26.   This past weekend happened to be the St. Patrick's Day long weekend (long weekend for many - myself included), I took advantage of the free day and decent weather on Monday to hit the trails leaving from my house in Torbay.

25.   There was quite a bit of snow on the trails from last week's storm but they were generally packed down pretty good from other riders. The larger puddles along the trail are no longer frozen, a true indicator of the mild weather we've experienced over the last few weeks.

24.   For today's ride I reinstalled my Moose Rear cargo box for carrying cook-up gear & supplies and moved my trailside tool kit to the front rack. I always leave my winch hooked to the front rack, when the bumper is buried in water, mud or snow I can easily & cleanly reach the hook by leaning over the handle bars.

23.   Sunday's flurries piled up into quite a large drift at the bottom of North Pond by the dam, I guess the fresh snow blew down the pond and over the dam to gather up here. In any case it was way too much snow for project foreman to punch through although it made a valiant effort.

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21.   Less frequented side trails were a lot of fun as many were unbroken, or not ridden on by other riders since the last storm. With half worn out tires, project foreman put the front locker to work and made it way further than I expected on many trails especially on hill climb sections that were quite steep.

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18.   Even with a 1.5" lift and 27" tires, project Foreman is pretty low compared to modern bikes which caused it to high centre a couple times in areas with deeper snow and trail obstacles limiting speed/momentum. If you don't dig the bike in you can usually give it a push backwards, otherwise it's time to break out the winch cable.

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16.   Over the course of today's ride wet snow packed in and weighed down the front suspension which didn't help the ground clearance situation!

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13.   Around 3pm I found a great place to set up and cook lunch.

12.   I picked up this awesome Kelly Kettle Saturday at Outdoor Pros (formerly O.P. Hunting) as they were running a 17% off sale for the holiday weekend on these units. I decided on the Ultimate Scout Stainless kettle kit which included a 1.2L kettle; fire base; hobo stove; upper pot support; pot-pan-handle-grate Cook set; plus two mugs and two plates. I washed all the parts & accessories at home, but I boiled the kettle for an extended period twice to make sure the new unit was properly clean.

11.    It was quite windy so I set up my MSR Superfly stove & the Kettle fire base in the lee side of an uprooted tree. A few damp sticks made sure both devices didn't melt into the snow once I started cooking. I brought a bunch of small dry kindling for the Kelly Kettle, you simply start a fire in the base, lay the kettle (full of water - with stopper removed) on top and add more fuel into the kettle chimney.

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9.   Before leaving the house this morning I cut up a small moose roast, an onion, seasoned with minced garlic, Italian seasoning and white wine and sealed it in a zip lock bag for the trail ride. This made preparing it in the woods WAY easier, I dumped the well marinated mix into a fry pan and cooked it on my MSR stove.

8.   Meanwhile the kettle which boils water in less than five minutes using only kindling filled up my stainless pot for Mr. Noodles (a quick, easy trail side Carb) and a mug of instant coffee.

7.   This is the Hobo Stove accessory that fits on the Kelly kettle fire base and allows you to cook with a pot or pan on this base. Ingeniously the hobo stove fits inside the kettle so it does not have to be removed to boil the kettle.

6.   Also from Outdoor Pros, this YETI mug really impressed me. I filled the mug with boiling water & instant coffee and laid it down in the snow (as there wasn't really any place else to lay it). Even after and extended period of time my drink did not become cold and the mug dint melt into the snow, the double wall cup with vacuum seal did its job. The YETI mug has a great feel, and unlike most tall skinny thermo-mugs this one is short and wide - which is very stable and did not tip over once.

5.   After my truly epic meal I packed up the bike to hit the trails home. Like any good outdoorsman I left my cook up spot as clean or cleaner than I found it, there is nothing worse than coming across garbage left in the woods by other outdoorsmen.

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3.   Last stuck for the day, on the return trip out an unused side trail project Foreman broke through the ice and bottomed out in a messy mix of mud and fairly deep snow. Thankfully my trusty WARN 2500lb pro-vantage winch pulled the bike free with ease.

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1. All and all it was an awesome day on the trails and a great test of some new camping equipment I hope to make lots of use of this summer. This short video is my 2nd attempt at an edited trail ride video as found on my YouTube channel "actionsmitty".

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith