29th and 30th Riding Pictures

Well, finally I am posting some more pictures. Sorry it has taken so long! I am going to start posting them as smaller pictures to preserve space on the blog...but if you want the full size pictures please let me know. I must also note while I am at it...that all pictures on this blog are copyright protected. If you want to use them please ask for permission. Most likely I will not deny you use...I just want to know where they are being used. If you are making money off of them...I will likely not be happy. That said...I may start embedding copyright information into and onto the pictures...so if anyone knows of software that can stamp batches of pictures with copyright information I am all ears!


So the picture above shows what I woke up to on the December 29th, 2007. We had received just about a foot of new snow. I had already soiled the powder by this point and did not snap a shot prior to riding through it. Doh! The picture to the right shows what we had to scrape off the sleds. That is my dad's sled...luckily they were up for the weekend and he was able to get out and about with me. There was all sorts of snow! We started around the house and wound our way to Alanson to gas up. We stopped by Spanky's (http://www.spankysparts.com/) to pick up some oil and took off toward Pellston.

When we got to Pellston we stopped next to the highway and were investigated by some of our local law officials. I know one of them...though I have never had to use that to my advantage. :P Great guys out there making sure our trails are safe and keeping the low life scum with no trail permits off the trails. The guys in this picture were a bit lucky...I think they had registration issues. So we moved on from Pellston and took the trail toward Harbor Springs. That was in beautiful shape. We stopped a couple times along the way just to take pictures. The trail was perfect and the scenery just could not be beat. We wandered our way through the trails and found some additional photo taking opportunities. They were all in GREAT shape. Hats off to the HSSC grooming team again. The ride could not have been much smoother. We found ourselves heading into downtown Harbor Springs before we turned around to back into the woods. I must admit...the "trail" that they expect you to ride to get INTO Harbor Springs is absolutely miserable. They salt and sand the road you ride along...and everyone has signs up to keep you off of their driveway. I understand they do not want to have the ruts and cleanup from sleds in their driveways...but I do not understand why there is not an alternate route yet because of this. It sure does seem like some of the side roads coming into Harbor might be a better solution? I am not 100% familiar with downtown Harbor and the surrounding roads...so I could be very wrong.

I am going to end for now so that I can have some more pictures to post in the next few days. We lost about 95% of our snow so far...with 3-5" remaining on the ground around the house. Everywhere else there is bare ground or snow/mud mix. Tonight is supposed to cool back down and bring some snows by the AM and possibly through the rest of the week. It does not look like anything too impressive yet. There are hints of a fairly sizable storm but it looks primarily to hit NW of us. We shall see!


Goodnight from Northern Michigan!


-Derek