Blogs from UP, Michigan, United States, North America

The next morning was Saturday morning. Originally, had we been able to go to Land O' Lakes, WI, we were planning to attend the Frosty Snowmobile Club's Radar runs at Bent's Camp Resort on Mamie Lake west of LandO. One of the highlights of this event is the bikini run with girls wearing bikinis riding the high speed 1000' run on snowmobiles. They do it to raise money for breast cancer. We considered driving the 65 miles down there to see it, but since the trails there were now dirt and the trails up here are fantastic, we chose to stay up here and ride. We only received about 2-3 inches of snow, but the groomers were doing a heck of a job of churning up the snow and flattening out the trails, resulting in great ... read more

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 ... read more

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 ... read more

When I decided to make this trip, I really wasn't sure how long I would stay. I thought maybe I'd leave Thursday. That would have given me 3 days of riding. Then as the snow began piling up, I told Sandy Krupp that I would leave Friday. On Thursday, with snow wrecking driving conditions and the forecast for it to continue to snow until Saturday morning, I asked Sandy Krupp if I could stay until Saturday morning. Too late; they were filled up for the weekend. The other places to stay in Twin Lakes were also booked. I guess that everyone in the Midwest saw the weather reports. So I asked Sandy to let me know if there were any cancellations and she called that afternoon to say that the Wyandotte Cabins had a cabin open ... read more

Since the snow is thinner to the south, I decided to ride north Tuesday. I rode 28 miles up to Houghton to visit the guys at Keweenaw Motorsports and get a cup of coffee. They are a Skidoo dealer and really good guys. Dan, the service manager, has helped me several times when I had something wrong with one of the machines and got me back on the trails. Marty is the owner and I talked with him about news on the new machines. He told me that Skidoo is going to put their very advanced fuel injection system called Etec in the 800cc engine next year. They only have it available in the 600cc engines now. It is a real leap forward in 2 stroke engine technology. It produces a cleaner exhaust than 4 stroke ... read more