GSX800

Gotta love the finger countdown. You stay right, I stay right. No problem. 

It’s been quite a few years since I was there. Pretty darn sure there is dishes, glasses, pots and pans and silverware.  Kind of tough to rent cabins expecting your clients to bring their kitchenware with them.  

Send your pass to your files or notes that are stored on your phone. No need for service. Put your phone in airplane mode so you’re not pinging the cell towers. When you are outside of coverage, or have very weak coverage, your cell phone is transmitting at full power to try and make/keep a connection with the network. That’s the battery killer. You can still have Bluetooth active if you’re listening to music stored on your phone.  IMotoneige navigation works in airplane mode, you just won’t be able to get services.

Send your pass to your files or notes that are stored on your phone. No need for service. Put your phone in airplane mode so you’re not pinging the cell towers. When you are outside of coverage, or have very weak coverage, your cell phone is transmitting at full power to try and make/keep a connection with the network. That’s the battery killer. You can still have Bluetooth active if you’re listening to music stored on your phone.  IMotoneige navigation works in airplane mode, you just won’t be able to get services.

Trails damn good today. The 33 from St Michele to Repos was perfect. Nice to be in familiar places again.

Casey smoke break at 3 pm

Got the 1970/2013 600ACE out on the snow today. Runs great.

We have all our rooms reserved thought we where going to change plans due to l’hombre du vent having no chalets available but luckily for us she had a chalet available on the 21st after all.
1 day temiscaming to Val-dor 
2 night val Dor to l’hombre du vent.  
3 night l’hombre du vent to Roberval. 
4 night trip around lac st jean back to Roberval.
5 night to chicoubama
6 night to Val-dor
7 night to temiscaming.
Thanks for all the input on lodging.
Zrtkat 
 
 
 

Thank you to the couple that picked up my belongings I lost on the trail leaving Mont Laurier yesterday and gave them to the people at Mekoos that tracked me down,I appreciate your honesty,thank you Tom C.

Gotta love the finger countdown. You stay right, I stay right. No problem. 

🙃

Yes, or bring in food.  Not sure Uber Eats or Grubhub delivers there.

Day 4, snowing pretty good when we are packing up to leave SADM. Decide to see what we can get. Hit 5 and head East, few inches of snow so far, winds not so bad. 20 miles out and it’s getting deeper, starting to push hard. We pass the St Paulin relay and like reported on here it’s closed so we push on. It started getting windy snowing hard now, we come into St. Adelme and top the gas. We pull into the relay and decide to have an early lunch and figure out where to go from here. A few of the locals express how bad the storm is getting, we decide to continue to Matane and quit for the day. We leave and the drifting is getting bad, time to quit, we made the right choice. Pull into the Riotel and it’s snowing sideways. Good to be done.

Day 2 took us South and East. Left Amqui on 587. Took the local to Lac Humqui to check the trail 😂😂 actually was a wrong turn and didn’t catch it until we got there 10 miles later. Gassed there and doubled back. Took it back to 5 to Albertville. Gas was closed there, not sure if it was just because they are not open every day or if they are closed for good. Too early for clubhouse to be open so we continued on. Took a rest on the trail and had a trail side snack. Definitely not as many places open as there used to be. We went into Causapscal to top the gas should we take the cutoff after St. Marguerite. Continued on 5 and took the local cutoff to La Alverne. Trails are all awesome and again very little traffic. Met back up with 5 East and got gas at St. Omer, really thin down low and by the water. Continued on 5 and took a break at the Carleton clubhouse. Tried calling for rooms at the Francis in New Richmond but they were booked. A local guy in the clubhouse called and got us rooms in Maria at the Auberge Marchand. Instead of heading right there we went back up in the mountains and checked out the overlook then took some more of the orange trails and came out on 5 just before Maria. Found the exit off the trail 5 and headed to the hotel. It leads into a cul de sac and a plowed road. A little scratchy getting in but as we got almost to 132 a pickup truck headed towards the cul de sac flashed his lights for me to stop. Turns out it was the guy from the clubhouse who came to check on us when we didn’t get there earlier. I think he saw us go up in the mountains when we left and was worried for us. The holes is nice, the restaurant is closed Monday and Tuesday but there is an IGA next door and they have a common kitchen on the 2nd floor of the hotel so we got some food and made it there.

A little late posting, but we (6 riders) left the Universal in RDL Monday morning. We took 526 to 85 to the local 44. All nice, a little thin close to town but overall good condition and coverage. We then too 544 East to St. Cyprien then continued on 571 to 546. All trails in great condition and more snow in the interior. Ended up on 35 to 5 and took that to 579 at St. Gabriel. Took that to 587 and went and checked out the radar tower. Visibility was poor so hard to get good pictures. We continued to St. Irene and took the gas there. Rode into Amqui and stayed at the Selecthotel for the night. 194 miles, trails very good and little traffic.

both hands on the bars please  in all my years of riding every close call was because of someone trying to signal me when clearly their hands on the bars would have been a lot safer   i guess its personal preference but please don't get angry at the people that don't use hand signals  safety first

Here is our last ride path

It is under a very cloudy sky and a little snow that we left Saturday morning around 9:00 am from Champlain (east of Trois-Rivières) to go having a lunch at La Tuque accompanied by our friend Snowcruiser.

The trails were very nice at start, here in the very long straight stretch on trail #3

Once near Grand-Mère we got on the St-Maurice river...

Because of the temperatures that have been too mild so far, the 28kms marked trail on the St-Maurice River north of #23 trail has not been done yet, not safe. So we made it on land through #23+#360 trails towards St-Joseph de Mekinac.
For those who doesn't know, this bridge we pass under is on the #155 (road between Trois-Rivières and La Tuque) and have been closed last year during 7month after being inspected and realized it was not safe anymore!.  Here we can clearly see the steel pillars and reinforcement cables that have been installed on the bridge(had just concrete before) to reopen it at the end of last summer. It is a temporary fix and a new bridge construction is supposed to start at spring 2023 and last 3 years!

We passed through St-Tite

The famous Rivière des Envies which took a long time to freeze is now crossable and safe

just before switching onto #360 trail at the junction there was an SQ police checkpoint. I thought I would have to dig off in my pants to get all my papers out but no, we mustn't look too suspicious, we passed through in less than a minute with only a visual license plate check and a brief chat.
Here just leaving, my partner Snowcruiser on his new Enduro

The #360 was superb and very fast

The #355 on the Gazoduc section was a little bumpy but it still ride well

The next section of #355 between the junction with #351 and Lake Wayagamac was very ruff, good snow cover but just really due to be re-regroomed, Kristine had not liked it. We notice that the lack of deep cold and the general mild weather+ frequent new snow since the beginning of the season affect the grooming efficiency and trail toughness compare to what we are used to in january.
We took a break under the Railway Bridge of Riviere du Milieu

Past the junction south of Wayagamac lake the conditions came back correct and it was riding well

Arriving in La Tuque, the trail is on the pedestrian bridge instead of the river which is not safe yet...

We stopped to eat at Marineau auberge at the entrance of the city around 1:00 p.m. with 180 km on the meter

It was our first ride with Snowcruiser this season and the lunch break pass like flash by chatting in very good company! We then went to refuel in town, here along the endless 30km/h zone along the airport.

And here in town...

We had 2 options for the return, either to retrace our steps on the #355 and then take the #351 in the Zec Tawachiche or take the #73 and do the Zec Jeannotte / Rivière à Pierre which is longer run. It is my back seat passenger who made the decision and we set off for La Jeannotte around 2:30 p.m. Here along Lake Wayagamac

The jeannotte did not disappoint us even if the detour in the center was a little more bumpy, very beautiful and fast

It was beautiful up to the ZEC entrance

Then, the traffic of this Saturday had done its job and it was getting more rought as we went down

Like an oasis in the desert, we crossed our first dozer just before Rivière à Pierre

The track towards St-Raymond was ok

But #353 was very rought. We took a little break at the #23 trail junction which we then took east towards St-Alban and it was really better. We had a couple more rought stretches  but were also lucky enough to cross 2 more dozers on the way back.


We crossed St Anne and Batiscan rivers which are both staked and safe and finally returned to our starting point around 7:30 p.m. with just over 220kms in the afternoon for a total of just over 400kms for the day. I admit that we slept very well that next night!!!
So another great ride for us this season, the trail network is almost complete and the snow is here, I hope for even more cold in the next few weeks to optimize the quality/solidity of the trails. The weather forecast is really promising, hoping they will be right.
Bye Alain

The time has come for all of us , in concert with outfitters , hotels, dealerships, Bombardier, clubs, and private land owners, and FCMQ, to be proactive, and require everyone to ...Take The Pledge....with Bombardier ...as a trail pass requirement...mandatory sled stickers...no pledge sticker...no gas....spelled out plain and clear ...registration revocation and fines...sled seizure...signs at hotels and stops like Repo, etc. If we don't get proactive...we all know where this is going...and reactive isn't a place we want to be...the weather is already numbering our days...we can control everything but the weather..AND TRAIL ACCESS. Ride off trail in designated areas..or be gone. If we aren't going to be proactive and sit around complaining... we will not have much of a voice when the powers to be do sit down...and we will not like the conversation on that day. We all have a lot at stake here...this is our recreation...but for many it's their livelihood...we have 3300 members here alone...it's a good place to start...look how many stickers iceman was able to distribute playing around... we need to be on front of this now...before it's too late...and that day is coming if we do nothing...my 2 cents worth, happy trails, Bob.

Found an otter trail but no one home 🙂

I once had a guy in my group of 7 or 8...20 years old...I was the last guy and sleds were coming at me all day on the hammer even around corners...then on the second day I noticed this clown giving everyone the closed fist that went by...I asked him what the hell he was doing that for...he said..ride on brother...he had no idea that meant...there's nobody behind me...evidently everyone else knew what it meant.That's why I ride out in the bush, were the serious riders are and no traffic.

A fun couple of days so far 😀 All fresh groomed from Mattawin to Repos. Pretty good from Repos to Kanawata though we did most of it in the bush. Kanawata to Parent a bit bumpy they Awesome to Gouin. Spent the day going to La Dore for lunch and back 😜

Thats some pile of wood !

l’ hombre du vent - awesome cabins, awesome hosts.  

Just heard from my club contact. 
glitch on imotoneige. Trail is open.