Nice little run to get the cob webs off and to warm up those muscle groups that have not seen action in nine months. I'm always stiff the next day after the first ride ! Getting old i guess.I like that relais but never could remember it's name . I never pay attention to that kind of stuff. Good food if I remember correctly.
Finally done, our first ride this season along with here our first ride report! We surely crossed Hden that posted earlier with pretty much the same path but in reverse: we did Cabanon/ Mattawin round trip
Saturday morning, around -18C very gray sky and snow. Starting from the Auberge Le Cabanon parking lot in St-Zénon
Dooright had trace the route for us earlier this last week and it was an easy one to pick this path knowing that the vast majority of the trail is on forest road base so it is easy to get beautiful trails condition even with a limited snow cover
There are a few miles from the start of the auberge out of these forest roads which still lack some snow but on this Saturday morning, freshly groomed with cold temperature it seemed almost perfect. Once back on the main road, it feels like in the middle of the season, almost no rocks and very beautiful
Here at the entrance of the Mastigouche wildlife reserve
What helps a lot is that the firsts snowfalls threy got were very wet, which once frozen left a dense and compact material on the ground rather than fluffy snow this is what explains the good trail condition the snow cover still thin at about a foot before the precipitation of the weekend.
In many spots this snow had stay in the trees creating magnificent scenery
Here the Mattawin River Bridge
There are a couple miles more rough after the bridge
Until we get on the #360 in Zec Chapeau de paille territory.
Very nice trail
The trail is groomed up to the junction with #345 north to Lake Repos outfitter. Then there are a 10 miles that were not groomed yet before joining the section maintained by Mattawin. Honestly, apart from a few trees that have fallen in the road and it did not really made a big difference and it is still a pretty fast section while staying alert.
Here on the section maintained by Matawin with the glaciers that begin to form
Very nice and fast
This section along the river is always very nice to ride.
The beauties of winter
It looks like this on many miles !!
The #360 at its best
All this on a beautiful and fast trail
The last miles to join the Marineau auberge once out of the Zec are obviously less beautiful because the base is more rough and there are still some holes not completely clogged but it ride well even two-up. Here the classic view of the Mattawin River
We arrived at noon at the auberge Marineau with a little less than 80 miles on the dreammeter. We had a good lunch break and were nicely received as always.
The sun tend to point a bit after the lunch. Here a snowy section just after the bridge leaving from the Auberge
The view over the river with a little more light
We took the reverse path on the #360 to return
It looks like mid January in this area
We must pay attention to the branches that can hit our helmet. I got screwed and almost lost my Gopro when it got hit by one that I had missed and got ejected in the side trail snow.
It was snowing a little less in the afternoon
glaciers section seen the other way
Here in the ungroomed section, the worst pass with a lying tree in the trail that you must care of. There are a couple others that just partially obstruct the trail (I don’t even let the throttle) and all them can be seen very well in advance no problem
And although it was not yet groomed, we pushed some good speed spikes without problem
Since the #360 was riding so well, we decided to push up to the Taureau Dam before returning to the Cabanon. Minimum as beautiful if not better on this side
Dam crossing is no longer possible but it is still a nice place to take a break
On the return on the #345 not far after the Mattawin bridge we crossed the dozer
And we continued at a good pace towards the south. We took a small break at the entrance of the Mastigouche reserve
We finally got back at the trailer a little before 4:30 pm with 178miles on the dreameter, not bad for a first ride.
In summary already very good for a season start, very few rocks and the snow that is actually falling in quantity will help to improve the conditions and widen the trail network. Temperatures are winter one and the lakes and rivers are actually at freezing, we can safely say that the snowmobile season is already begin and we will be able to enjoy it for the Christmas holidays!
You may want to take a look here to follow how the trails opening will go on, many details here:
I broke trail the entire trip and the sled did fine. You know that you only have a 90hp mill under the hood and I take that into consideration. I don't run it wide open I just try to find a sweet spot where I have enough speed to not get stuck and keep a bit in reserve for the really deep areas.
snowfarmer got a reaction from iceman in Ride #1 from home 2017
snowfarmer got a reaction from lkauff in Rapides Des Joachims
snowfarmer got a reaction from towing in St-Zénon/Rivière Mattawin by #345+360 trails photo ride-report 17december2016
snowfarmer got a reaction from Mid Range in Lodging in Swisha
snowfarmer got a reaction from mccaffrey in Winter forcast update yesterday