Chasing The Last(?) Snowstorm


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March 28th 2011
Published: March 30th 2011
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My Two Riding Areas


Leota MotelLeota MotelLeota Motel

It ain't fancy, but it will do.
Last week a fairly big snow storm was in the forecast for the upper Midwest. I was watching all the different weather websites to track where and how much snow was going to fall, particularly John Dee, , the snowmobilers' snow guru of this part of the world. All the forecasts I could find were calling for 12-16" over Tuesday and Wednesday in northern Wisconsin and the southern part of the western UP, right where I wanted to go to finish the snowmobile season, Land O' Lakes, WI, right on the border of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Michigan trails are officially open from 12/1-3/31 so If they got the snow, I would probably be riding in the UP. I couldn't head north until Saturday, since Jan, Heather and I had plans for Friday night. (See, I don't always go whenever I feel like it. But as all of my friends know, Jan is a saint for letting me go almost whenever I want to.) I booked a room at the historic Gateway Lodge, , for Saturday through Wednesday. When I booked with Sandy, she confirmed that they were expecting a big snow storm.

The storm turned out to
Leota Mini MartLeota Mini MartLeota Mini Mart

Gary, the owner is an active club leader and groomer, besides being a helpful guy.
be a pretty big one, but, as with most of the storms this year, it went about 30 miles south of Land O' Lakes and the UP. So I started checking on the John Dee forum to see about somewhere else to get that last ride in. It turned out that Vilas County and most of the other Wisconsin counties had officially closed the trails for the season around March 17th. Bummer! I know they lost the snow to an early March thaw, but everyone knows that the snow belt gets many a big snow in March. So, I started at looking at northern Michigan, the lower part of the state. Thanks to many responses to my inquiries on John Dee's forums I started narrowing my search between Grayling to the north and Baldwin to the south.

A guy on the forum with the moniker Snow Monkey contacted me and convinced me to meet and ride with him in a tiny town called Leota, just south of Houghton Lake. He even had a motel suggestion for me, the Leota Motel, the only lodging anywhere around there. I booked a room there and headed up Saturday. We planned to meet Saturday evening after he came up from his home downstate. There was a gas station, the Leota Mini Mart, right across the road from the motel, so I gassed up the sled, bought a trail map and headed out for a ride. The area had received about a foot of snow from the recent storm and the trails were in very good shape. The weather was spectacular, sunny, clear and about 30 degrees. The sun melted some of the snow in open areas even though the temperature was below freezing, but those areas were not too big. I would consider the riding fair to good and there were quite a few others out riding the trails. I rode up near Lake Houghton and put in about 50 miles before heading back to Leota. I stopped in at the Riverside Bar for a bowl of soup before riding to meet Snow Monkey. His name is Mark and his wife, Lori came up with him. They have a nice place nearby and Mark loves to ride.

He took me out that night for a ride through some of his home area. We never rode a designated snowmobile trail. It was all fire roads and two track trails. Many of them were unbroken and we had a great ride through a foot or more of new snow. The next morning Mark, Lori and I went for another 50 mile ride in his area, riding two tracks and natural gas pipelines. It was even more fun in the daylight on another beautiful day. The nights sure got cold here. The owner of the Riverside Bar said it was -11 Saturday morning and it was -8 Sunday morning. Thanks so much to Mark for bringing me here and showing me his favorite riding spots. They headed home Sunday evening and I had a tough choice for Monday; continue to ride this area or check out another of the areas recommended in the discussion forums.

I decided to try Baldwin. For one reason, it had a lot of trails in the Huron-Manistee National Forest and it was almost an hour closer to home. I drove down to Baldwin the next morning and drove all over the area checking out the snow and possible places to stay. I ended up getting a room at the Pere Marquette River Lodge, a mainly fishing lodge. I guess
Not AloneNot AloneNot Alone

Quite a few diehards on the trails
there's a lot of great fly fishing around here. In my earlier truck travels, I found the local club groomer barn right on the main trail and I decided to trailer there to unload the sled for my ride.

By now it was around 1:30 on another lovely late winter day. I love March riding. The weather's mild and the days are long. The sun wasn't setting here till almost 8:00! I rode up to the town of Irons to the north. The trails were again very good, even better than around Houghton Lake. The only places that weren't good were where the trail went along a plowed road. Even then there was enough snow to ride the ditches. I took a couple loop trails on my way to Irons.

On my drive in to Baldwin, I noticed a railroad grade trail that ran for 17 miles from Reed City to Baldwin. When I got back to Baldwin, I decided to ride that over to Reed City. Even though this trail was out in the direct sunlight, it was EXCELLENT; plenty of snow and super smooth! There were a couple of very large ditches alongside the trail and I took advantage of riding up and down the high sides of the ditches. Then, just as I was finishing a ditch ride and getting back on the trail, my drive belt blew up. I was just telling Mark yesterday that I would put a new belt on after this last ride, since it was the original with about 3,200 miles on it. Well, I got to make that belt change on the trail rather than back home. It was getting to be "deer time," dusk, and sure enough a couple miles down the trail the deer were coming out in bunches.

A few miles before reaching Reed City I noticed an interesting looking restaurant, the Chase Creek Smokehouse right along the trail and decided that I would stop there for supper on my way back to Baldwin. I rode in to Reed City and noticed the old Osceola Hotel downtown and right next to the trail. My one time, but no longer, trail companero, Bryan and I stayed there one very cold sled trip a few years back, riding from there to the Cadillac area. He was a good riding partner for many years, loved to ride and open for anything. Too bad he doesn't ride anymore. I guess he's got other priorities these days. Anyway, I rode back to the Chase Creek Smokehouse and had the best pulled pork sandwich I've ever had. After finishing the meal, I saddled up and rode the 15 or so miles back to the groomer barn and loaded up the sled.

It turned out to be an excellent finish to a very good snowmobile season. I can testify that if you're persistent you can ride in the upper Midwest from December 1 through the end of March, making it a full 4 month season. By the way, if anyone thinks the snow wasn't as good as I've said, I rode 250 miles in basically 2 days of riding. Not too bad.

Time to get the bike and the golf clubs out!


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The Oak Grove Inn, IronsThe Oak Grove Inn, Irons
The Oak Grove Inn, Irons

The owner, Wayne is an avid snowmobiler
Osceola HotelOsceola Hotel
Osceola Hotel

Bryan and I stayed there a few years ago.
Chase Creek SmokehouseChase Creek Smokehouse
Chase Creek Smokehouse

Welcome Snowmobilers! Most other places had replaced them with Welcome Fishermen signs.


30th March 2011

looks like fun
Some guys have all the fun. And while you were having fun, I was in 80 degrees, Sarasota, FL. But I only got to do 30 miles on a jet ski.
30th March 2011

looks like fun
Boy, Michael, that was tough duty you had down there, too!

Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 14; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb