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  • Western U.P. Trail Report - Western U.P. Bureau - 03/29
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  • Western U.P. Trail Report - Western U.P. Bureau - 03/28
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Greetings Sledders,

Lake Effect snows have been coming and going for the last couple of days and it’s difficult to say exactly how much we got and I’m comfortable with 5" on average. I took a road trip to check the crossings and everything looks good. If you do come up be aware that we are supposed to have temps flirting with the 40 degree mark starting Saturday and continuing for the foreseeable so things could be winding down.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,

Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

This will be the last report for this year provided we don’t get a huge storm before the season is officially over. Hope the report helped you in making your sledding decisions.

We have been pretty non-committal on the phone with people asking our opinion and this is by design because we just don’t know when the trails will breakdown as it is on a day to day status this weekend.

We do know that as of this morning the trails were holding their own however we currently have a cloudless sky and the direct sunshine is taking it’s toll. More of the same is on tap for tomorrow with even higher temps followed by rain Sat. night and into Sunday.

Right now I’m rating the trails as fair and that is keeping the weather in mind.

Good luck if you do come up and thanks for a great season.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

I guess the best advice we can give you at this point in time is ride em’ if you got em’ and do it soon.

Everything is groomed flat in anticipation of Sun week and the groomers will be parked for the foreseeable. The trails are in good to better than that right now but it won’t take too many days of this intense Sunshine before they start going south on us.

Due to very light traffic I believe that things will hold together until the end of the week but once traffic increases and that coincides with the temperature increase on Fri, Sat, and Sun it won’t take long for conditions to start sliding off quickly.

The final report will be coming when the last nail is about to be hammered into the coffin, until then,

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Everyone that stayed with us through the week reported exceptional rides pretty much wherever they journeyed to. Based on this feedback and on the fact that we did get a couple of inches of snow the last few days I’m calling the trails good.

The good news weather wise is that the temps are going to be in the lower 20’s during the weekend days and drop down to single digits at night.

So it looks like we’ll get another weekend in. The groomers will be on our regular weekend schedule starting Friday.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Once again I needed to wait on the forecast before posting and I believe that we now have a better idea as to what to expect this weekend. We are getting to that point in the year where trail reporting can be very dicey because of the high in the sky sun and all it takes is one full day of exposure to that sun and conditions can change dramatically. After watching the local forecast and bouncing that off Weather Underground " I feel more like I do now than I did a little while ago " and can say that it looks like on the surface that we’ll be okay this weekend. One always takes the risk of being right and not hearing any feedback and being wrong and experiencing an electronic lynching and I certainly hope this turns out to be right.

Trail conditions:
I’m backing down one notch on the rating range because we saw a pretty good amount of sunshine on Sunday and warm temps yesterday that has given us some limited snirty areas on the Southern and Eastern segments of the trails. Not extreme by any means but snirt doesn’t warrant a good rating from this reporter. I’m putting the range at fair to good.

Weather:
The weather wizards are calling for a few inches out of the system that is slamming everyone to the South of us which is okay as long as the temps behave, the sun doesn’t get to us and the night time temps go to the teens as predicted. Again it’s that time of year and if the sun gets intense things can change. Please don’t lynch me if I’m wrong.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and He Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Real quick report.

We’ve had several riders in for most of the week and they all are elated about the condition of the trails here in Grayling.

Troy and his guys got off trail in the Air to Ground range area today and even had a free air show put on by the A-10’s from Selfridge, always a treat.

There is some snow in the forecast for the weekend, not a ton but a few inches here and there always helps to keep things fresh.

I’m going with Good to very Good conditions and it looks like traffic won’t be as great a volume as last weekend.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

I wanted to wait on this until we were a little more certain about what the weather was going to do. We use basically three weather sources and all were conflicting yesterday and with my luck I’d pick one and be wrong so it’s better to wait a day.

We had a full house over the weekend and everyone reported great rides on our system with many compliments about our grooming efforts.

Last week we had a visit from longtime friends and readers of this deal, Robin and DJ stopped and my buddy DJ was impressed with the trails enough that he left me a surprise tip in my truck. Not necessary DJ but greatly appreciated.

All righty then let’s get to it.

We did get some light rain last night and it is now turning to snow and once again there are conflicting forecasts in terms of how much. One source says the possibility of 8" and the others are calling for more in the 3-4" range. It doesn’t look like it matters too much either way as the trails that I checked this morning remain white with a thin crust on top which will work it’s way out with sled and groomer traffic. As traffic volume increases when we approach the weekend and the corners become bermed watch for ice on the insides of some of them.

Grooming is down Today and tomorrow because we groomed everything flat and bladed in all the corners Sunday and yesterday and we feel that more grooming on these two days is a waste of fuel and your trail permit dollars as long as low traffic volumes remain what they are right now.

I’m rating the trails as Good and will probably throw in the Very Good part on Thursday’s report.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

It’s been said thousands of times that timing is everything and that holds true in weather events.We did get some rain Sunday night and early Monday before it changed over to snow. The timing aspect is that the rain took place after the sled traffic left, had the same event taken place on Friday it would have meant show’s over. In this case the rain is actually a plus as it added some moisture to the existing snow cover and will help build on an already good base now that the temps are back below the freeze mark.

The even better news is that more snow is in the forecast for Thursday and Friday, not major quantities but 3-4" to keep everything freshened up.

We had no choice but to curtail grooming on Sunday night and Monday but we are back at it 100% and I see nothing to alter the schedule at this time.

