Horseshoe Lake

Man I love it up here!

There’s three ways into Horseshoe Lake but I can only recommend one of them in good conscience. Riding the railroad tracks is no fun. Not unless they’re groomed. The first few miles from Conifer to Horseshoe were groomed and beautiful. 55mph was nothing. Then the groomer turned around and holy cow, forget it! We toughed it out but I almost wished we’d turned around right there. Washboard the whole way.

If you want to go to Horseshoe I recommend taking 7A right to the front door.

On our way back up 7A (the way we should have come in) we met Wes and Donald. Kinda funny meeting someone you know miles and miles in the middle of nowhere.  We stopped and said hello for a few minutes and then went our separate ways.  Back to Diamond by way of

Not sure what I think about possibly taking the railroad to Tupper Lake to get us to Lake Placid for that trip… we’ll see. might have to wait for a day with some fresh snow and hope for a groomer.

A good day of riding, around 100 miles. Horseshoe is a pretty little lake, but I’d stay off the railroads to get there if I were you.

Miles on the sled this season: 198

Snowmobile Tickets and Skylines

White Face MountainToday was bright and sunny too. They sky was so clear we had to go up Littl Blue Mountain(edit: the previous link was wrong and linked to little blue not littl blue) again. We did and there were actually other people at the top! Some guys were fiddling with a broken down 2007 Yamaha and I had to snicker. Give me a Polaris any day. Mine is a 2006 but my parents have a 1979, 1995 and 1997 which are all still running solid and they’ve never had to do much to any of them.

From the top of Littl Blue we could see White Face Mountain crystal clear almost 70 miles away. The picture doesn’t come close to doing it justice but it’s the best I could do. Just the shear vastness of the space you can see up in the mountains like this is always impressive. I created the panorama to demonstrate.

View From Little Blue Mountain - Panorama

We had our snacks on Littl Blue and then headed down for some scenic riding. Along one of the main trails we hit a snowmobile traffic stop. Yes, on easter sunday the cops have nothing better to do than look for snowmobilers riding without insurance and with expired registrations. We were all valid and were just about to go when the cop noticed my insurance paper had expired a few weeks earlier. Great. I explained to him that it definately is still covered I just had forgotton to grab the new paperwork. “We have no way to tell” he said as he issued me a ticket. Awesome, now I have to deal with getting that dropped when I get home. This crap irritates me for lots of reasons but I’m not going to complain about it here.

Ice Formation on North Side of the HillAfter getting delayed by the traffic cops we headed on to horseshoe lake. The trail had been cleaned up since we were there a few days ago and it was a much better ride. It’s a good thing because I was tired of bouncing up and down on moguls.

The sun was a lot warmer today. It was just warm enough to melt some of the snow on the south side of the hills. The air was still cold however; that when the water ran down and started to drip it would freeze instantly creating some very neat ice formations.

Littl Blue and Horseshoe

View From Little Blue MountainAfter the battle of the skags and a great hearty breakfast by my aunt Pauline we headed out for the day at about 11am. We got lucky lucky with fresh groomed trails and absolutely beautiful snowmobiling conditions. First stop for the day was Littl Blue Mountain which is a short mile or so jaunt up a steep non groomed trail filled with switchbacks. The Scenery was stunningly beautiful from the top. It was such a clear day we could see all the way to White Face Mountain and Big Tupper’s Ski trails.

Horseshoe LakeFor our next stop we headed on to the most southern point in the St Lawrence County Snowmobile trail system, Horseshoe Lake. The last 5-10 miles of the trail to Horseshoe is on state land and the 4 big storms from this year have put their toll on the trail. Unfortunately because it’s on the ‘forever wild’ state land the trees criss crossing the trail can’t be cut until approval is given from the state. This made for a rough few miles getting to Horseshoe but the view is always worth it. The Lake is still frozen and a few people have ventured out on it. We were not among them. We had a quick snack in the blistering cold wind and then headed for home.

Overall we had a great ride today. We covered approximately 100 miles and met about 15 sleds. That’s what its always like up here. Beautiful and practically void of people.