18.   On this beautiful Saturday morning in mid March we were greeted with sunny skies and optimum riding conditions for an exciting snowmobile run. Sooley, Bill and I left from Sooley's house in Paradise with a travel planed to Crane's Gas Bar in Witless Bay.

17.   I was riding my '97 Grand Touring 500, Sooley his 1997 Skidoo Mach1 700 and Bill his new 2005 Yamaha RX-1.

16.   We crossed Adams Pond, then Octagon Pond and eventually met the pole line where we had to skip a little water and continue on towards the Trans Canada Highway. We crossed the highway and stopped at the Irving Station by the clover leaf to top up our fuel tanks. Leaving there we paralleled the highway to Northern Pond Road, where we rode past the gravel pits and took a right turn westbound towards the Foxtrap Pasturelands.

15.   Riding out that road we hooked a left onto the main transmission line again headed west and followed it across the beautiful granite mounds of the Dog Hills.

14.  This was a great part of the run, there were lots of hills and bowls to climb and explore all along the way. We stopped many times to make a climb or two, jump many nice natural kickers. I managed to roll my sled, luckily the only damage was as unbuttoned windshield which we quickly repaired.

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8.   When we reached Witless Bay Line we crossed the road then headed South across the open country paralleling the road so we wouldn't go astray.

7.  Bill loved this area saying it reminded him of home on the South Coast of Labrador where he grew up.

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5.   As we got closer to the tree line we came across more and more snowmobile tracks which led us to the trail connecting to the Old Witless Bay Line cabin road. The old road is only frequented by local cabin owners and was fortunately unplowed this winter. We followed this route all the way to Crane's Gas Bar where we gassed up and stopped to the restaurant for a plate of awesome fries.

4.   Leaving Crane's, we turned for home this time following the old Southern Shore power line route which led back to the Goulds. This trail was well used, we often had to take detours around impassable water holes and wash outs.

3.   We stopped in Bay Bulls for a picture overlooking the community before continuing on to the Goulds.

2.   One of the last water obstacles was just barely passable with a sketchy 12" wide ice bridge. Barely wide enough for the track, we had to nail the throttle to lift the skis and hope they didn't hook the far side bank! Sooley was the last to cross and the ice bridge collapsed just as he went over. Thankfully we had no trouble but the next crew through will have to get creative.

1.   Arriving back in the Goulds we took Chicken Farm Road back to Northern Pond Road and retraced this morning's route back to Paradise. This ride was a great loop and an easy way to spend the day riding close to home. There are countless different ways to make this trip including crossing 1000 acre marsh, our route today was beautiful and a heck of a lot of fun.

Cheers, MIKE