Fozzy

I need this sign for my kids bathroom.

I need this sign for my kids bathroom.

I need this sign for my kids bathroom.

I am in Mikerider’s room. 

Hope you got back on your side before 8:00 pm.😁

Here the path of our small annual trip 2021



Day#1: Joliette/Mont-Laurier by #63+petit train du nord trail
Day#2: Mont-Laurier/Mekoos passing on the Baskatong reservoir+Devil's mountain attractions and the Kiamika dam east from Chutes St-Phillipes
Day#3 Mekoos/Joliette by the north on #33/#345 trails and St-Zénon #23 trail

It was also a ride to try our new snow toy that I had just bought: a BRP Grand Touring limited 900ACE 2020 slightly used at 1700miles



After several Polaris and Yamaha, this is my first Ski-doo. It have huge shoes to fill because my last Venture modified to my need/taste was pretty much the "Ultimate touring machine" for Kristine and me. I appreciated it so much that I kept it 2 years longer than the usual 5 years but now, exceeding 25 000miles with the AD Boivin (rear suspension) which exceeds 40000 miles and which  is no more manufacturated since 12 years ago, I had to turn to another option and I try my luck on this one.

So Tuesday morning (March2) was a start for our small trip. All just refreezed night before after Sunday/Monday thaw and not all the snowmobile clubs had regroomed. Scratchers were mandatory to ride in the south but was more snowy toward north. Here near the Domaine Bazinet outfitter



We refueled at Coin Lavigne, it was pretty cold  at -17C on their thermometer with a strong wind.



We took the #33 trail north-west



Here near the closed cafeteria



The #63 trail was handsome, especially the half groomed by the St-Michel des Saints snowmobile club.






We ate our lunch between La Macaza and Riviere Rouge on the edge of the trail in a wooded area to be sheltered from the wind and a happy coincidence wanted our friend Luc who was also passing there had recognized us and stopped with his friend Gilles talking to us a few minutes.

After filling up in Rivière-Rouge we took le petit train du nord trail toward north (still #63)



And arrived at the Quality Inn in Mont-Laurier around 4:30 pm with  202 miles on the dreameter
I was not able to film that day, I first thought it was because of the cold, but it was ultimately a wire on the power supply that was faulty. I corrected that and shot some great scenes on the next 2 days.
I will bring you these other 2 days as soon as possible with pics and videos, come back and see from time to time to have the rest of the ride...
To be continued...

The end.



 

Busted the ole girl out of the garage this afternoon. Dusted off the helmet and squeezed into my pre covid lockdown snowmobile gear. Still fits. Decided to go see what it looked like locally with a quick spin. Fresh 4” of snow maybe a bit more than that. Windy though and saw some drifty parts to prove it. 
Left home made a left 3 ouest to local trails to St Louis de France direction Trois Riveres. This fresh snow will help alot when they groom it in. Not much traffic at all midweek but most using a single track. I decided to break her open a bit wider as I just cannot ride down the middle. Not bad close to home a sloppy trail with the fresh snow drifted up all over. Felt good to squeeze the flipper and hear my Apex sing. Running on fumes from last year but made it to gas in St Louis de France. Filled her up and my rotopak spare juice gan too. Pay at the pump. Keeping my social distance. Enjoyed watching the guy trying to clear the snow with the front end loader must be his first day, but hey practice makes perfect. 
Continued on down to Cap de Madeline rode to the shop to make sure no one was driving my truck. All good there she is cozy in garage enjoying her day off. Back up the local and its groomed here and in the woods pretty nice. Followed the groomed trail to junction with 351 and headed for St Maurice. Passed a couple of people leisurely. Into the fields after crossing the Autoroute 40 it got interesting. Searching for sticks in blowing snow it was a great “hey I remember this moment” big drifts here. The groomer wasted fuel coming through here but I guess I am lucky he did. Once to the Junction with TQ3 a group was stopped there. My phone was ringing in my pocket but I was not answering. TQ3 groomed and not drifty all the way to Lac A Tortue. Burned it up. Followed 3 to Shawinigan,  freaking Shawinigan Sud is snirty brown snow all along by the junction to Reggies at Drakkar. Never seen that ever in February not even in March. Crazy. They been burning it down to the sand. Really need about 40 cm more to fill all the dips and holes. It’s truly like early season riding here still. Sure you can ride but its nothing like it usually is in February. Need more snow. 
Cruised on back on TQ3 to chez Ice. Good first ride. Tested out the garmin Inreach mini tracking, mrs Ice likes follow along. Riding alone it’s another tool, nice to have. 
Maybe tomorrow after they groom it up I will venture out further. Did about 50 miles. 
Its just about good enough to take the Mrs out but I won’t be riding on the weekends way too many people with limited skill sets and new sleds.

