viper2

Howdy all, 
Today Monday we left my house 6 Strong. A big group by Team Standards. NHmoose, Playhard, Mark, Brad, Colin and myself. A planned 4 day run to LSJ. For me a Shakedown run with my new(to me) Apex. Got a late start. Well let's rewind. Yesterday Playhard called from our Yamaha dealer. He was picking up the trailer then coming to drop my sled to me and continue to Gouverneur hotel to meet up with the others who arrived earlier in tge day. 
Seems he had 2 issues, one being the trailer "foot" was locked frozen 2" deep in ice. The other being the locks also frozen solid. He was dealing with the Locks but the trailer foot needed some added persuasion. He had no impliments of destruction on board so i loaded up with my trusty AX just for situations like this and my blow torch. 15 minutes down. 5 minutes he is free. Off to my house. We got ourselves a convoy. We get there unlatch back door. We pull down on it. Hmmmm kind of stuck. Well we really pull on it now. Bad Idea. We proceed to break the bottom hinge right off as it was frozen solid. We ripped the bolts right out of the aluminum. The only thing holding it on is the two cables, one each side. Rut Ro. I aint scared. Quuckly its decided all sleds unloaded now at my house. and trailer back to Pierre as its gonna be useless as no way to load back up. We get sleds out. Door drops 4" on bottom but is still attached by cables. They get it to go back up. But it is too low to latch. Time for ratchet straps. Door "secure" i follow them back down to drop trailer. In case door fell off the I coukd at least try to explain in french to police what was up. 
Adventures before we even put on helmets. 
Trails from Shawinigan super. TQ3 to m-5 to TQ23. Then 360 to St Joseph. They must have got the memo cause it was groomed nicely. Onward 360 to 355 pipeline to LT1. All excellent. 73 to 355 again and gas Lac Edouard. 355 to Lac Bouchette, again no Scorpionbowl made for good luck(sorry Gary) as 355 was very nice. Gas in Bouchette and on to 83 freshly groomed to Roberval. 242. Miles. 
Unfortunately the trip will end tmmrw for myself and one other. Some things are much more important than trails. Family comes first. I will see that we get back to Shawinigan together. So he can go be where he needs to be at this time. 
The others will continue on. I'm sure Playhard will check in with their progress. 
Until next time. 
Remember what is most important. 

Does the new mistress go by Sidewinder? 

Everyone charge your food & drink to room 118...lol

Amen Iceman,Sacacomie can kiss my a$$ they turn their nose up at snowmobilers and make you walk a quarter mile for no reason

Amen Iceman,Sacacomie can kiss my a$$ they turn their nose up at snowmobilers and make you walk a quarter mile for no reason

Sacacomie is very nice, but i would not call it the most sled friendly. They rent sleds to Tourists mostly European and provide guides too. Parking for sleds is a hike from the front door you can not ride near the place. Don't get me wrong it is something out of this world to see, but i been there done that. They don't need my money. 

This pretty much sums it all up so very well said. I think.
 

When I read this thread only one word comes to mind. WHY?

Nice run boys!  
We have landed in Shawinigan.  It's snowing lightly now.  Too much fog & light rain on & off all the way north.  Sleds fueled, unloaded & getting ready to hunker down.
Trip starts at first light tomorrow! 

By the way still snowing up here. They say it's raining in La Tuque. 

Day 5  
5-6" new snow at Gouin here last night. Fluffy stuff.


Awesome to be back there at Barrage Gouin. I did not make it up at all last year and missed it there. Carol, Jonny, Louise and met Steve this time around make your time there so great. Nice to have good conversations with them folks. Like being with family. If you've never been then get up there and support them. Great place and great People. Always tough to leave but we must be moving on.
Sleds loaded and we decide it's down the road to skip the top half of the trail. We've broke enough trail and gonna be doing alot more by the looks of things. So down the road to join back up with the trail back to 83.


Man there is a lot of snow we are breaking its deep in spots here. So we get down to 83 and its just as deep. So 45km from Gouin to 83. Deep snow single track I have had enough breaking trail for this year. Quit praying to the snow gods. Enough up here for sure. Snowing and flat light.

Also trees bent over or down all along.

