Northern Wisconsin update 12/12

[bryan t]

No pics this time (sorry cam was in other vehicle)...but I saw some beautiful trails, as I traveled on my sales route through taylor, price, oneida and lincoln counties on friday.

In fact both medford and minocqua had been out panning their trails...they looked awesome!!! flat as a board..plenty of snow on them...it was driving nuts just thinking about riding on them lol...Unfortunately..here in Tomahawk (knight owls, Northwoods passage), and over in Price county....nothing...no panning....no packing..nothing.

Don't know why...maybe they are not inspected yet. The trails that were panned looked awesome (medford-taylor county- and minocqua area)..They had set-up nice and hard, with all the cold weather and looked like flat smooth highways through the woods...I wish the area clubs here would do the same...The clubs who did pan, deserve a big thanks...as they will have a nice solid base on their trails ... As far as I know Oneida, and Vilas county will open their trails this week (dec 14th or 15th)...Tomahawk usually opens, when oneida county does...southern lincoln county (Merrill area) is not scheduled to open until december 31st (according to the merrill chamber)..I hope that is misinformation...I would really like to head south to marathon county before the new year.

A note for you...on ice conditions...with all the cold weather, the lakes are making ice..yes we did get a wet heavy snow fall this week..but it was only 6-12 inches (depending on where you live), and we have had below zero lows the past two days..so we are making ice...one report I recieved was 6 inches of ice in the bays..this was on thursday..but I don't trust ice fishermen (fishermen in general tend to exagerate when it comes to inches..lol)

AND more good news...the northwoods should see more snow monday...according to our local tv stations 3-5 inches monday...SOOOOO the trails that do open this week should be real nice...I just wouldn't trust the ice on the lakes yet...but I am a chicken shizz when it comes to winter swiming lol

[whitedust]

Bryan:Sucks looking at these trails & can't ride them. I read some opening dates in Vilas as late as Dec 16th. I'm riding from Phelps on the 15th see how far I can get before any closed gates. The lost Ma/Pa revenue & state tax ,trail permits yada yada yada this weekend can never be made up. WI needs to go back to Dec 1 opening date & stop screwing around with special deer hunts.

[09m8]

great report. yes, by far the most limiting factor for riding this week should be ice conditions...great to know there will be enough snow!!!

[srt20]

How warm is it getting up there? It is getting into the mid 30s here in SO WI. We had rain last night. Doesnt matter to me to much for down here, if both areas are open and its a weekend, I going up north.

[radsrh]

Only getting in the low 20's so the temps are no problem, I think that some of the area's are not grooming because the trails are closed. In the ER area they did go out and pan them and even though the trails are closed you can hear packs of bee's out at night.

[racerx]

Vilas County can only open officially when all the funded trails are inspected. I know for fact that the Lando trails got the unofficial OK to open the gates and let people ride as of this past Wed.. As of Friday 3 of the 11 club trails (pretty sure the number is 11) have been inspected. This past w/e we rode the Lando trails checking them out for issues and dipped down to Conover on Sat and found plenty of untracked powder, altho we did have to turn around when we found a closed gate (others were open).

NOTES ABOUT LANDO TRAILS..As of Sat they were all groomed. Would have been groomed earlier but both groomers were buried on the spur to Sunrise Lodge. BEWARE if you use the spur there is a small reroute around the hole that was left. We remarked it and packed down the reroute for future access to the groomer, so it will be ungroomed for the time being. For those familiar with the spur it is the section on the powerline and is a part that allowed for a high speed run and small jump off a rise/drop (depending which way you aregoint)

As of today coming down HWY45 we saw the Conover trails were groomed. In Eagle on HWY70 & HWY17 we could not believe we saw freshly groomed UNTRACKED trails at 3pm