Some of you are lucky enough to be riding and great for you guys.

Going Nth to take care of somethings at the cabin Thursday and trailer up to Mass City Mi Friday for some breakin miles.  Then home Saturday morning for our club Christmas party Saturday night.

Got a text from a guy that dropped in Sidnaw Michigan trails were light on snow.  Started going toward Michigamme but turned around because of lighter snow.  When to Baraga snow improved and riding for the most part was OK.  Heading over to Mass city now where he heard trails were decent.  Also said lots of sleds so trails are really getting hit hard.

Rode one of the 19's into town to put gas on it.  Fully rebuilt clutch didn't explode, so I got that going for me.

Rode the 22 around the lake a bunch.  Finally out of break-in mode.  Now we don't have any snow on the lake, so no more lake running for me.

Trails out of Mass City had decent snow could use some grooming after the busy week but still decent riding.  Trails most of the way to Houghton were real good until just Sth of town where snow was getting thin.  Started good to Copper Harbor with good snow but snow started getting thin with gravel  coming through.  Turned around about by Egg Harbor.

I ran out of Melstrand and Seney the three weekends before the holidays. Snow was very good. Rained the first weekend I was up there. Had a 1/2 of ice on me when I got back to the truck. I was going to leave out of Bruce crossing Saturday and make the Copper Harbor loop, but after reading your report I think I’ll head east again. 

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1 minute ago, BillyL❤️Ve said:

I ran out of Melstrand and Seney the three weekends before the holidays. Snow was very good. Rained the first weekend I was up there. Had a 1/2 of ice on me when I got back to the truck. I was going to leave out of Bruce crossing Saturday and make the Copper Harbor loop, but after reading your report I think I’ll head east again. 

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2 guys in our group rode Munising Sunday and said it was better trails.  I'm going there Thursday with my wife.  

We're going to leave out of Mass tomorrow and go toward Greenland and Rockland direction tomorrow.  When we got back to Mass City that direction was groomed recently.

When we were getting up towards Copper Harbor which was our destination there was a lot more gravel mixed in the snow.  We turned around by the trail cutting off towards Egg Harbor.  Should have turned around before then.

Trails were groomed out of Mass started toward Bergland and they were not groomed yet from the weekend.  Turned around and trails were all groomed up to Houghton and froze down nice and flat.  Still lighter snow in Houghton going to turn around and head back towards Mass City possible heat toward Bruce Crossing.  Grade looked very thin in Bruce Crossing.  Could drop there and head Nth.  Better choice would be drive 15-20 minutes and drop in Mass City

23 hours ago, Doug said:

Trails out of Mass City had decent snow could use some grooming after the busy week but still decent riding.  Trails most of the way to Houghton were real good until just Sth of town where snow was getting thin.  Started good to Copper Harbor with good snow but snow started getting thin with gravel  coming through.  Turned around about by Egg Harbor.

I think we crossed paths Doug. My buddy was on a 9R XCR just like yours, and then I was on my ‘23 VR1 like you had … along with a 650 Dynamix, Assault Boost and two Catalyst.  

6 hours ago, Bontz said:

I think we crossed paths Doug. My buddy was on a 9R XCR just like yours, and then I was on my ‘23 VR1 like you had … along with a 650 Dynamix, Assault Boost and two Catalyst.  

I think we did 

Heading home 388 miles for a 2 day ride.  Heading to Munising with the wife Thursday.

 

15 hours ago, Bontz said:

I think we crossed paths Doug. My buddy was on a 9R XCR just like yours, and then I was on my ‘23 VR1 like you had … along with a 650 Dynamix, Assault Boost and two Catalyst.  

Was that you in Houghton across from the gas station?

13 hours ago, Doug said:

Was that you in Houghton across from the gas station?

On Monday?  Yes.

We rode south on Sunday and north on Monday.  Got as far as Mohawk, and decided we better loop back so we stopped in Calumet, Lake Linden and South Range before getting back to Krupp's.  It was nice to scratch the itch and get some miles on!  Have a good trip tomorrow and through the weekend   

Edited January 8Jan 8 by Bontz

Our crew (4 of us who traveled together) stayed with an overall group of 29.  It might be the largest group of Cats I'll ever see .. mostly because the owner of MotoProz was part of this trip & all the Cats were sold by him.  Anyway, we rode with two other guys from home - both of which were on Catalyst sleds.  The one guy was on a RXC 858, and the other on last year's 600.  The 858 owner and I swapped for a bit and other than the vibration you feel from your feet all the way up to the handlebars, the sled itself rode nice ... good front end.  It wasn't broken in yet so I didn't want to be the guy beating on it, but the little bit that I did squeeze the throttle it was what I expected.  The G8 looks pretty cool, too.  Not enough seat time to really see what it would be like in different conditions since we were mostly on flat/smooth stuff.  He did have the exhaust value issue pop up where he had to bend the bracket to get it lined up correctly to stop from popping the APV code.  Hoping to get another chance to swap sleds in a couple weeks.

