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Goose713

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Everything posted by Goose713

  1. I was on that section of trail on Monday, and there was no indication of it being closed, but it was in terrible shape. Big bumps for most of it. Also the lady at Coin Lavigne was very accommodating to stay a little late when my wife had some issues in that area! Thanks to them!
  2. Update! My brother and I decided to take a trip to see what we could find. For us, time was limited and also snow near us is limited. We went for a day trip on Friday. About 3 hours of truck time from Albany. Crossed the border and started looking for a place to park. We started looking in a small town called Hemmingford and drove north along the trail. We ended up at a gas station/truck stop/resto bar. Asked inside and it was fine to park for the day! Ended up parking the truck next to the police truck and trailer! We set out on tq5 for most of the ride. In this area trails are wide and flat and mainly fields.... fields, And more fields! As far as the eye can see! Still fun to ride. Snow cover was very limited but clubs were doing their best to fill in any bumps from farmers and field transitions. We saw a couple groomers during the day. Icy base without much loose on top. Some places were fantastic, others not so much, but where it was bad, it wasn’t bad for long. Overall, I would ride again if I only had a day, but if you have more time I would head further north. I am headed up further north in a couple weeks for a few nights and will give a report then as well!
  3. Shawinigan is a little far for this trip. Trying to see if I could make a day run just over the Plattsburgh border, but have never heard anything about this area. I know snow can be thin, but most is showing open on the map.
  4. Hi, Looking for a little info...Is there any decent riding close to the US border or near Montreal? Looking to do a quick day trip or maybe overnight and just looking for something relatively close to NY. I have a couple of QC trips planned in February and March further north. This would just be a last minute thing. I see open clubs and even some recent grooming on the map, but just looking to see if anyone rides these areas? Thanks for the input! Think snow!
  5. Awesome picture.... looks cold haha is this the route you took on the map below? Does anyone know where the actual closure is? Our trip is pretty close and I want to make sure we don’t need to re plan.
  6. Thanks for all the great input so far. I am concerned as well about the trail closure. I just checked out the clubs website and as of friday everything was updated and declared open. Has anyone gone through? I think I will try to contact the club directly. Any other scenic spots close to my route that are recommended? Any nightlife in any of these areas? Thanks
  7. Hi All! I have been working on planning a trip fro my group and would love any input that your willing to give. The trip is coming up toward the end of January. We are doing a backpack trip and there will be 7 guys. We are planning to leave from Quebec city and head to LSJ. Then proceed through the mountains to Tadousac and down through the casino. From what I gather this should be a great loop, but any input would be great. Our first day should be the longest and doable from what I gather. How early should we leave on day one? There is gas and food in L'Etape? I don't see it on the map anymore. I don't think there are any long legs on the rest of our trip that don't have anything marked on the maps, but we are open to suggetions. I saw another post about an issue on the trial near Tadousac. Does anyone know the current status? We were hoping to get to do the ferry crossing. If anyone can point out some great scenic spots to check out near our route, that would be appreciated too. I have heard to check out the orange dead end trails in the Valin area....any particular good ones? This is our first time to this part of Quebec. Most of us have been to the St Zenon area. Thanks!!
