Wild, Warm, & Wet Weekend

March is definitely a crazy month, with random and extreme warm ups, cool downs and odd meteorological events. A veritable kitchen sink of weather. On Monday, we received upwards of 7 inches of snow in CT. On Saturday afternoon, we stood at the corner of NH, VT, and Canada in T-shirts after a late lunch, but before I arrived at the garage, it was raining/sleeting last night, and today I drove home and it was in the mid 60's.

My weekend started on Friday. I left ~8:00 after dropping the kids at school. I stopped upstairs when I got there, because I knew that some work was progressing with the installation of the pine board, and I just had to peek.

After that it was downstairs to put on the riding clothes and hit the trail. It was in the upper 30's so I opted for the lighter bibs and coat. I took off heading north, and the trails started out a little rocky, the fields were spotty, but the ice had softened up. A little mud then into some better riding and deeper snow.I rode for a couple hours, and decided to head in for gas and a quick bite. As I drove into North Concord, I passed a few friends having a snack together.
After a quick bit of nourishment, it was back to the woods, and on to points north. I rode through several towns, or more accurately the woods of several towns, and rarely saw any sign of life. The trees started to envelop me, with the birch and maple trees becoming denser, and the mountainous views becoming more limited. I stopped to look at my watch and marveled that I had already been gone over 4 hours and hadn't seen a single snowmobile, but lots of trees. I decided it was time to head back toward home, and "civilization". I met up with some friends for a tour of the garage, and a short ride down to the local restaurant for dinner, and happened to run into the guy who is doing the pine work up at the garage. We had some decent food, and drove back, planning to meet early Saturday. I parked the sled for the night with a 110 miles for the day.

We met up ~ 8:00 the next morning, and headed north. The trails were not too bad early on, but things change as you head into higher traffic areas. We had a minor breakdown on the trail, and had to perform a little trail side repair to fix a leaky radiator hose-thank god for duct tape!
We rode on into Island Pond, to stop at the local snowmobile shop for a new piece of hose. On the way we drove through probably the biggest logging operation I have seen out in the woods. This is only about half of the wood pile that was on trail side. From there is was onto Canaan, VT for a late lunch, and back to home base. By the time we left Canaan, the trails were pretty bumpy, and it was challenging and a little tiring, but we made it back around 8:30 pm and logged just shy of 200 more miles. Almost 300 miles in a little over 32 hours, that was enough for this weekend. Right now it looks like it may be over, but riding season is open till April 15, as long as there is snow on the trails. If you are interested, here is the track of the weekend ride. The red is Friday and black is Saturday, some trails we covered twice.

Hmm, temperatures are now supposed to drop again, and I only need 80 more miles to hit 1,000 miles for the first time ever.............