actionjack Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 March ’17 until last Wednesday Dream and plan for next trip to great trails in Quebec Wednesday 1/17 Trailering snow covered roads from Maryland to Hotel Lac Carling (a site sponsor I might add). Dinner, drinks, politics. After dinner I was advised trails closed. PLENTY of snow here but damage from last Friday's rain. At least truck is secure, we think. Thursday Planned ride to Village Windigo. Woke 4a. Study reports, closed in spots, passable in others. Lac McDonald closed, Linear Park closed, 319 N closed at 63. Everything else open. Re-route planning, contingency ideas. Gas at Motel du Chasseur. Windigo calls and says trails closed in their area - we’ll see. Bad hole soon after turn left on gold local to get to Chasseur. Snowy. Occasional rocks and icy corners. Passable but not what you come to Quebec for. Plan is to take new route to Mt. Laurier via Duhamel and local up Lac des Iles and wing it if can’t get through. Campfire if needed. Windigo calls again - trails closed please bring your money but not your sleds. Lunch at Madorick - good food, prompt service. Owner tells me not to try Windigo - too many klicks. 1st timer with us, an experienced snowmobiler on first saddlebag trip, is toast already. OK I give up. Where to? A little mind eraser magic and iMotoneige points to Auberge Chez Ignace - Lac Nominingue. Owner is a renowned wine maker transplanted from France. Uncork some rouge, served with Cheetos, WTF (I think the husband rushed out to buy provisions after I called). Math homework with the kids and cat. Weird but super accommodating. Nice rooms, hot tub. Right on the Linear park (they advised me it was OK even though RED on iMototneige). Dinner amazing, breakfast perfect, sleds secure in covered enclosure. We’ll be back when there is actually snow between points A and B to stay with new friends. Friday 7a breakfast A little drone work Live stream departure by new ami Tony. 63 to gas in Riviere Rouge. 319 N barred on linear park. Bridge to take 63 over Red River is bare with no sleds signs. No choice. Back on trail. Good size hole on 63 east prior to 322. Passable where shallow. Head north on 322. Powerline trails very rocky almost no snow. FML, Shoulda move launch point north or elsewhere but 1 buddy really wants to go to 100 Lacs. In the woods the trail is often good - full on winter, in the open spots bad to terrible, borderline irresponsible. And bad timing for the open house weekend. About 1/2 way up the trail is shaping up and not bad, still a few rocks and some icy areas. After the 322-319 intersection 319 N turns into a single track goat path for several miles, I did not measure. Whoops are bad for 2-3 miles but then it opens up and is Ok. All passable clearly but partly seemingly not opened yet this year. By the time we reach the Le Reufge at the 53 intersection its actually quite good. Actually winter. And Snowing. Mekoos for gas and lunch. We are a little early (rare for us) and no other sleds that aren’t staff or rentals waiting to be abused. Good lunch, some connectivity and off we head to 100 Lacs. Mekoos to 100 Lacs 8/10 except at the very end on the new section was a bit icy. We arrived before 4p. - Too much drinking time allowed for this group. I was not aware of the advertising brouhaha at this point but Paul was away promoting the business anyway. Good candidate for site sponsor really. There is a new lady there Maria, who speaks perfect English among other languages and was very hospitable along with all the staff at 100 Lacs. 100 Lacs to us is a super cool QC experience. I did not meet a single QR member here despite the usual pre and post dinner camaraderie under the moose. We stayed in Chalet Gerry with the mice or some other woodland creatures. In the am the morning they used a leaf blower to clear the few inches of fresh snow covering the sleds. Saturday Slow breakfast. Gas (no good explanation for not gassing on arrival) 53-319-322-63-323-43- local to Saint Jovite. My sled hates me, or at least it thinks I hate it. Great riding up most of the way to Mekoos. Fresh snow had fallen the entire time but my optimism was not rewarded. This was a stupid choice with a non-refundable comfortable 3 bedroom condo and a taxi ride to Tremblant for an over-priced meal. Don’t ride this area until at least a foot of snow falls and the clubs can shape it up. I know it was open doors but snowmobile trails need snow to be “open”. Sunday 7a breakfast No sleds to fix parked warm in then bunker below the condos. Rocks, snow, rocks, snow. Plenty of snow and decent conditions still in Pine Hill area. Thankful that the worst of the Tremblant area was behind us. Roll back to Lac Carling. In the truck by 11:15a but not before a little drone work on Lac des Seize Iles. 2 different trailer tire blowouts on the way home. No sled mechanical issues, no blown corner excursions, new carbides all around probably - I had new ones in the trailer already that I left off. 1200 miles now on my Winder. IMotoneige worked very well for navigating having a better interface than any Garmin. towing, snowfarmer, vt_bluyamaha54 and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iceman Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 Nice Report, sorry about your conditions. I like the “my sled hates me or at least it thinks I hate it”, here I thought I was the only with those feelings at times. First time at Lac Carling? Nice Place at a good price I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vt_bluyamaha54 Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 Thanks for sharing Jack. Many of us feel your pain b/c it was shaping up so well and so early that we all had high expectations for the season. The rain event was particularly bad b/c all the cold weather preceding it locked everything up and all that water had no where to go. Sorry you rolled a bad one - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnc Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 I wondered about you guys, if you ended up coming or not. Saw several machines pass on the RR bed between Weir and Arundel when I was out walking on the Thursday. Sorry to hear how rough most of the trails were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
