Blueblood

bonsoir!!!
 
a little reminder.......for your knowledge...
we talked about that 2 years ago....
 
while driving the back roads this morning , i was listening to music...but the commentator / disc jockey just brought my bp waaay up !!!
so , i moved to another radio station ....a few seconds there....ding !!! guy said that  '' operation dignité '' started 50 years ago , today 
when the  government decided to close  some small villages...
pics of st nil .....between st vianney and st rené ....up in the mountains
 
jean-guy

first thing I have seen accidents at high speeds and the snowmobile were not tore up that bad.  both sleds doing 100mph?  second thing from my riding this year is I have noticed more people riding left In groups when trying to pass from behind.  I finally was able to talk to one group that spoke English and the led guy has a communicator telling about oncoming traffic.   so when coming from behind these guys are all over the place thinking there safe.  I'm sure my passes on the right in a straight away pissed some off but what the he**

first thing I have seen accidents at high speeds and the snowmobile were not tore up that bad.  both sleds doing 100mph?  second thing from my riding this year is I have noticed more people riding left In groups when trying to pass from behind.  I finally was able to talk to one group that spoke English and the led guy has a communicator telling about oncoming traffic.   so when coming from behind these guys are all over the place thinking there safe.  I'm sure my passes on the right in a straight away pissed some off but what the he**

first thing I have seen accidents at high speeds and the snowmobile were not tore up that bad.  both sleds doing 100mph?  second thing from my riding this year is I have noticed more people riding left In groups when trying to pass from behind.  I finally was able to talk to one group that spoke English and the led guy has a communicator telling about oncoming traffic.   so when coming from behind these guys are all over the place thinking there safe.  I'm sure my passes on the right in a straight away pissed some off but what the he**

I probably have well over 1000 snowmobile photos and less than a dozen are true "keepers", almost professional looking. I have had to work hard at it over the years and still nowhere as good as say Towing is. 
I found this today over on HCS Quebec website today. Some guy who lives in "western Quebec" took this (or his friends did) this past week in the Chic-Chocs.
It has my vote for best snowmobile pic EVER SNAPPED. Does it have your vote too?  
Feel free to post what ya got on here (good, bad, ugly) and we will try and keep it going.
If that was me in that pic I would have it made on an 8x10 ft piece of wallpaper to put in my bedroom no matter the cost.

They are a bit off, (trail that is) but they love it and know what they are getting into. GPS and not afraid to use it. 
When they took me to Havre ST. Pierre I witnessed first hand how this team operates and it’s impressive. No way in hell I would have made it to HSP that day without them. 
Big Respect for these guys. 
Sometimes I think about buying me a sled that could go where they go on these adventures, then I see their pictures and feel great about my decision to stay on the trails.

Success. Made it to Hotel Nordic in the daylight, barely! Johnny at Gouin booked us at his place for for 2 nights due to the snow depth and consistency, (he did not thing we would make it and would have to return back), bet we did NOT need it.  He said this was not a ride for children 😜 Funny guy. His side trail yesterday was FLAWLESS😏
Very deep snow for the 50 miles on the Gouin made for a bit of tough going and it only got more challenging from there on. More stucks that we bargained for due to the insane snow. ( The 2 recent mega snow dumps have buried everything!)
We did ride 10 miles of the 93 coming into the Hotel. Unbelievable nice trail! Don’t walk, RUN to Chibougamau, the snow and trails are that good! They will be riding for WEEKS more here no doubt 👍
 

All I can say is it’s been some kind of special miracle I have never got a snowmobile related ticket in Quebec 
The cops would have a field day with me. It would not be pretty 

Casey airstrip a couple hours ago

A little different this time leaving Haltaparche 

Thats right !! Captain and Coke !!! Think I still owe you and the wife some. Your close. I'll come over with a 1.5 litre and the broken sled and we'll figure this thing out...LOL

this sounds like a great summer project involving lots of captain and coke  👌 

A lot has transpired since last post and most of it none for the good. Nautico in La Tuque drained and refilled sled 3 times and engine still overheats after startup. They said they dont have anymore time to look at it further till mid-March and I'm o.k. with that as I'm not willing to throw more good money at bad and want it back home. A little bit of luck yesterday a couple hours after finding that out. I just happen to hit eBay and searched "Skidoo 1200" . Not much has been on there lately. A guy out in Wisconsin who is a master BMW mechanic and owns a 200 acre tree farm parts out sleds and listed two different 1200 engines. Spoke with and made a deal offline for the 2013 with 2610 miles. Complete drop in. Stator, starter and all. $1950 shipped to my local business address. Motor was taken out of an extremely clean sled that had A arm and "S" module damage. So....i'm going to have a fun project over the summer, get to know my beloved Goldwing even more intimately, and hopefully come out with a good motor that has 10K less miles than now.
I WILL find out how much internal damage did happen as I'll tear it down after the new one is in. If it looks like it's fiscally fixable I might put it back together and sell it. If not I'll part it and scrap it.
So...mon ami Andre is saving my butt and lending me his sled this coming week. Pick that up in Sherbrooke, spend night, drop at Mattawin Sunday afternoon. Heading into camp for the night and then up around Haltaparche, Casey, Parent, Gouin, Clova, etc. pretty much all next week. If anyone is in the vicinity next week drop me a line and maybe we can hook up for lunch or something. 
As usual I will be posting conditions/pics and just try to keep up with my mentor Towing. 

