We rose early to get this trip started. We were out the door with the sleds running by 6:30am. After a quick ride down the lake we met up with the Prairie Riders and got this trip started. It was a warm morning and pretty foggy. We headed to Bergland and gassed up. Then we took trail 8 to trail 13 on our way to Rockland.
Both trails were in excellent shape and we were racking up the miles pretty fast. We arrived in Twin Lakes by 9am and things were really clicking.
Once we left Twin Lakes and got near Houghton it started to get ugly. The snow was really wet, brown and slushy. We made the best of it and just kept pounding away. Trail 3 was really rutted and there wasn’t a smooth spot to be found. We stopped in Linville for breakfast and then headed towards the Mariner in Copper Harbor for lunch. After we passed Houghton the snow wasn’t as brow, but it sure was bumpy.
We arrived in Copper Harbor around 2pm and grabbed some lunch.
On the way home we took a slightly different route out of town hoping that it might be a little smoother, but it wasn’t. The one good thing was, it quit raining and started snowing. It was the really wet sticky snow though, so it kept sticking to our face shields which made seeing the trail a little harder. We joined back up with trail 3 towards Houghton and just hung on for the beating ahead. Things didn’t really improve until we got past Twin Lakes again. Even then I would still rate this trail in fair to poor condition. There was a groomer out, and they were panning the trail, but it wasn’t doing much good. It was just too warm. Every time they would pan and then 5 sleds would go over it, the trail was washed out again. We finally arrived in Rockland at Henrys Never Inn and took a break. It was build your own pizza night so we made 2 delicious pizzas. The Prairie Riders didn’t want to eat so they hit the trail and left the four of us to enjoy our pizzas. On the way home we got lucky and rode on freshly groomed trails almost the whole way back. Eventually we did catch the groomer and we passed it. Even then the trails weren’t in bad shape. We made our way to Bergland and gassed up before they closed and then headed for the cabin.
Distance: 290
Previous: 1,071
Season Total: 1,361