Roger

Following your ride with great interest guys. We had planned on doing the Cote Nord end February right when the 3 day blizzard hit so we had to abort our plan.
Beautiful pictures, just send the link to my riding group, most of them aren't QR followers.
We will likely do this run next winter, maybe a Cote Nord/Gaspe combo run. 
Enjoy the rest of your trip.
Who is the young guy riding the red Back Country with the cool helmet?

Ding ding ding!  Winner!
My first time inside here. Tres bon.  They've got the whole package.  
I love riding with my first-timers. I love riding with my some-timers, I even love riding with my all-tzheimers!
But even after 20 yrs of touring up here, I'm learning a thing or two riding with these QR Ninjas. 
And I'm getting the feeling that some of their stories are true!

according to the menu it is also cooked and burned, hope this is not one of those places play hard has been telling us to just trust the chef!!

so the Pavement smoked salmon is actually road kill?🤣

Great pics, love the pizza warm up on the exhaust! Lac Taureau is my favorite place to stay in Saint-Michel.

The planned M&M Tours Part Deux has been revised to the 3M Tour, Moores had to tapped out last minute.  Left Oliphant march 11th trailered all day to Maniwaki. Chateau Logue review will come later. On the trails by 10:30 heading towards to Lac Taureau. Took a lot of local trails, saw lots of dear. Hit 63 east mount Laurie. First half was excellent, lots do fun in the loose snow, up 33 to Lac Taureau to spend the night. Nice spot, good dinner way too many people for these Hill Billies. Off to St Raymond tomorrow.
 
 

We should tell Ravage (and any place that doesn't permit sleds to the front door) about these tub-sleds at Sacacomi for dragging your gear from the parking area. 

Shortest way is 413 KM, but, that means taking TQ 23 E which is twisty.  If you're willing to add 35 KM, I'd backtrack a few miles on  TQ 23 W, then 350 S to Pouvoirie du Lac Blanc where you can catch 380 E, that's a bit twisty, but once you hit 63 E it's WOT for miles until TQ 3 E which is also WOT.  Then you take 381 E 2 good lunch stops on 381, the Microbrewery Presbeteie is a cool little place.  If you want to keep going I'd stop at Restaurant Morel Le Chivangy, gas right next to hotel.  Good food especially smoked meat sandwiches.  You'd then get onto TQ 3 basically all the way to The Fairmont.  My suggested route is a bit longer, but, likely faster.  Check out the FCMQ interactive map and look at both ways.  We rode all those trails in February.  I'd really try and avoid going through Quebec City on a weekend, TQ 3 can get really beat.  This is a very early start day and arrive fairly late, but, it can be done.  Good luck and keep us posted.
 
Fred

What an amazing adventure. Great pictures!  You always gotta remind yourself for most it's also a vacation and to have fun. 

What an amazing adventure. Great pictures!  You always gotta remind yourself for most it's also a vacation and to have fun. 

Brilliant!!
Best regards from Dolbeau! 
Did the 50 miles from Roberval to the BRP shop over here when the sh#tshow kicked up for real. 
The mile up the road to Diligence was pretty sketchy visibility, so hats off to the (many) sleds that trickled in the rest of the day and evening!
Cote Nord another time. 


MOV_20190225_1328042.mp4
 
MOV_20190225_1336166.mp4  
 
 
 

Awesome pictures, another clown driving on the trail with a vehicle🤤 Looks like the Moose is slightly spooked walking by with the hair up on his back. But he's got somewhere to go and he'd rather not walk through deep snow LOL
Great report, thanks! 👍

So, we did the trip as planned.. .Meekos,  Kanawata,  and CanadaAdventure.  95% perfect trails and awesome weather!
St Micheal des Saints was no  issue Sat afternoon.. a few bumps the last 30km once the 360/33 met.. but we just ran the Manawan Road  between lodges. Smooth and ice covered. 
The 345 out of Repo was marked  as the 33 over and over until we hit the  local 20.  That thru us for a loop as the  paper map we had was incorrect and showed the 33 T off the 345.   Gassed up at Auberge Du lac Taureau .... 145 miles from Kanawata...   3 800/850 Poo  40.6 to 44.9L,   800 Cat.  39.9,  850 Doo  34L   so the Poo were maxed out with  45.4 L tank.  We had spare gas on board if needed. 
345 was best trail of the trip IMO.   63 over Tremblant also nice.. but first 25 miles on the east was in need of a groom Sunday AM 
My 800 Poo died 30 miles from the truck Sunday... 5900 miles... only got 700  miles out of the last rebuild.  Super happy this did not occur east of Parent Friday evening! 
All in all very happy... tons of snow of course, that is a given, and superb effort to groom,  and sign the corners. 

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

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!

Beautiful place, reading your post is motivation to plan a return trip!

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

Not to worry!  The pics work!
I'm gonna need a nap if I just keep looking at them!
 
 

It’s amazing how fast things can go from bad to worse. Great read, memories for a lifetime!

You guys left Drakkar a couple hours after we did on Sunday.  Monday & Tuesday were epic days indeed!  As Jean-Guy (Trailblazer) always says: “Snowmobiling is always an adventure!”
Thanks for the entertaining narrative & all the pics!
Z16 is lucky to have an uncle like you!