 
 

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OH HELL YES! 
How many gang-shaming cancel-culturing snowflakes can we outrage in one little ditty?!
Fat kids. Skinny kids. Kids who climb on rocks...
Tough kids. Sissy kids. Even kids with chicken pox...

Chilly start again but ces’t la via. Meandering back to Forestel today. Thinking 307  caddilac malartic maybe run down 309 and back.
we’ll see which way the skis want to go

Almost feel guilty..almost being the key.
300k plus today on perfect trails. Amos to Macamic-la sarre-palmarolle-amos
Zero morning traffic. Fast and tight all day. Definitely long John weather though. Gourmet trailside beefaroni and steamed dogs for lunch.
Tucked in at Atmosphere now. Val Dor Via Cadillac and environ tomorrow
Stay well
Gowser

At Champlain border crossings,
we lower all left-side windows & shut off engine,
we hand them stacked passports open to picture pages,
they ask our destination & intentions,
we answer that we're going sledding,
they ask where are your sleds,
we all look at each other with that dumb-n-dumber:
"I THOUGHT YOU HOOKED UP THE TRAILER?!"
"DANG, I THOUGHT THE RIG WAS FEELING LIGHT!"
look...

Ok I’m not sure I would admit that.😂

We finally received a good snow drop of around a foot or a bit more on last Satuday (16 January) with still mild temperatures just below the freezing point. It was still mild on Sunday morning so we just did a short 45 miles run from St-Gabriel de Brandon going north on the #63/#23 round-trip to enjoy the scenery before the soft new trail base turn bumpy.

I mounted a short video of our small ride. The video is in color but have alot of white!!! outstanding scenery, too bad the sun wasn't there.
The temperarure drop to January like weather in the next days and with this new snow, most snowmobiles clubs will be able to open their trails and I expect the trail network to greatly shape up this week up to the south of our area even if some swamps and rivers will still need more time to be safe. We can tell that this season will really begin with the conditions we have now
Alain

17 January 
-2c    snow continues 
snow slacked off about 10pm but has restarted overnight coming down nicely
probably solid 12” so far.

 

We arrived at 2pm and were stopped twice by QPF, asking what we were thinking. We’re going sledding, staying in an orange zone, leaving from an orange zone. Tabernac!
The snow here is amazing and we’re on the St. Lawrence.
 
 

I’m riding tomorrow, not Quebec but pretty dam close to it as I will be only a river away the whole time. Riding from Deep River to Mattawa and back for the day. Forth time out on the new to me sled.
 
I have always been a true blue fan from riding a 96 Vmax, 98 SRX, 04 Viper, 06 Apex, 09 Nytro. Nytro has 37,000km and the thing still runs strong. Took it grass dragging and it did well coming 2nd in it’s class with a crap load of km on it lol. This year my group had planned to do Gaspe so I figured I would get a new sled and went with a Yamacat Sidewinder SRX. I was holding out on hopes of Yamaha coming out with a true blue sled but doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Looks like Yamaha is stuck with Arctic Cat like Canada is stuck with Trudeau ( what???... I had to put my political spin on this somewhere). Anyway, so far I love the power and it’s set up very well so it handles like it’s on rails. 
 
Save your breath on the weight argument. I’m 50 now and stopped doing backflips years ago on a sled. Plus for all you BRP loyalists, with all the gas and extra parts I see you guys carry we are probably the same weight 😜.

I’m riding tomorrow, not Quebec but pretty dam close to it as I will be only a river away the whole time. Riding from Deep River to Mattawa and back for the day. Forth time out on the new to me sled.
 
I have always been a true blue fan from riding a 96 Vmax, 98 SRX, 04 Viper, 06 Apex, 09 Nytro. Nytro has 37,000km and the thing still runs strong. Took it grass dragging and it did well coming 2nd in it’s class with a crap load of km on it lol. This year my group had planned to do Gaspe so I figured I would get a new sled and went with a Yamacat Sidewinder SRX. I was holding out on hopes of Yamaha coming out with a true blue sled but doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Looks like Yamaha is stuck with Arctic Cat like Canada is stuck with Trudeau ( what???... I had to put my political spin on this somewhere). Anyway, so far I love the power and it’s set up very well so it handles like it’s on rails. 
 
