17.   Ever since our ice fishing trip a couple weeks ago we've had a fair amount of "Poor" weather here on the east coast. Many people believe it's a great thing to have a mild winter, but for the avid snowmobiler warm weather and rain is definitely not what we desire. However, the weather gods blessed us with back to back snowstorms late last week so Friday evening Joe Hepditch & I loaded up the sleds and headed to Southern Harbor for another backcountry run. Our destination this trip would be Black River Pond and the many hills that surround it.

16.   The next morning Joe H., Young Joe, Captain H., & I  woke early to get everything ready, loaded up the sleds and hit the Trailway to Goobies where we all topped up with fuel and grabbed a coffee. Joe H was riding his 2002 RX-1, young Joe his 1996 Formula 583, Captain H his 1999 MXZ 670ho, and I of course Project Renegade.

15.   Fueled up, we headed West on the groomed trail turning South onto the well beaten path to Black River. This turn off is about 5km West of the Trail Side Motel, we followed it South-West into the backcountry. 

14.   Not familiar with the area we got off track on the way in, but thanks to my Lowrance GPS we made our own trail and found the path to our destination.

13.   Snow in the woods was excellent for riding as there was lots of it. We found lots of tall snowdrifts on the open country which created lots of places to play.

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11.   After many stops to jump the sleds and bash snow drifts (and to get Joe H. & Captain H. repeatedly unstuck! lol) we finally made it to Black River Pond around 1pm.

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8.   Unfortunately about this time, my sled started acting up as I was hearing some awful grinding noises coming from the chain case.

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5.   Never the less we found a great place to start a fire and have a cook up.  On the menu this day was a full salmon dressed in seasonings, bacon, and onion all wrapped in tin foil and placed on the hot coals.

4.  This was accompanied by a pound of bacon fried in the pan and topped with three cans of Beans, in another pan an onion was sliced, fried and topped with two containers of bottled moose. This was all served with fresh homemade bread and tea. What an awesome feast!

3.   After a delicious lunch and fine relax we decided it best to start heading out of the country since my machine was on the blink. The other sleds in the group were short track machines, so it could be a hard time getting mine towed out over some of the steep hills to the Groomed Trail if it totally failed further back in the country.

2.   At this time the weather started getting dirty, ever increasing snow squalls reduced visibility and made landmarks hard to distinguish. The trail logged by our 2 GPS's saved the day and made the trip out much easier since we could follow our track back to the Trailway. We found this especially important crossing ponds as the trail to get off the ice was hard to find in bad weather.

Keeping my speed at around 30kph made for a boring ride back out, but kept the harsh noises emanating from the chain case to a minimum. Fortunately everything held together and I managed to ride all the way to Irving in Goobies where some of the boys needed gas.

1.   Since my machine was still moveable but not reliable, I decided to wait in the Irving station and have a coffee while the crew rode on back to Southern Harbor to get my truck and trailer. I didn't want to break down in the middle of nowhere and possibly do more damage to my broken sled.

All in all it was a great trip into new (to me) terrain which presented amazing new challenges and tested our preparedness when the weather changes and machines break down.