Return to Land O' Lakes

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The video above is from the hill climb races we stopped to see. The hill is a lot steeper than the video looks. As one of the more experienced off-trail riders I know, Todd from Keweenaw Motor Sports, said; "It's pretty intimidating!"

After a good night's sleep, thanks at least in part to the massage, we walked across the street for breakfast at The Pines. It was looking to be another gorgeous day in the Northland; beaucoup sunshine and temps predicted to be in the low 30's. We saddled up and headed to Trail 3 for the ride up to the top of Brockway Mountain. We stopped a little over halfway up for the mandatory photo op overlooking Copper Harbor and Lake Fanny Hooe. At least on a beautiful, clear day like this it's mandatory. We've topped this mountain on a few sub-zero, cloudy days with the wind over 40 mph. On those days, the stops are more like a quick glance and and then squeeze the throttle.

Lake Fanny Hooe is to the right in the picture with Rich and is the site of Rich's most glorious race day in the Delaware Days Drag Races. He captured several beer can trophies that day, including numer one race team, Snowhawg Race Team. There was a lot of celebrating that night at The Mariner, with everyone rising the next day with great memories and greater hangovers.

We continued to ride until we arrived at the top of Brockway Mountain. The elevation is about 1350' and it offers a great panoramic view for 360 degrees. Lake Superior is visible in all directions. After a few more photos, we started back down the mountain to the south. Once again, we gassed up in Calumet. I sure hope they reopen Shute's Saloon there. None of my regular riding companions have seen the place and I think it's one of the more interesting places in the UP. When we arrived at the Hancock side of the canal, we decided to ride the ice across. As I said before, the ice is very safely frozen, but you always have a little apprehension about riding over water. When I first started riding, it was with the Augustine brothers, Joe, Jerry and Jim. We used to go to Minocqua, WI and Lake Minocqua, which is a very large lake. I had never ridden across lakes and was very uneasy about it until I saw 7-8 semi-trailer rigs out in the middle of the lake. They were there for races. Also, there were numerous cars and pickup trucks all over the lake. After that, I lost most of my nervousness and we had a lot of fun flying across the lakes in our 370 and 440cc sleds. Many of the trails in northern Wisconsin cross lakes and are well marked and safe. Just stay near the trail markers.

Our next stop was South Range, where they were holding Hill Climb Races. We rode right into the parking area and there was a huge crowd for the event that started at 8:30 AM and would last all day. I would estimate a couple thousand people were there. The races were fun to watch. The snow machines climbed a slalom type course with 4 turns up a very steep hill. There were all classes of racers there, with the top finishers qualifying for the Jackson Hole Hill Climb, which is the world championship of snowmobile hill climb races. Here's a site with a link to a video of the 2008 races:

The best fun for the crowd is when a sled doesn't make it to the top. There were a couple unplanned trips down the hill with riderless sleds flying down the hill. We spent about an hour watching the hill climb before riding down to Mass City to gas up. So far the trails were in good shape, but with the tremendous amount of snowmobiles on the trails today they will get bumpier later.

The next stop on the itinerary was the good ole Rousseau Bar, since Ray had not been there before. The Rousseau Bar has the ceiling filled with people's names and quotes written with marking pens. I looked up from my barstool and saw one I had never seen before: "Bad Decisions Make For Great Stories." Boy, is that ever true. Almost all of the great, funny stories we have from our many snowmobile adventures started with a bad decision or two. We relaxed there for a short time before making our way down to Kenton and Hoppy's Bar. When we arrived at Hoppy's, the outside thermometer was showing 40o. It was a day at the beach.

At Hoppy's, we ran into a group of 4 guys Rich knows from back home; Louie, Bart, Mike & Scott. They had come up north for the World Championship Snowmobile Derby Races in Eagle River and do some riding. We decided to ride back to Land O' together. The 40 mile ride back was a bit bumpy, pretty much stutter bumps most of the way. When you get as much traffic as there was on the trails this weekend, the snowmobiles will make the trails get pretty bumpy until the trail groomers can get them smoothed out again. There was an unusually high amount of sledders up here probably due to the Eagle River races and the hill climb.

Since the ride home was bumpy, I was really impressed with Ray's riding. He has only ridden sleds a few days and did a fine job of riding all weekend. Another couple hundred miles and he'll be a real Snowhawg. It was a geat weekend. We had tremendous weather and great riding on outstanding trails for most of the trip. I sure hope to ride with these guys some more this year.

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Photos

Copper Harbor
From halfway up Brockway Mountain

Always Thumbs Up
Overlooking Copper Harbor & Lake Fanny Hooe

Ray & His MXZ 600
Atop Brockway Mountain

Brockway Mountain
Overlook at the top of the mountain. It's 1350' Elevation.

Heading Down The Trail
View as you start riding down the mountain to the south.

Rich & His Mach Z
Gas Stop in Bruce Crossing, MI

Rousseau Bar
It's Never to Far to the Rousseau Bar!

Comments

[Rich]

Great Summary
Thanks for summarizing the great memories from the trip. It put a big smile on my face! Rich

[Tim Dowling]

What's with you guys.
Hey der....this looks like just another cheesy-ass excuse to live "Animal House" all over again. Where's da "masseuse" from the last blog? How do you find all of these 4-Star establishments?

[HeatherLauren]

Cool Video
You're right, it doesn't look as steep on the video... I'm sure it was much steeper in person! Did you ask if you could try it? :) Looks like a fun trip!!

[Snowhawg]

Cool Video
After rolling over my sled in Canada a few years ago 150 miles from a dealer to fix it, I'm not quite as quick to climb hills, let alone this one. I'm becoming a better spectator than participant----but---you never know!

[Snowhawg]

What's with you guys
Masseuses (is that the plural of masseuse?)are scarce in most of the places we were, particularly the Rousseau Bar in the middle of nowhere. I'm going to keep looking, though.

[kim]

The scenery is beautiful. There is always a reason why people stay in the midwest.

[Snowhawg]

Hi Kim
Yeah, there is some nice scener here in the midwest, but I think that the biggest reason that we stay here is that we love the true change of seasons that we get.

[Larissa Shalot]

This looks Huge Fun
Gosh - and all I knew was the large fresh water coastline of Michigan's Great Lakes! Yes I have enjoyed it some - the swimming , boating and real beach fun. But this is something else. Northland outdoors snowy winter scene invites you to go outside and play. Snowmobiling appears pure Michigan outdoors fun like nowhere else.

[Snowhawg]

This Looks Huge Fun
It really is. I've always believed that if you live in a snowy winter area, you ought to find something fun to do in the winter. So many people complain about winter and cabin fever. Get out and do something--snowmobiling, skiing, snowshoeing dogsledding--something.