Save your breath on the weight argument. I’m 50 now and stopped doing backflips years ago on a sled. Plus for all you BRP loyalists, with all the gas and extra parts I see you guys carry we are probably the same weight 😜.

I’m riding tomorrow, not Quebec but pretty dam close to it as I will be only a river away the whole time. Riding from Deep River to Mattawa and back for the day. Forth time out on the new to me sled.
 
I have always been a true blue fan from riding a 96 Vmax, 98 SRX, 04 Viper, 06 Apex, 09 Nytro. Nytro has 37,000km and the thing still runs strong. Took it grass dragging and it did well coming 2nd in it’s class with a crap load of km on it lol. This year my group had planned to do Gaspe so I figured I would get a new sled and went with a Yamacat Sidewinder SRX. I was holding out on hopes of Yamaha coming out with a true blue sled but doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Looks like Yamaha is stuck with Arctic Cat like Canada is stuck with Trudeau ( what???... I had to put my political spin on this somewhere). Anyway, so far I love the power and it’s set up very well so it handles like it’s on rails. 
 
Save your breath on the weight argument. I’m 50 now and stopped doing backflips years ago on a sled. Plus for all you BRP loyalists, with all the gas and extra parts I see you guys carry we are probably the same weight 😜.

PICS PLEASE?!
Helps keep some of us off the Prozac!
Merci buckets!

Weekend yes it’s like that, but not so bad during the week.

I’m riding tomorrow, not Quebec but pretty dam close to it as I will be only a river away the whole time. Riding from Deep River to Mattawa and back for the day. Forth time out on the new to me sled.
 
I have always been a true blue fan from riding a 96 Vmax, 98 SRX, 04 Viper, 06 Apex, 09 Nytro. Nytro has 37,000km and the thing still runs strong. Took it grass dragging and it did well coming 2nd in it’s class with a crap load of km on it lol. This year my group had planned to do Gaspe so I figured I would get a new sled and went with a Yamacat Sidewinder SRX. I was holding out on hopes of Yamaha coming out with a true blue sled but doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Looks like Yamaha is stuck with Arctic Cat like Canada is stuck with Trudeau ( what???... I had to put my political spin on this somewhere). Anyway, so far I love the power and it’s set up very well so it handles like it’s on rails. 
 
Save your breath on the weight argument. I’m 50 now and stopped doing backflips years ago on a sled. Plus for all you BRP loyalists, with all the gas and extra parts I see you guys carry we are probably the same weight 😜.

I’m riding tomorrow, not Quebec but pretty dam close to it as I will be only a river away the whole time. Riding from Deep River to Mattawa and back for the day. Forth time out on the new to me sled.
 
I have always been a true blue fan from riding a 96 Vmax, 98 SRX, 04 Viper, 06 Apex, 09 Nytro. Nytro has 37,000km and the thing still runs strong. Took it grass dragging and it did well coming 2nd in it’s class with a crap load of km on it lol. This year my group had planned to do Gaspe so I figured I would get a new sled and went with a Yamacat Sidewinder SRX. I was holding out on hopes of Yamaha coming out with a true blue sled but doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Looks like Yamaha is stuck with Arctic Cat like Canada is stuck with Trudeau ( what???... I had to put my political spin on this somewhere). Anyway, so far I love the power and it’s set up very well so it handles like it’s on rails. 
 
Save your breath on the weight argument. I’m 50 now and stopped doing backflips years ago on a sled. Plus for all you BRP loyalists, with all the gas and extra parts I see you guys carry we are probably the same weight 😜.

I’m riding tomorrow, not Quebec but pretty dam close to it as I will be only a river away the whole time. Riding from Deep River to Mattawa and back for the day. Forth time out on the new to me sled.
 
I have always been a true blue fan from riding a 96 Vmax, 98 SRX, 04 Viper, 06 Apex, 09 Nytro. Nytro has 37,000km and the thing still runs strong. Took it grass dragging and it did well coming 2nd in it’s class with a crap load of km on it lol. This year my group had planned to do Gaspe so I figured I would get a new sled and went with a Yamacat Sidewinder SRX. I was holding out on hopes of Yamaha coming out with a true blue sled but doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Looks like Yamaha is stuck with Arctic Cat like Canada is stuck with Trudeau ( what???... I had to put my political spin on this somewhere). Anyway, so far I love the power and it’s set up very well so it handles like it’s on rails. 
 
Save your breath on the weight argument. I’m 50 now and stopped doing backflips years ago on a sled. Plus for all you BRP loyalists, with all the gas and extra parts I see you guys carry we are probably the same weight 😜.