IMG's that can be used by MapSource, and then sent to your GPS unit. You can even put in routing information to make the maps routable. The problem was that to accumulate all of the tracks you would need to map Quebec would be a huge undertaking - there is over 21000 km of trails. I ride a bit -- perhaps 5000 miles a year, but finding every trail? Yeah, right. I still made what I could, and that is the link above (http://users.nac.net/alex/or-trails.html). Solution: Sometime in 2007, I found the above commercial maps. I figure they made a deal with FCMQ, or perhaps FCMQ became more liberal with the data, i don't know. But, they released this product which had all maps for the entire province for $129. I don't know about you, but there is not enough hours in the day to get everything done in my life, so when weighing the option of $129 for a finished, complete map, vs. the 20 to 40 hours I already spent doing 10%, it was a no brainer. I abandoned the whole idea of making my own maps. Thats where I am today. That $129 product seems o be pretty accurate -- at least as accurate as the FCMQ. Clearly, it is good enough to get you from here to there. If you are worried about the GPS not matching the trail for 10 miles because of a reroute, perhaps you shouldn't be alone in the woods. So, what I really am working harder on now, is a very good and complete collection of waypoints. the QVN product has a lot of POIs in it, but lots of things are missing - gas stops, restaurants, etc. So, I have been collecting those sorts of waypoints and plan on getting them organized in the next couple weeks. If I can find all of my GPS files, I probably have about 500. So, these are my opinions.

Hello, What I did is at: http://users.nac.net/alex/or-trails.html Once I found the maps listed above, I stopped the project. To those who think $100 is too much -- let me get something straight. You've spent $10k on a sled, a gas stop costs $50 each time, you probably have $1000 in riding gear, you tow your trailer with a $40k vehicle, you bought a $200 GPS, and $100 for maps is too much? I don't know what your time is worth, but mine is worth more than this. Sitting in front of my PC, converting tracks into maps seems crazy to me.

I use http://www.canadianmaps.ca/GPS_Garmin_Maps..._for_GARMIN.htm Is two years old now, but has every trail in the province. Before this, I had been making my own, but only had about 25%. If anyone needs any tracks, let me know.

Yep. Didn't plan as worked. No GPRS/EDGE in Valinouet. Anyway, so, I am home now, Here is the scoop. We drove up on Thursday, and it took longer than expected as through the park, it was bad weather. Lots of snow, icy roads. Stopped in l'Etape, snowing like crazy. Made it to Chicoutimi, picked up our keys for our Chalet in Valinouet. We were in bed by midnight. Woke up to about two new inches of snow. Unloaded, and decided to ride up to KM31 for breakfast. On the trail by 9AM, and it was relatively quiet and the trails were OK. We continued Eas on 93 until the last intersection (near the Chute). Again, trails we OK, not terrible, not great. We looped all around the east, trails ranged from average to bad, lots of bumps. Trail conditions were not bad because of lack of snow, but because of lack of grooming and lots of use. We came back and stopped at Chapelle, quite a few sleds there. After that, up 267, down Bras Louis, which was very fast and good. Stopped back at Valinouet for lunch, and decided to venture south west and see whats what. Went out 93 all the way to Saint Ambroise, and we found some very good trails, especially 367 and 328 - and we tried to follow 328 back to 93, but the trail just flat-out ended around Saint David. We had to backtrack all the way back, and due to lack of signage, we did a couple circles getting back home. Total for Friday, about 250 miles, of which about half was pretty bad, 1/4 was average, and 1/4 was pretty good. Saturday, we headed back up Bras Louis in attempt to get to Onatchiway, we made it to within 8 km of there when the trail dumped on the road and there was no end in site. We u turned, went back down, hung a left and went to KM31 for lunch. Holy cow, there had to be 50 sleds and standing room only for lunch. We decided at this point we had enough, made our way back to Valinouet over a terrible TQ 93. We loaded up, drove home. I was back in NJ in bed by 3AM Sunday. Overall, not a bad trip, considering it was Dec 1. But, if you are limited in the time you can go up, there, one word: wait. It's not worth a trip. I was happy to put 350 miles on my new sled to dial it in. We saw an amazing amount of Mach Z's and REV XP's, strangely. I think I was about the only English speaker except for our Ontario neighbors in the chalet next to us (thanks for letting me borrow your cigarette lighter to thaw my lock, btw) Good news is, if things continue on like they are already, we will be in for a really good season. Staying a chalet (No. 147) in Valinouet was very cool, excellent accommodations. Careful, there is a lot of grooming going on, even during the day. See you up there around Dec. 26th.

So we decided to go up Excuse the format of the report, but I will be doing this from my blackberry Left NJ 11am, as I write this we are about to pass through Quebec city. Drive so far has been good, a little snow here and there. Will keep you updated!

I've been trying to reach Passion Quebec all day, no answer on thier phone. Are they open yet? Are they the only option other than KM31 for a place to stay that is on a trail that is open? Looking to drive up tomorrow morning.

Where did you get this info? I plan on going up tomorrow (Thurs) for a long weekend -- planning on staying at KM31. Anyone else be up there?

OK. Well, whoever goes up there, try and report back while you are up there!

Interesting, I thought about driving all the way up and just staying at KM31. Bad idea? Whats the drive HI to the hills?

So, it's snowing up there, there is snow on the ground, and rumour has it that there will be grooming this Thursday. Anyone going up? Two of us are thinking about going up on net Monday to check things out. Any comments?