I headed out for a ride hitting some St. Germain, Eagle River and Sugar Camp trails. The Eagle River trails I rode were groomed. Some of the St. Germain and Sugar Camp ones were groomed but others weren’t. The groomed ones were nice, smooth and packed in tight. They were really nice and I wanted to keep riding all day on them. The ungroomed ones varied from mostly smooth to mostly moguls. There are some fair areas – mainly because they are brownish from snirt and have some pushed out icy corners. Groomers are doing a great job pulling snow back onto icy corners but with traffic they will get pushed out again. Be careful of branches that have fallen on trails with all the snow and ice on them.

Now that there’s plenty of snow on the trails what you see will depend on when the trail was last groomed and how much traffic has been on it since then. More traffic will lead to more bumps and pushed out, icy corners. Less traffic will mean smoother trails.

Lakes are bumpy and there’s slush coming up in spots – especially off the marked trails.

Just a comment or two on some safety issues. 5 sledders died recently in WI. Two of them were hit by vehicles on state highways. We’re not sure what happened but lets use this as a reminder that whether you ride fast, slow or in between, stop signs mean stop and look both ways before crossing a road or driveway. Also, with all the snow we’ve gotten there’s a lot of high snowbanks limiting visibility for vehicles pulling out of driveways or roadways. So if you’re on a plowed road trail slow down and be aware someone pulling out might not be able to see you coming.

Comments are closed.