Into Wemontachie. Here we take the road right to Wemogaz.
it's open
From gas we again decide its time to stay on the road so 25km up we then turn right onto trail. Unbroken has been groomed before but has a ton of new snow on it. Halfway through here comes 4 guys with red dry bags on back. These guys are dangerous they are dangerous on their first day out and more dangerous after 2-3 days out cause now they think they got the hang of it. Hey they busted trail good enough for us. Closer to Windigo there is Logging so pay attention. Back and forth across the road and the trucks are hauling ass. Well logs but not slowly. 
Cruised into Relais 22 following in tracks busted open for us. 
News at Relais 22 heard from Louise at Gouin that 22 has new owners. We had tge pleasure of Meeting Christine who along with her husband Martin have come from Baie Comeau to own and operate Relais 22. Super nice and she speaks very good english too, just speak slowly. I hope to meet her husband on the way back by there tmmrw. Wishing them all the best and great success. Take the time to support them and tell them you are a Quebec Rider. I think they may want to become an advertiser. We shall see. 
Anyway while there we see the Suerte du Quebec truck and sled trailer there. She tells us they are conducting a search for a missing man who phoned his wife saying he was stuck on snowmobile coming from his chalet. 
This was yesterday. 
Good news is we took gas and went up 83 to check it out. At 50km we were turning back when cops pull up. They found the guy. He abandoned his sled and they followed his footsteps to a nearby chalet where he broke in door and lit the fire and waited for help. Great Job by the police. Hats off.
We ride back following the cops they were blazing a trail. Snohorse tried to get them to put on there lights so we could have a official police escort but no dice. 
Back to 22 tank again and absolutely hammer it back to Windigo. Hell one or two more passes through they won't need to groom it i will have it blown open fully. Windigo driveway a few hanging low trees but has tracks and we roll in. So nice to see Martine and nice to be here. 
We are here with only one other guy a Guide out of Lac Blanc doing some pre running for an upcoming group. If you want to stay at Windigo (crazy if you do not want to) then call soon to check the dates it's booking up fast.
thats it for now 222 miles today. 

 
Decisions Decisions 


 
Now a special message to all Team Iceman members not in QC at this time.....
"the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains, and the man with the blue shoes is not who he appears to be." Over.

Take her to Aruba! LOL

Seriously though there are many good areas. You mentioned you did not want to go to Le Cabanon but if you you do this area during the week you will have no problems. Are you looking to stay in same hotel every night or saddlebag it? Western Quebec has some of the best riding and probably closest to you. you could leave from Temiscaming and do a nice loop up the Western border toward Lasarre go through Amos, Val D'Or down through Kicistak (spelling) to 63 and back west. If you wanted to stay in one spot you could do Val D'Or. Mont Laurier honestly is nothing compared to this area and the traffic there is on par with St. Zenon  

A Yamaha to make sure you get where you're going. 

Take her to Aruba! LOL

Thanks every body for the good words! as for the oncoming weather, on the forecast  we have a snow storm warning for tomorrow maybe a 6" and maybe a quarter inch of rain for Thursday with +4C with a winter return for the weekend. If this is right we will have highways for the weekend! hope it will be this...
 
Nah I use a Krikri Pro, take very good pics but not compatible with I-phone just with I-Pay...( I = me) ...
The camera is still our old Sony 4,1 MP, 12 years old!!! that make 1,8mb pics. You probably have a possibility in your setting to lower the quality to get acceptable file size, don't need so high MP to get good quality on internet.
The St-Côme ice sculpture festival will be from january 27 to february 12 this year. They usually begin to carve in the week before so honestly, the weekend before will probably be a bit early to see something else than some big ice cube but if you are in the area you can take your chance... it's very nice to see the carvers at work.
Good luck and have a good stay and rides in my neck of the woods!
 
Alain

Looks good Alain! Hope the warm up this week doesn't affect the trails too much and hope for little rain

Christmas eve into Christmas morning has always been my favorite night of the year to work. It is the one night there seems to be peace on earth. The city is quiet, the few people out and about are cheerful and concerned more for others than themselves. The last several hours lived up to my expectations that there is one day in the year that gives hope to all.                      Merry Christmas!
mike

Nice pics Alain, looks like a good start to the season

Woke up to this
Heading for the country place tonight, will post pics from up there, that area got hammered with 30 cms.
 
 

We know a guy in here that loves to go on an adventures such as that, Mr.Roadrunner. He would be the perfect guide for you Bill and whom ever wants to take on the challenge...Grumpy.

This past summer I looked into riding up to Lab City from Baie Comeau area.  Emailed President of club in Fermont and he told me we would need a 20" wide, long track sled with a sleigh for each sled as it would be a 2 to 3 day trip depending on weather.  Would need food, tent, gas and sleeping bags and he also suggested a guide.  I with you viper2,   a wimpy trail rider.  

Yes Mike a lot of miles for sure and other than a few thousand miles with our scooter gang I only had about 600 miles of on road motorcycle experience all of it being earlier in the summer on that same bike

North of Lab City

Deep snow near Gagnon, Quebec