  8. Gearing up for another season! Just wondering if anyone can give a little insight into this area? Thinking of an earlier trip to this area and was wondering about typical conditions....obviously I'm not expecting anyone to predict the weather (haha), but for those of you familiar with the area from here up to St. Donat, when can you typically expect snow and open trails? Are there some good day rides to do with the wives? I am also looking at house rentals in the broader region for this or other trips. Anyone have luck with using airbnb or vrbo for snowmobiling? I appreciate the input! Goose
  9. This is my first year running a GPS, so I can't say much about the actual functionality yet, but I did do a lot of forum reading and have my system mounted and ready to go. I always end up being the navigator and that usually means taking off a glove and pulling my phone out of my pocket. I think this will be a lot easier. Here's my set up...I just got a new to me 2017 850x. I bought the glove box extension from BRP for $99. That was easy to mount. I also bought the BRP double USB outlet. You can also get a 12V outlet. They just screw into the regular glove box in the front. You do need to take the hood off (six torx screws) and then there is a factory accessory plug that it just plugs right into. I think it came with a splitter too if you are trying to run a heated shield or something else. I then bought a used Garmin NUVI 56LMT from ebay and a RAM cradle. Drilled two holes in the front door of the extrension and used the supplied nuts and bolts to mount the cradle. Drilled a larger hole in the appropriate spot for the power cable. I am not too worried about sealing the holes because the are tucked in behind the GPS and cradle, but may do that at some point if necessary. I downloaded the free Quebec maps to try it out and they seem to work, but I do plan on purchasing the northeast package from GPS Trailmasters as I try to ride all over the place. Two side notes... the NUVI I purchased is not waterproof, but it seems like most people who run similar ones don't have any issues. I have seen some info on ways to waterproof it DIY using silicon on the screen and I do plan on doing that. The second thing I learned after purchasing all of that is that when the NUVI is plugged in via USB it goes into computer transfer mode rendering it inoperable. The supplied 12V will power it fine, but I installed the double USB instead. I did find a company that makes a USB cable that uses some magical power to charge and power the NUVI as if it was the 12V cord. That was $10 I think so I dodged a bullet of having to switch out the outlet. With this set up you can access the glove box easily and I will be able to charge my phone in there too. The front door flips down from the top and nothing is in the way. If you have any questions on how I did this, let me know and if needed I can dig up links as needed.
  10. Wow! Thanks for all the responses! There is a lot of good info here. I wish I could plan a trip for every week of the winter to try and get to it all! Judging by the number of responses, I am guessing that everyone is getting amped up for the season like I am!
  11. Thanks for the tips so far! We were actually there in mid January last year when we hit the freezing rain. It was brutal and heated shields weren't working either! It was in the St Michel des Saintes area headed east. I feel like without that we would have made our destination several hours earlier. Because of that rain I am looking into other approaches. I definitely had some party members who found that daunting and therefore thought we should plan less distance between nights. All in all last year was about 200miles a day. I thought it was fine, but I guess some of us are getting old..haha. Thats the other thing about planning these trips....Sometimes the trails are tight and twisty causing the miles to go by slowly and sometimes they are like highways and you could be there by lunch! I guess I have to ride more of them to know which is which! The FCMQ map and app were a great resource, but you still don't know till you go! I am hoping to make it up 2-3 times this year. Once will be staying in Quebec city and doing mostly day rides. Any great places to see or go from there? A second time will be the backpack trip. I will look into the loop that actionjack recommended. Is it worth it to venture up to the Mt Valin area while up that way? I think we would like to avoid the busy St. Zenon/St. Michel area. Should we be looking at Mt Laurier area? or Stay to the east? Some of my guys are all about the ride, some like to see beautiful scenery, and some would like to sit in the spa or a bar afterword! That's one of the challenges I face. So it needs to be well rounded. Thanks for all the input so far!
  12. Hello! This is my first time posting, but I have been reading these forums for a while! I love the information that I have found on here as well as following the snow reports! I have been riding in Quebec twice now. This year my crew (brothers and nephews) are trying to come up a few times. Last year we did a small saddle bag trip that I planned. It worked out ok, but I was looking for input from the experienced saddlebaggers. How do you plan your trips? Do you pre-book hotels or just play it by ear? I ask this because last year on our way between hotels we got stuck in freezing rain. It was so bad that it was freezing to helmets and jackets on contact. We had to go very slow for visibility and stop every few minutes to scrape! Because of the weather it took us a lot longer to get to the hotel we had booked. What do you do about the unknowns such as weather and trail conditions if you have to make a stretch between two points? On another related note...are there trails or areas that you recommend for a roughly 3 day loop? Thanks for the input!
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