actionjack Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 5 hours ago, iceman said: Nice Report, sorry about your conditions. I like the “my sled hates me or at least it thinks I hate it”, here I thought I was the only with those feelings at times. First time at Lac Carling? Nice Place at a good price I think. We went to Lac Carling last year after your post. Great place many advantages for us. I hope they make it. It seems golf is their season because winter it’s empty. I hope to play there one day. Good price. Good food. Good service. Parking garage. Great facility. We like it so much we risked the sketcy conditions to return to our truck safely tucked in there. It’s about the shortest drive possible for us too. 4 hours ago, vt_bluyamaha54 said: Thanks for sharing Jack. Many of us feel your pain b/c it was shaping up so well and so early that we all had high expectations for the season. The rain event was particularly bad b/c all the cold weather preceding it locked everything up and all that water had no where to go. Sorry you rolled a bad one - C’est la motoneige. It wasn’t a bad trip but we quit going to NY because of sh1tty conditions like that. 18 minutes ago, Cnc said: I wondered about you guys, if you ended up coming or not. Saw several machines pass on the RR bed between Weir and Arundel when I was out walking on the Thursday. Sorry to hear how rough most of the trails were. Did we pass you at all? My winder has LED handguards. 2 Apexes and Polaris assault with no windshield or carbides for that matter. That could have been us. We sure didn’t seem much traffic or even many people Thursday. Surpisingly we saw quite a few sleds Sat evening before reaching the Comfort Inn. And we saw a little bit of traffic in the Pine Hill area Wednesday night when we arrived and Sunday returning to Lac Carling. Motel du Chasseur was very busy Wed night. 2 more trips planned. Hope to see no more rocks on the trails. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cnc Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 2 hours ago, actionjack said: We went to Lac Carling last year after your post. Great place many advantages for us. I hope they make it. It seems golf is their season because winter it’s empty. I hope to play there one day. Good price. Good food. Good service. Parking garage. Great facility. We like it so much we risked the sketcy conditions to return to our truck safely tucked in there. It’s about the shortest drive possible for us too. C’est la motoneige. It wasn’t a bad trip but we quit going to NY because of sh1tty conditions like that. Did we pass you at all? My winder has LED handguards. 2 Apexes and Polaris assault with no windshield or carbides for that matter. That could have been us. We sure didn’t seem much traffic or even many people Thursday. Surpisingly we saw quite a few sleds Sat evening before reaching the Comfort Inn. And we saw a little bit of traffic in the Pine Hill area Wednesday night when we arrived and Sunday returning to Lac Carling. Motel du Chasseur was very busy Wed night. 2 more trips planned. Hope to see no more rocks on the trails. You actually might of passed Us on Thursday if you went through Weir and on down to St Remi on the RR bed, as I was walking on the trail with my wife on a section that runs through the middle of the fields for a mile or so just after you went through Weir and crossed the road a few times. The trail then crosses back. We had been checking our access route off the lake as most were flooded out for several days. I was out Sat on the sled checking conditions and was actually surprised by the amount of sleds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
actionjack Posted January 24, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2018 (edited) Ready to hit the trail Chalet Gerry set Lac Adonis Auberge Chez Ignace Our arrival at Comfort Inn Tremblant Bailey bridge direction south from 100 Lacs 100 Lacs from 100’ above Post Card shot View to south on Lac Adonis TQ63 west of 322 Nord Dinner at Chez Ignace - excellent pork dish Cheetos! Mekoos Friday 11:30ish we are the only sledders - not for long. Le Refuge at 53 and 319 Upon our return to Hotel Lac Carling Edited January 24, 2018 by actionjack Florida Snowman and towing 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trailblazer Posted January 24, 2018 Report Share Posted January 24, 2018 Heh you guys were in my neighbourhood, I know that Refuge well stop there often. Pourvoirie Gagne et Filles just up the trail. How was the trail from the Parc over to Lac des Isles? I met some sledders in the Parc last Saturday said trails were horrible around Kiamika, did u turn with that info. Thanks for the report, things should shape up this week with the new snow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
actionjack Posted January 24, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2018 Because the 1st timer wasn’t up for another 120 miles and because Windigo called to say the trail leading to them was closed we backtracked 43-323-319 to Nominingue- Chez Ignace. Didn’t ride the parc trail or Lac des Iles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dooright Posted January 24, 2018 Report Share Posted January 24, 2018 Cool to see a few drone pics !, I've thought of packing mine along with me but haven't so far . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikerider Posted January 24, 2018 Report Share Posted January 24, 2018 Wow, awesome pictures. actionjack 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
actionjack Posted January 24, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2018 (edited) 13 minutes ago, dooright said: Cool to see a few drone pics !, I've thought of packing mine along with me but haven't so far . The spark is perfect for this and one of the reasons I bought it. Mavic Air next. Gotta keep the batteries warm tho and don’t take off with snow on the sensors - that was exciting Edited January 24, 2018 by actionjack dooright 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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