17.   Ever since our ice fishing trip a couple weeks ago we had a fair amount of "Poor" weather here on the east coast. Most people believe its a great thing to have a mild winter, but for the avid snowmobiler warm weather and rain is definitely poor weather! However, the weather gods blessed us with 2 snowstorms late last week so Joe Hepditch & I loaded up the sleds and headed to Southern Harbor once again for another backcountry run.

16.   Saturday morning Joe H., Young Joe, Captain H., & I  woke up early, got everything ready, and hit the Trailway to Goobies where we all topped up our fuel tanks and grabbed a coffee. Joe H was riding his 2002 RX-1, young Joe his 1996 Formula 583, Captain H his 1999 MXZ 670ho, and I of course my 1997 project Renegade.

15.   Fueled up, we headed West on the groomed trail turning South onto a well beaten path about 5km west of the TrailSide Motel and followed it South-West into the backcountry. 

14.   Our destination was Black River Pond and the many hills that surround it. Not familiar with the area we got off track on the way in, but thanks to our GPS we made our own trail and found the path to our destination.

13.   The snow in the woods was excellent for riding as there was lots of it, and many drifts could be found on the open country with lots of places to play.

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11.   After many stops to jump the sleds and bash drifted snow (and to get Joe H. & Captain H. repeatedly unstuck! lol) we finally made it to Black River Pond at around 1pm.

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8.   Unfortunately my sled started acting up as I was hearing some awful grinding noises coming from the driveline.

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5.   Never the less we found a great place to start a fire and have a cook up.  On the menu this day was a full salmon dressed in seasonings, bacon, and onion all wrapped in tin foil and placed on the hot coals. This was accompanied by a pound of bacon fried in the pan and topped with 3 cans of Beans, and in another pan a fresh onion was sliced and fried and topped with 2 containers of bottled moose. This was all served with fresh homemade bread and tea. What an awesome feast!

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3.   After dinner and relaxing for a bit we decided it best to start to head out of the country since my machine was on the blink. The other sleds in the group were short track machines, so it could be a "hard ol' slog" to get mine towed out over some of the steep hills to the Groomed Trail if it totally failed.

2.   Also the weather started to get dirty with ever increasing snow squalls reducing visibility and making landmarks hard to find. The trail logged by our 2 GPS's made the trip out much easier since we could follow our track back to the Trailway. This is especially important crossing ponds as the trail to get off the ice can be hard to find in bad weather.

Keeping my speed at around 30kph made for a boring ride back out, but kept the harsh noises to a minimum, making the worst noises in getting up over the larger hills. Fortunately everything held together and I managed to ride all the way to Irving in Goobies where some of us needed gas.

1.   Since my machine was still moveable but not reliable, I decided to wait there and have a coffee while the crew went on back to Southern Harbor to get my truck and trailer. I didn't want to break down in the middle of nowhere and possibly do more damage to my broken sled.

Since my sled was not in working order we didn't get any riding in on Sunday, but I will have more stories to add to project Renegade on the Area51 page here soon as I start repairs!