Eastern up above m28 is good. You can get to paradise if you take the road up. I am at about 1100-1200 miles for the season so far 

On 1/8/2025 at 11:44 AM, Not greg b said:

Eastern up above m28 is good. You can get to paradise if you take the road up. I am at about 1100-1200 miles for the season so far 

Agree stay Nth of M28.  Avoid trail 413 more gravel than snow.

Left Wetmore this morning trails were decent with some being groomed last night others being groomed this morning.  Went to Grand Marais with more snow and good trails other than in town.  Looped our way back on trai 443, 88 and 8.  Trails that were good in the morning were beat to death by time we got closer to Wetmore with all the traffic.  Many larger groups.

Sad reality with minimal areas having snow.

1 hour ago, Doug said:

Left Wetmore this morning trails were decent with some being groomed last night others being groomed this morning.  Went to Grand Marais with more snow and good trails other than in town.  Looped our way back on trai 443, 88 and 8.  Trails that were good in the morning were beat to death by time we got closer to Wetmore with all the traffic.  Many larger groups.

Sad reality with minimal areas having snow.

You at least had some decent riding, so that's good.  I've had a bunch of people from town asking me how our trip was earlier this week, and wanting to head up there now too.  I have been telling them it's going to be chaos if they go up this weekend .... you've confirmed that.  I think we're heading to the cabin next weekend and going to spend a day on the Flowage if they get this snow that's in the forecast the next few days.

35 minutes ago, Bontz said:

You at least had some decent riding, so that's good.  I've had a bunch of people from town asking me how our trip was earlier this week, and wanting to head up there now too.  I have been telling them it's going to be chaos if they go up this weekend .... you've confirmed that.  I think we're heading to the cabin next weekend and going to spend a day on the Flowage if they get this snow that's in the forecast the next few days.

Heading back up Monday to Wetmore with some guys and heading home Wednesday.  Not ideal but what to you do.  At least I broke last years millage of 812 miles with this trip.

Eup was busy. Most traffic I have seen all season. It’s been pretty quiet until yesterday. Trails were beat by this afternoon. I road just over 100 yesterday day and about a 160 today. 

The Seney and Pine stump areas had the best trails. Wetmore to Grand Marais areas if you hit them early were good but still had high traffic and gets beat up by the afternoon.

No knock on the clubs seen them out grooming or they had the trail groomed the night before just so much traffic the trails never had a chance to setup.

Stay away from Curtis gets very thin and trails were not groomed.

Seney to Grand Marais Wednesday and Seney to Pine Stump Thursday trails were great and seen multiple groomers out.  Wednesday night got any where from 4" to 10" closer you got to the lake. Traffic was not bad and not to bad of a line for gas in Grand Marais.  Little over 1800 miles for the year that 1000 more than I had total last year.

What's with the idiots parking side by side on the trail or at intersections.  Dumb................

Road again yesterday. Busy again but the trails were much better than last weekend. 

Moosehead area 1/25

get some Maine reports going in here 

Rockwood convenience gas to little north of birches was passable but rough. Once past there up to Pittston farms was pretty good some ski clicking but flat and fast. Pittston farm to northeast carry was flat and fast one of the better sections right now. Northeast carry to kokadjo was good few ski click nothing horrible. After kokadjo down to around the b52 crash site was definitely the worst of it not groomed, big rocks in trail, lots of ski clicks and snirt, passable but was mostly slow going. Kelly landing back to rockwood convenience was pretty good some was not groomed but was good riding with few rocks here and there but it was groomed closer to rockwood and that was one of the better sections of the day. Considering there is basically 1-1.5ft of snow it was as good as it could be clubs are doing the best they can with what they got to work with. We need more snow 🤞 

ny state is in stellar condition. cold, deep , snow, and it's awesome. tug hill was crazy good yesterday. took the fields to copenhagen, we came in to the bar parking lot and i couldn't believe we got across that fast. conditions and sunshine helped. cloudy gray and bumpy coming back but still amazing

 

We did our annual backpack trip this week, and had an awesome time.  Although we couldn't begin from Lake Namakagon, like we've done before, we still had a great "tour" going from Watersmeet up to Copper Harbor, over to White Pine, and back to Watersmeet.  A little over 550 miles, with probably 80% of it being very good (the 20% that wasn't good was more about the traffic and trail conditions than snow ... plenty of snow there!).  I would highly recommend doing what we did, with the bulk of riding being done Sunday-Wednesday because the weekend traffic would be crazy!  Here's a few pics ....

 

1 hour ago, Bontz said:

We did our annual backpack trip this week, and had an awesome time.  Although we couldn't begin from Lake Namakagon, like we've done before, we still had a great "tour" going from Watersmeet up to Copper Harbor, over to White Pine, and back to Watersmeet.  A little over 550 miles, with probably 80% of it being very good (the 20% that wasn't good was more about the traffic and trail conditions than snow ... plenty of snow there!).  I would highly recommend doing what we did, with the bulk of riding being done Sunday-Wednesday because the weekend traffic would be crazy!  Here's a few pics ....

 

Sounds like a great time.  We're on the no weekend riding schedule.  Heading but up Sunday afternoon until Wednesday morning.

Up in northern MN this weekend…