They are afraid of BLM that's why they get a pass and peaceful citizens can't get heard! but labeled "wait for it" racists. Then treated like a terrorist. 
Very sad what is going on in both our countries. Law and order bad
Burn, Loot, Murder, good
Power back to the people  Amen 

3 weeks now of peaceful protests 
simply demanding life return to normal 
not one business looted
not one building burned
not one murder
Time to invoke martial law.
what is the government so afraid of?

Apparently after putting in the new thermostat and temp sensor Nautico reports still overheating and they don’t know why. They supposedly checked the water pump and said it’s o.k. It is in the shop this afternoon getting diagnosed further and they are gonna call at 5 pm
probably to ruin my day

I didnt look at a thing yet. I just wanted to be first to post...LOL
Now that that's out of the way, thanks for giving me some bed night reading material....LOL
And I'll also be the first to say DAMN AWESOME without even seeing it yet ....LOL

Here our last Sunday trail path for a Joliette St-Côme loop

The festival St-Côme en glace(Ice sculpture festival) began this last weekend so it was a good opportunity to ride on this side
The last week thaw that hit us up to Saturday had been rough for the south west of Quebec province were the snow levels were already limit but after the deep cold Saturday night and the good groomers work the trails from home and up north survived well and we got good trails conditions.
Here near home at start. As expected, trails were very hard: scratchers on duty!.


A bit of brownish snow on some spot but no breakthrough. Here north from Joliette

As expected side of the roads are not at their best...here crossing Baril bridge

But the fields are nice. Here north of St-Ambroise de Kildare

From here south of St-Alphonse de Rodriguez we began to saw some new snow. Grooming of Coureur des Bois snowmobile club was perfect

North of St-Alphonse when going up in the mountains we got some vey nice scenery


Once in St-Côme we walked a bit in the village to admire the sculptures. Again this year we are not deceived!


We are still early in the festival that was just begin and will continue up to the end of February. Many Sculptures were still "work in progress" and we had the chance to watch many artists at work


To give you an idea what to expect of this festival, they pulled from the river more than 700 ice blocks of more than 3000lbs each that have been placed along the principal road  in the village for the sculptors


The Festival that just started will last 2 weeks/3 weekends to end on the 27 February. It's a nice destination ride by sleds if you are in the area, the #343 trail pass trough the village, impossible to miss!
We then continued our ride in north direction on #343

There was the short last section of the #343 that was rough but back on the #63 it was nice

We pass by the Bazinet outfitter

And continued down to Ste-Émilie/St-Damien. Here just down the big hill in St-Gabriel direction

South of St-Gabriel, a bit more brown snow spots visible but overall very good


The long fields between St-Norbert and Ste-Elisabeth were hard and very fast

And finally here near home

We got home early with 135 miles for the whole small loop
So the season is still going strong here, already mid February... let's enjoy it
Alain

WHATEVER you do CKF make DAMN sure NOTHING EVER happens to Alains photo posting abilities.
It is THE number one priority of this website. LOL...LOL...LOL
TIA.....LOL...LOL

I love that area when I get a chance to ride there.

Spent a couple days riding up in the Alagash many yrs ago. The place is "as remote" as any place you will find in Quebec. Spent one of THE most bat shit crazy nights in St Francis ME, closing down the bar "The American Dream" I have ever had in all my snowmobile days !!   UP TO CLAYT'S !!!!!!!

Where are we ????? A little hint.........look at the waitress's shirt. One of THE BEST snowmobile destinations in all of Quebec (had soooo.... much fun there years ago) long, long , long gone but NEVER forgotten.  
Special appearance from Vermont's "coolest dude"

We decided to check out some trails south of the river last weekend.  We left Villeroy and stayed 2 nights in Montmagny.  Day 1 was 200 miles via…too many trails to remember…25, 35, 535, 55, 547, 5.  General directions were south to St-Georges in the Beauce region, then back up to Montmagny.  Day 2 was 5, 35, 55, 549, 35 and 551 total of 180 miles.  Day 3 was 170 miles, 5, 551, 35, 547, local, 75, 35, 540, 535, 35.  Sorry best I can do here on trail numbers.  Luckily I was not the navigator on this one, or else we might still be looking for the truck.  The map looks like someone threw spaghetti on it and said have fun!  
Overall conditions were good despite the weather.  We took a few different trails up and around Le Massif du Sud, which was nice.  The area between Montmagny and Villeroy is basically the highest concentration of tapped sugar maples in the world, cool stuff.  Or should I say sweet?  
Here are some pics