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Trails great in southern, central qc


Scranton1
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Rode 700 miles from the 26-31. Conditions at esteral, st. donat, st micheal des saints, la tuque, shawinigan, st come, tremblant outstanding. All lakes were frozen and staked, base is great, and rain did no damage.

Didn't make it to st jean due to rain.

I'll post pics shortly

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Rode 700 miles from the 26-31. Conditions at esteral, st. donat, st micheal des saints, la tuque, shawinigan, st come, tremblant outstanding. All lakes were frozen and staked, base is great, and rain did no damage.

Didn't make it to st jean due to rain.

I'll post pics shortly

How was that new Jacket? Sounds like you had a good time.

Rode 700 miles from the 26-31. Conditions at esteral, st. donat, st micheal des saints, la tuque, shawinigan, st come, tremblant outstanding. All lakes were frozen and staked, base is great, and rain did no damage.

Didn't make it to st jean due to rain.

I'll post pics shortly

How was that new Jacket? Sounds like you had a good time.

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Rode 700 miles from the 26-31. Conditions at esteral, st. donat, st micheal des saints, la tuque, shawinigan, st come, tremblant outstanding. All lakes were frozen and staked, base is great, and rain did no damage.

Didn't make it to st jean due to rain.

I'll post pics shortly

I was wondering where you ended up going and how you made out. Did you saddlebag the trip?

We ended up going to the UP and are having a blast. The rain turned to snow right after we got here, and it has snowed every day since. Trails are beautiful, and the scenery is different in the UP. It is nice to go somwhere that they speak english for a change. It's also nice to fill your sled up for $17.

I hope I can get to Quebec to use my permit sometime this winter.

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Jacket was awesome. Rode two days in the rain and never got wet. You don't appreciate a wonderful jacket until you get one. Now I understand how you guys can ride at -20 and have a good time. Bill (I don't even know what kind it is but I'll be getting the matching pants for my birthday, vtines days or something)...........we can work a behind the scenes deal since you have my wifes contact info........I'll give a more detailed report.......Trying to cover all my bases with management.

We did saddebag and the new ski doo is awesome. Perfect for me at 6'3............3000 dollars less than my nytro and 100% better. Oh how nice it is to be able to turn on rails. Very responsive and predictable.

be in touch,

BJ

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Here is a summary of the trip:

Following last years season, I decided to keep the '05 500 SS for another year or two (dealer wanted my sled and $6800 for an etech b/c a sled with a little over 7k miles is not worth shit in our area) so I had a friend help give the old girl an overhaul. We put in pistons, rings, gaskets, thermostat, y-pipe (old one cracked), front suspension hats/bushings, upper and lower ball joints, drive axle bearings (jackshaft ones were still ok), driven and drive clutch springs, higher handle bars and a new windshield (not installed yet- waiting for hardware). One carb boot was borderline (small crack but not all the way through the boot and the other one was fine), but the new one was not in intime for the trip. We finished up most of this work at 11:00 pm on Christmas night. We fired the sled, checked for leaks and loaded it onto the trailer and headed for L'Esterel.

After driving all night and getting about 3 minutes of sleep, we parked the truck and got the sleds fired, saddle bags loaded and headed out onto the ice in front of L'Esterel and my clutch started slipping. I coasted to a stop at the end of the lake and white smoke was pouring out from under the hood. 0.7 miles, WTF? The coolant reservoir was empty. Upon further inspection, the coolant hose between the carbs was off (must have been my buddy that didn't tighten that one!, LOL...). It took about 15 minutes to remove the driven clutch, air box and carbs to get to the line back on and tightened. I also noticed at this time the crack in the carb boot was a little worse than I remembered, but it was still ok. We re-filled the sled with coolant and it fired right up. We made our way up through St Donat to St. Michael de Saints and got a hotel there for the night. Everything ran good, including the other 500 SS, a '95 Arctic Cat Cougar with M-10 and BLT-10 suspensions and my bro's new TNT. The next two days were kind of shitty- periods of rain, but at least it was warm out. We did a one day trip from the hotel around the lake that starts with a "T" (I can't remember the name right now), across the Mattawin and then toward La Tuque/Shawinigan. The trails were great, 9/10 and it was warm with not nearly as much rain as was expected. The next day, we were greated to another warm day with light rain (it had rained hard all night). We decided to head back into Mt. Tremblant park and head toward Mt. Laurier. A few minutes into the ride, I noticed my idle hanging at 4k and not dropping. I checked the carb boot and noticed the crack had really opened up. I threw on some duct tape and it seemed to help- (with the warm temperatures, I was not too worried) and we headed to the Doo dealer in St Donet. It really started raining at this point. The Doo dealer didn't have the part, but the dealer near St. Come did, so we headed back into the park and over to St Come. We were soaked at this point (with the exception of BJ- his coat worked good) so we got a hotel in St Come for the night. Trails 9/10. The next day, the rain turned to snow and we had about a 1" on top of the frozen base. The trails were surprisingly good, and we made it to the doo dealer in about 2 hours (La Pointe Sports, I believe). They had the carb boot and I got it for $50 Canadian since the package was open (I guess it retailed for $90.00). The secondary clutch, airbox and carbs were off for a second time and the carb boot was replaced in the parking lot of the dealer in ~ 20 minutes. We rode back up into the park and then got back to the Hotel by about 2:00 to watch the NC State Game (BJ's brother in law was playing in his last game for them). Trails 6/10, since they were hard from all the rain. Overnigth, it snowed about 3-4" and the temperatures dropped. We decided to make a loop through the park, heading back to L'Esterel through N-dame de la Merci. Everything was running great until the Cougar gave up the ghost. I pulled the plugs and one of them had metal on the bottom. She was probably running a little lean and melted a hole in a piston. We got her started and ran her on one cylinder the remaining 25 miles back to the truck. Trails were a 10/10. It was about 5 F at this time. After sitting for about 4 days without being plugged in, the Cummins fired right up. We loaded the sleds and headed back to PA. It was nice parking at L'Esterel, easy to get to, nice gated lot and a very nice facility. Plus, it was only about 7.5 hrs back to Scranton, PA. We will be using L'Esterel as a departure point for our remaining trips this year.

All in all, it was a great first trip. We had a few minor mechanical problems and lost the Cougar on the last day in an ideal spot- only 25 miles from the truck. I think we finished with just under 700 miles. We are planning another trip for late Feb/Early March and we hope to maybe get one more in there sometime between now and then (maybe a long weekend in the Mt. Tremblant park region).

A few pic's are attached.

36 hrs with no sleep...

Mattawin Dam

Lookout in St. Come

Catching a little air with the new sled

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