First Snowmobile Ride of the Year

The first Ride of the year!

My friend, Jon, and I decided to get out on the trails for some pre-Christmas snowmobile riding. Riding before Christmas in the Peterborough area never happens due to the lack of snow, so we needed to drive North.

A week before we decided how far we had to go, I started researching and studying where we should go. Cochrane, we knew were getting trails opened with a ton of work from their volunteers. Cochrane Snowmobile Clubs Facebook page was updated with activities and actions. That was awesome. Information is good. Problem being we only had 3 days for our trip and using 2 of the days driving was not optimal.

Everyday I keep looking and looking for information on riding up north. Then I found the Tri-Town Sno Travelers and Club Echo page on Facebook. I seen this post:

Boom! New Liskeard it was! Based on just a little information was enough for us to head that way. You know just because of that one simple post Jon and I left over $600 in the New Liskeard economy between accommodations, fuel and food.

We left Tuesday morning at 7:00am. We arrived in New Liskeard at 12:30PM. We had lunch then checked into the Holiday Inn. $160 per night. Once organized we unloaded the sleds for a quick ride.

We drove to Earlton which was around 25 miles/40 KM for my very first ride on my new snowmobile. It was fantastic. That said the temperature was dropping really fast as the day went on. When we arrived in Earlton the sun was setting and it was -28 Celsius. We decided to head back to the hotel as we planned for a full day riding the next day and 50 miles was enough to scratch the itch to get out.

For dinner that night, we went across the road from our hotel to Ali’s Grill and Bar. The place was packed. That was a good sign for sure. We had a wonderful dinner and a few drinks. I highly recommend Ali’s.

The next day we followed the A trail to Elk Lake. It was about 60 miles/96 KM. Looking for somewhere to eat we found Elk Lake Eco Resource Centre. This resort had an amazing common area and restaurant. They also had cottages to rent. It was so nice. The property was on the Montreal River.

The trails were in great shape for how early the season is. There was only a few bad areas which due to snowdrifts or brush growing up through the trails. Things you can live with.

I am hopeful the trails in our area will start to open up in the new year. With plus 7 forecasted for Monday December 23 I am not holding my breath.

One thing that I want to point out to the towns in the North that are looking to attract snowmobilers from the South. Give us information about snow and trail conditions. The trust in the OFSC mapping is minimal. We are looking for trustworthy updates. If you can do that you will have riders like us driving up to visit you!