February 6, 2021

As I've mentioned numerous times this season, Winter 2021 has been off to a terribly slow, torturous start. Especially brutal for those of us who really enjoy outdoor winter activities such as snowmobiling and ice fishing. In true Newfoundland fashion our luck would soon turn. Our spell of warm temperatures (which hit double digits last week) and lack of snow would quickly change.

Our first storm of the week began early Monday morning initially forecasted to drop 5-10cm before turning to rain. It ended up gracing us with over 15cm before the changeover, then turned back to snow Monday night leaving us with 27cm of snow measured at YYT on Tuesday!

Once again my trusty Honda 9/28 Snowblower had no trouble even with this wet heavy snow and got the driveway cleaned up with ease.

With the driveway cleared and rain falling I jumped in Project 6x6, shut all the doors and headed out in heated, dry comfort for an exploratory rip around the airport fence.

With our recent mild spurt I didn't have high hopes for good trail conditions expectedly wet in places, but the trails were actually more frozen than I expected. In any case the conditions were no sweat for my tracked Argo, but wouldn't good for a snowmobile run.

All last year, my winter Argo runs were in cold, dry conditions. Today was my first run in the rain and I discovered a leak in the convertible top. It was a simple leak across one of the sewing stitch lines at the rear of the roof. When I got home I made a quick repair with canvas tent seam sealer after everything thoroughly dried out in my heated shop.

Area51 is heated to about 12-15ºC, this season I also brought out my dehumidifier to help dry the Argo quickly after each ride as the snow and ice begins to melt.

Wednesday I had to take a highway trip to Port Blandford for work, on the way home I decided to check conditions on the new Hydro Access Road near the Sooley Family Cabin near Whitbourne.

The road was easily passable in my truck which is equipped with snow tires, the deepest snow I encountered was drifted about foot deep. I was very surprised to find the majority of the pond at Sooley's cabin was still wide open!

This is normally the time the crew would hold our Annual Winter Cabin Trip, such a trip would have been a lot less adventures if there was one this year. That combined with the fact that I just drove a 7000lb 2500HD pickup into the heart of our traditional snowmobile country in the middle of winter! In summary, conditions are less than ideal.

I continued further in the Hydro Access Road checking out some ice fishing hot spots before heading back to the highway. Next I drove in Ocean Pond Road and hit the next section of Hydro Access Road which lead to Highwaters. Some sections of ponds were ice covered but most were partially or fully open water.

These photos will provide a good reference for me if we happen to venture out this way later this month or next month ice fishing. Even if it gets cold areas noted today as open water will have significantly less ice and can be absolutely avoided when exploring in the future.

Our next storm system arrived on Thursday and once again it wasn't initially forecast to be very bad. Businesses which closed Monday chose to stay open today despite the fact conditions worsened throughout the day to Blizzard like whiteouts with high winds. I ran out mid morning running errands and had to turn around in 100% impenetrable whiteout conditions at the top of Hebron Way near the airport tarmac! I chose another route and completed the trip in worsening conditions.

By 4pm we had quite a lot of snow down which was compounded by high winds and heavy driving. Sandra would be getting off work soon so I opened up the driveway for her vehicle.

Snow persisted throughout the evening not letting up until early Friday morning, by the time it was over we had another 20cm on the ground at YYT.

Drifting was the story of the day so my trusty Honda Snowblower got another workout clearing the driveway and helping some neighbours with theirs as well.

With my work complete I gassed up Project 6x6 and headed back out on the trails to play in the freshly drifted powder.

Argos may be slow, but it's a whole lot of fun driving basically a tank through the woods!

The combination of Argo and Skidoo tracks does a great job packing down 5.5' wide trails!

Things got interesting all along the fields on Indian Meal Line as the fresh snow was drifted quite deep. Skid steering isn't easy in soft deep snow but if you take your time working forward/reverse in a small area you'll quickly tramp down an area to manoeuvre with ease and not get stuck.

Tracked Argo's don't often get stuck with a good operator, but you can definitely spin out the tracks and leave the machine high centred. Momentum will let the smooth underside glide along snow with ease, but you loose momentum turning or trying to adjust direction when off camber.

Project 6x6 did great today, a few tangly areas needed multiple runs to poke through the deepest drifts, but proper operating kept the machine from spinning out and getting bogged down.

After a long drawn out mild winter our trails are finally starting to shape up, if we get some cold weather we may even be able to hit some ponds Ice Fishing soon!

Friday night our provincial government enacted severe restrictions returning the entire province to the strictest Covid Alert Level 5 due to an outbreak in metro of Covid-19. After consultation with public health we were instructed to close the St. John's Rod and Gun Club during this 2nd round of Level 5 due to the contagious nature of the strain.

This made for a long night for me working with public health, then creating; getting approval for; and enacting our Covid Alert Level 5 plan for the club. I posted notice online late Friday night then headed out to the club early Saturday morning to post notices at the gate and inspect our club property.

Our road had been plowed but heavy drifting filled in the road near the trap field, a lot deeper than it appeared! Thankfully I halted forward progress before the truck spun out, I was able to reverse out with ease!

By the time I got back to town Saturday lunchtime I had to clean up the driveway once more!

Meanwhile on Saturday Bill and A.J. took advantage of great trail conditions and beauty weather to head out to the Goulds for their first snowmobile ride together of 2021. This was Bill's first run after completing some maintenance repairs and upgrades to his 2010 Yamaha Nytro XTX, and A.J. was rocking his 2009 Skidoo TNT 500ss purchased earlier this year.

The boys left the Goulds and made it to Witless Bay line pretty uneventful with the minor exception of Bill's machine developing a minor fuel leak in the lines for his Tour Buddy auxiliary fuel tank.

This is the exact spot where I experienced the craziest impenetrable white out conditions to date on Thursday morning. This is at the top of Hebron Way near the roundabout which is located right at the end of the tarmac for YYT.

On Sunday I took advantage of sunny skies and cold dry weather to pick up Project Powertek REV from its 20 month hiatus in storage.

I have a couple minor repairs to make and the beast will be ready to hit the snow.

Meanwhile French took his girls ice fishing on Moriarty's Pond near their home in St. Phillip's. This was his first test of the new Automatic Hook Setting ice fishing rigs we recently built. They worked very well,  I can't wait to try out mine soon!

On Monday level 5 Covid restrictions were still in full force with many people working from home once again. For many including Bassan, this is not a bad thing at all as good help is hard to find!

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2025 Michael Smith