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Published: February 27th 2011
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It barely got down to 32 overnight, but everything was a bit crispy. After such a warm day before, we knew we couldn't go too far south, so we decided to point the sleds north and squeezed the throttles. We headed up Trial 3, the Bill Nichols Trail, the super slab of snowmobile trails. 60 mph sustained speeds are easy to do on this great trail. Once again, the trail was groomed overnight and was very smooth. We rode up to Houghton about 25 miles north of Twin Lakes and crossed the bridge across the Portage Channel into Hancock. Once again, the temperature climbed into the 40's and it was a bright, sunny day.
We chose to continue north on Trail 3 through Lake Linden and then toward the city of Calumet, where we gassed up the sleds. We continued on to Phoenix, where we took a pit stop at the Cliffview Bar and had a chat with Holly, the owner. Since it was Ed's first snowmobile trip here, we decided that he had to go to the Gay Bar, about 25 miles to the east on the shore of Lake Superior. We took trail 124 to the east and
Keweenaw Snow Meter
Near Phoenix-Record-390", Average-240" stopped on US 41 at the Keweenaw Snow Meter. The reason we're riding after 3 warm days is all the snow this area gets. Lake effect snow accounts for most of it, averaging 240" of snowfall per year. The trail is spectacular. Soft and wet, but smooth and lots of snow.
When you ride the trail into Gay, MI, you ride right along Lake Superior. There you find about a mile or more of black sand dunes. This is sand dumped after ore is taken from the copper mines dotting the peninsula. There is an old stamping plant in Gay where they stamped or pounded the copper out of the ore leaving this black sand, which thay dumped right along the shore. It has created a kind of snowmobile and atv playground. Riding the hills is a lot of fun.
We stopped for a meal at the Gay Bar and were somewhat surprised to see how many snowmachines were there. I really would have thought that more people would cancel their trip with the big thaw that was happening.
After leaving the Gay Bar, we took the Gay-Lake Linden Trail to Lake Linden. This was the first
On The Gay Sands
Lake Superior Shore. Black sand is leftover from stamping copper out of the sand. trail that was kind of poor. A lot of the trail is out in the open and exposed to the sun, so there was quite a bit of dirt spots in the trail. The other reason is that the eastern side of the Keweenaw gets a bit less snow than the western side.
Wee continued south to arrive back at the cabin in Twin Lakes. We rode 132 miles today and easily over 100 was very good conditions. I'm glad we made the trip. Ed's become pretty experienced now with over 200 miles under his belt. He's riding a bit faster all the time and having a great time of it.
We caught a ride up to Hancock and picked up the Suburban at Jerry's Transmissions, since they finished working on it this afternoon. We both thought it might be nice to get a break from bar food and drove down to the Pilgrim River Steakhouse in Houghton, near Michigan Tech University. They have some of the best steaks around these parts and we enjoyed a well deserved good meal there before driving back to Twin Lakes for the night. We stopped at The Parkview for a nightcap
and Shelie was tending bar. She told us she was off the next 3 days and was bringing her son to go swimming at the Parkview the next morning. Tomorrow morning we need to pack up and move over to Krupp's.
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HeatherLauren
Heather Lauren
Sweet Weather!
Man - in the 40's and snowmobiling!! Sounds amazing! I was excited when we were on the I&M Canal and it was 32 degrees! I'm glad Ed had some awesome weather for his first time snowmobiling!