March 12, 2005 Paradise to Witless Bay: (18 Photos)

 

18.   On this beautiful Saturday morning in mid March we were greeted with sunny skies and optimum riding conditions for an extended snowmobile run. Sooley, Bill and I left Lanark Drive near Adam's Pond in Paradise with a travel plan destination to Crane's Gas Bar in Witless Bay.

 

 

17.   I was riding my '97 Grand Touring 500, Sooley his Mach 1-700 and Bill his new Yamaha RX1.

 

 

16.   We crossed Adams Pond, then Octagon Pond and eventually hit the pole line where we had to skip across the river and then continue on towards the Trans Canada Highway. Crossing the highway we stopped at the Irving Station by the clover leaf where we all topped up our gas tanks. Leaving there we followed the highway to Northern Pond Road, then rode in that road about half a kilometre, taking a right hand side trail west towards the Foxtrap Pasturelands.

 

 

15.   Riding out that road we eventually met up with the main transmission line where we headed west and followed the transmission line across the beautiful granite slopes of the Dog Hills.

 

 

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10.   This is a nice run as there are lots of hills and bowls to climb along the way. We stopped many times to take a climb or five, and to jump many nice natural drifts, I even managed to roll my sled, luckily just unbuttoning the windshield.

 

 

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8.   Reaching the Witless Bay line, we crossed the road then headed South across the open country keeping the road in sight so that we didn't go astray.

 

 

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5.   As we got closer to the tree line we started meeting other snowmobile tracks which led us to the trail which met up with the Old Witless Bay Line. The old road is now a cabin development road and fortunately unplowed this winter. We followed the road all the way to Crane's Gas Bar where we gassed up and stopped in for a plate of their awesome fries.

 

 

4.   Leaving Witless Bay, we headed east this time taking the old southern shore power line path which led back to the Goulds. This trail was well used and we often had to take detours around impassable water wash outs.

 

 

3.   We stopped in Bay Bulls for a picture overlooking the community before continuing on to the Goulds.

 

 

2.   One of the last water obstacles was just barely passable by a sketchy ice bridge. Barely wide enough for the track you had to gas the sled to lift the skies and hope they didn't hook the opposite bank! Sooley was the last to cross and the ice bridge collapsed just as he went over. Luckily he had no trouble but the next one through will have to make a bypass trail!

 

 

1.   Once we got to the Goulds we took Chicken Farm Road back to Northern Pond Road then retraced our route back to Paradise. This ride was a great loop and an easy way to spend the day riding close to home. There are countless ways to get to this destination including crossing 1000 acre marsh, but our route was beautiful and really filled out the whole day.

Cheers, MIKE

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