Greetings and welcome!

I didn’t get very far with my ride yesterday, but I did get to see a few local trails. Most were good enough, but the sun burned spots were getting worse. Expect to see some dirt in sunny spots. We have had a sunny late week, including today at sunny & 32.

The forecast long and short term can be summed up in one word- depressing. There are no big storms apparent and only two possible instances of light snow on the 16 day GFS forecast model.

This is a big weekend for events. My thought is get out there and play like it is the last weekend of the season around here. While things could turn around in the next six weeks, there is nothing pointing that way at the moment. As the sun gets hotter and the days longer, it will eat our fun without new snow to fix the damage.

People to the north and west are still reporting good trails.

Usually this Saturday I take off of work at the bar and go out and cover events. This year I will be at the Rapids to bar tend and meet people. Stop by say hello and get your picture on the net.

That is about it from here. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

So, does a storm that shows up off and on two weeks out qualify as a glimmer of hope? I almost think that it might. It isn’t so much that those specific storms might come true, but rather that the model is flirting with the idea that this force field of high pressure might start breaking down, and a storm might actually be possible.

Ok, it would be nifty if the storms showed up too..

I am wary, but it would be nice to see. So far it has shown up in two of the last four model runs, once for about the 24th, once for the 26th.

I did get my ride in just before sunset yesterday. I didn’t get as far as I wanted to for a number of reasons, but I did see a little trail anyway. My ride took me across from Landing 11 down the pipeline toward Crooked Lake. It was about as expected.

There were some sunny spots, thin and snirty spots, and places the the groomer had shaved, but it was good enough to great for most of the ride. I did not overheat, there wasn’t much gravel under the skis,  and there was snow on top of the slide rails when we stopped. We made pretty good time.

The big bonus was that they did not plow the forest roads. The worst part was the trail between Chickadee & Landing 11, which was good enough, but had some ugly stuff. It always does between the traffic, sun, and terrain.

I am going to try to get some more miles in later today. If I can recover the camera I will bring it along.

We have a lot of events for this weekend. See Monday’s update here for the latest list.

We might be making a move in the coming days to a new server. Apparently this site is using a lot of resources, and I will move it over to the store server to keep my other sites happy. The store server has huge resources (eight quad core CPUs, 32GB RAM, 500GB SAS mirrored RAID), and can handle a lot. Theoretically it will be a seamless transfer, but that remains to be seen. I will probably try to move it Sunday or Sunday night when hits are down.

That is about it from here. Have a good morning and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

Mid-day Update

Both Chute Pond and Iron Snowshoe have weighed in with greatly improved trails. I have about an hour of work left and I am off for a ride.

Early Update

The snow from yesterday was welcome even if it wasn’t very much. Looking out the front step I would call it an inch or an inch and a half. It is a very fine snow, so it will not settle too much. It is nice sturdy stuff, I just wish it would have been a little more.

Most of our trails held a big ice base and didn’t need a lot to recover. It was just those sunny spots. Hopefully this is enough to mend them up a little so that we can get some ride time in. I am planning a ride later today to get a better look, by sled if at all possible time-wise.

I do expect that even if some of the more damaged trails aren’t perfect, they will be good enough, and there are great trails not too far to the north or west. There is also the strong possibility that places to our south and east that saw more melting saw more snow from this storm, based on the radar.

The weather still looks friendly for the weekend with daytime temps in the mid-20s.

The long term weather outlook is for more of the same. There is a little light snow here and there, but no organized storms for at least two weeks. The El Nino/AO/PDO force field of high pressure remains firmly anchored in place.

An interesting tid-bit that I ran into the other day.. Researchers are investigating theories that El Nino actually increases the length of day slightly. Other articles stated that it added up to about 1/10th of a second over a season. I did not know that.

As the nice young lady at the Rapids knew last weekend, we pick up 1:17 of daylight in February. If it isn’t going to snow, and the sun becomes more of a factor soon, I have to say ride it while you can. That is my plan anyway.

That is it for now. Have a good Wednesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

The snow is falling. We are still waiting for it to cross the inch mark, but it is getting close. The forecast has been downgraded slightly and we are looking for 1-3 today and tonight.

Yesterday John B from the Red Arrow Club in Townsend sent a comment in letting me know to update their web site link. They have an extensive web site beyond the county tourism site, and at the moment they are reporting very good to excellent trails. Chris’ observation when she was up that way yesterday agrees.

The snow today will go a long way on the trails around here. I do expect them to be rideworthy for the big weekend. I am planning a closer look tomorrow once the snow falls and we know what we have.

RJB