Since Friday the St. John's Metro region has received over 135mm of rain. While it wasn't a deluge of rain, it was consistent and persistent every day for five straight days. Combined with winter snowmelt it should make for an interesting ATV ride! The trails are mostly free of ice so I decided to save wear on my studded tires and swapped back to the newer (2019) ITP Mud Lite XTR radials and ITP delta steel wheels on Project Foreman.

For those new to the site, Project Foreman is my 1998 Honda Foreman 450s which I've owned since new and built over the years to become the baddest Foreman on the trails today. It features a long list of modifications including custom front & rear bumpers, front disc brake conversion, full floor board conversion, Warn 2wd to 4wd shifter, front differential spool locker, heated grips, snorkel, Perfex lift kit, 27" tires, a custom black camo wrap and more.

I was not wrong in my prediction of crazy trails as most ATV paths were flooded, many had sketchy unknown water depth. More sections of trail are super soft and muddy partly due to recent snow melt as well as the high water table. This causes a tire to drop into 'quicksand' on what appeared to be a solid gravel trail.

There are still some lingering remnants of winter, especially in thicker woods where snow is shaded from the sun and sheltered from warm spring wind. Trail conditions are still one heck of a lot better than this same time last year. Take a look back at the pics from my April 2020 ATV Ride for a comparison of Spring riding conditions after our snowmageddon winter!

Some trails which usually have a trickle of water running through them were a full-on brook today.

Trying to avoid a solo run through a severely flooded trail-wide puddle which would have required my tall snorkel, I turned around in what ended up being another spring sinkhole! Not able to carry momentum due to turning around, I had to break out the WARN ProVantage 2500 for a quick easy self extraction using the airport fence pole as an anchor!

Today a mere bike length separated perfectly solid ground from an ATV trail turned river on one end and sinkhole on the other!

The most snow I found today was on the path skirting the fields on Indian Meal Line where winter winds drifted snow extremely high all winter long.

So many trails are now brooks!

When I got to Forest Landing I was really surprised to see the monster bog hole drained!

Someone went in with a piece of heavy equipment and drained the monster waterhole which now makes the area easily traversable straight down the middle of the trail.

It's still boggy but it's only a couple feet deep with a solid rocky bottom.

All in all it was a great and very entertaining five hour run. I managed to hit just about every trail I usually frequent when leaving the house and was happy to not get tangled up off camber in very deep spring snow like I did this time last year!

Cheers, MIKE

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