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Joliette/St-Alexis des Monts/Shawinigan photo ride-report 20january2018


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The trails being ready at home we step on the opportunity to start the ride from our yard, was really a plus to our day! We had agreed with our friend Snowcruiser from Champlain( east from Trois-Rivières in Mauricie) to leave our homes at the same time and meet us halfway for each other in the St-Barnabé sector which worked perfectly. From there, we improvised a ride whose finally been this path:

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Very gray and warm temperature near the freezing point at start of our ride. Near home a dozer had been abandoned in a field, mechanical troubleI guess ...

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The majority of the trails were freshly groomed

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with a little/or alot of loose blowed snow depending  the spots


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Beautiful fast trails overall, it was the visibility that limited our speed

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Here between St-Barthélemy and Maskinongé on #3 trail. It was good to go in the morning but rather icy when we return home in the evening after a warm day at over 4C degres. Here we can still see traces of the previous week's thaw with water that had gone up through the snow in the fields next to the trail


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Some thinner spots like here in Ste-Ursule that were brownish in the morning suffered during the day and patches of earth began to come out at a few places in the evening. It'll take some new snow there...

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But the majority of trails were nice

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The sky begin to clear out, it helped a lot for the visibility

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We met Snowcruiser near St-Barnabé in the mile we expected, it was the 2nd time we tried to meet like that and we arrived less than half a mile from the last time! . Once together, we decided to go up north to St-Elie de Caxton, a trail that we had not done for several years. The first section is shared with Atvs, not ideal especially for a warm day with soft snow but we sailed through the ruts without much difficulty

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In St-Élie village the trail passes on a residential street along a river. A sledder in front of us was lucky in his misfortune when tossing too much to the left his ski broke down the crust and the snowmobile swing toward the river, he almost went for a swim!! the snowmobile finished hanging in a bunch of branches that braked the fall and held the snowmobile in place.

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We stayed to help and another good Samaritan in a car stopped. Gently, we strapped front end to the Rav4 to avoid it flip  upside down in the river and pulled from behind with an expedition. The sled was out of trouble without we really straining.

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We then continued north towards St-Alexis des Monts

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We stopped there to eat at the Microbrasserie Nouvelle France

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A first time there for us, a place that has a lot of character and the food was really good

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We then leave in the north direction. Here the famous little floating bridge near the village

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and the river seen from the bridge ...

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The snow is very good in the area of St-Alexis, here on the Lac a l'Eau Claire (clear water lake) a very inspiring name to put on a trail in winter!

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We went up on the #349 trail

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Up to the #23 junction that we took to the east

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A few miles farther, we met other peoples in trouble, but those had search for it a bit I think. Always the same excuse "we did not know it was a snowmobile trail". The gentleman was trying to call a tow truck but did not have a phone network ... We helped them to get to the road and put them in touch with the snowmobile club so that they could figure out how to get their jeep out of there

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We passed in front of the old Cabane a Hill, which has become the Cabane chez Nathalie's place since few years.

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Going toward St-Mathieu we began to have some brown spots but no earth. We reached the St-Maurice River, which does not seem to have suffered from the last thaw.

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A few miles farther at trail #3 junction we leaved our friend Snowcruiser that went home going east while we  took it west. The mild day with a lot of traffic(free week end) had done its work and it is a very bumpy trail with several brown spot that we had up to the other St-Maurice river crossing near the Gabelle dam. On the west side of St-Maurice once in the fields the condition was much better and we could ride fast despite the trail was worn. We stopped to eat super in Ste-Ursules where a few spots of earth had begun to come out. We then returned home by #3 trail passing near Berthierville with similar conditions. We left the house at 8:30 in the morning and returned home at 8:30 PM with 225miles on the dreammeter for the day.


In short a very good ride, the best snow conditions were a little more north in St-Elie and St-Alexis des Monts being the snowiest areas in what we have ride. Let's hope that the snow on the forecast for the beginning of the week will restore the trails conditions where it begin to suffer, need some new stuff to keep the trail network in shape...


Alain

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Yes, I was worried a bit just after the thaw at seeing report on tv with rivers flooded and ice jam in the south of the province but our St-Maurice river stayed solid as a rock!

Today at home we got a 6" of snow last night with 1-2" of sleet(ice pellets) over the top today. No rain or ice today temps remain at -3C in the higher. It was just what we needed to put back the trails in shape :good:. Actually still light snow. I was in Montreal City today for job and they got ice all day long, a pretty thick crust at the end of the day but just a bit norther here at home we were ok for snow and ice pellets

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