I’m rating the trails as good to very good again in this report but I find it necessary to tell everyone that this is President’s Day weekend and we anticipate a high volume of traffic. We will do our very best to keep up.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Very simply put these are the best conditions that we’ve seen in a long ,long ,time. Before yesterday’s 3" we had plenty of snow to work with in terms of grooming and it looks as though we are in for another 5" or so tonight which is frosting on the cake.

For those of you who have read me over the years you know that I rarely use terms like "very good" and " awesome" when translating trail conditions to you and I avoid those terms because I think that the more you use them freely the less meaningful they become. The trails must be groomed and the base must be established before those terms can be applied and I do believe that we are at a "good" to "very good" status right now, and the really good news is that there doesn’t look to be a meltdown or other ailments in our immediate future.

Now’s the time to ride.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

I’m pleased to report that almost everyone that we talked to reported great rides over the weekend. The exception to that greatness part had nothing to do with trail conditions but was a function of four of our regular guests attempting to re-enact the recent I-75 chain reaction pile-up with their sleds and it didn’t work out so pretty good. Come on guys slow down a tad.

The last several days of Lake Effect coupled with yesterday’s 3" or so along with what’s in the forecast should make for good sledding all week and Thursday’s forecast looks like it will easily carry us through the weekend, at least as of right now.

We are grooming and have plenty to work with although the base is not as solid as I’d like to see but then again I’m a groomer junkie and very hard to please.

Overall rating is good.

Next report Wed-Thurs evening.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Very quick update. We received a surprising 10+ inches today and more is in the forecast.

That said I’m going to upgrade conditions to good with the caveat that the base issues will be there but won’t pop up immediately and hopefully grooming efforts will make them a non-issue, although I don’t see us totally avoiding the water holes with these rigs, so a few spots will likely be ugly.

Grooming will resume Fri. and continue on a regular schedule until Mother Nature decides to have her way with us once again.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Had to wait for something to happen weather wise before posting this.

Finally changed over to snow sometime last night and as of this morning we have 3-4" of fluffy Lake Effect on the ground with predictions of 4" today and 7" tonight. Two things to keep in mind about this news, one is that it is based on predictions regarding LE and two it is fluffy and doesn’t bare much in the way of cushion between you and what’s left of the base.

Base is the next issue. Took a couple of road trips yesterday to check out the crossings and saw a mixed bag of conditions ranging from short bare spots to slushy stretches and numerous water holes. The bare spots will heal provided we get what is forecast. The wet areas and holes will take some time even as temps continue to drop.

If we get the snow predicted I would rate the trails at no better than fair due to the base issues but things should continue to improve as time goes on.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Yes I’m still alive although it feels like just barely, do everything you can to avoid this flu bug as she is natty.

Everyone that we talked to over the weekend reported better that expected trail conditions which of course is what we like to hear.

On to the here and now and what to expect this week. The here and now is simple, we got around 5-6" of heavy wet snow last night which is being panned and lightly cut today and tonight and I would rate the overall conditions as good. I bet some of you were looking to see a great rating, not a chance, got a ways to go for that to happen.

Here’s the tricky part. There is rain in the forecast for tomorrow and early Wed. followed by a plummet in temps. This has a potential of being really good or really bad depending on the amount of rain. I’m not worried about the high temps because of the intense cloud cover along with very little sled traffic. So we could end up with a very nice solid base or we could end up back on the couch with the girls recuperating from the flu. Won’t know for sure until Wed sometime and we will update then.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

It would appear that the LE snows are winding down in this area. It’s hard to put an exact number of inches received due to the blowing and compacting but I think around 8" is fairly accurate.

Right now the trails would land in the fair to good category, with the weekend being the toughest to predict at this point not knowing what traffic will be like and not knowing what replenishing snows we will see. It’s safe to say that what we have on the trails will be put to the test.

We haven’t panned this fluffy snow yet,the trails were wet under the snow and I decided to let the light sled traffic pack it in and anticipate resuming the actual grooming schedule this weekend.

We will update closer to the weekend if conditions change.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Would-be Sledders,

As you know we are in start over mode after losing all of our base during the thaw.

So far we have picked up a couple of inches of LES which is far from enough to fire up grooming equipment and Lake Effective is not good base building material, but of course we’ll take whatever we can get at this juncture. That said the trails are in pretty poor shape until we get something to work with.

More snow is in the forecast with a mix of clippers and LES over the next 7 to 10 days. Along with that prediction is a wide range of just how much to expect and where the snows will fall. Most predictions are for the snow amounts that will start today and become greater tomorrow to be in the 4-7" range by the end of the weekend. Keep in mind these are forecasts.

The last paragraph is not to be construed as a green light saying come on up and this time bring your sleds because it’s based on the same weather forecasts that we all look at. We are confident that we’ll get snow and that confidence stems from all weather sources calling for like results. We just don’t know how much.

Basically it’s your call on taking the chance.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Come on up, but our advice to you is to leave your sleds at home. The game is pretty much over for the time being.

It truly is disappointing after battling the brush war that Mother Nature gave us along with the ride able snow that she can so quickly take the snow away. She can be brutal indeed.

It’s difficult to say when we’ll get back into the game based on the long term forecasts, but rest assured we will get a report out when something positive is on the horizon. Griff, this is all your fault!!!

Let the fat lady sing once again.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Sorry for the delay in updating this but we’ve been just a tad busy over the last 10-11 days.

To date we’ve put 270 volunteer man hours into clearing the trees and brush from the trails and we’re still not done. We need about two more days to get the cab slappers cleaned up. Everything is open for grooming, we just have to slow way down in those slapper areas. The last segment to punch a hole through was the Lovells trail and we finished it up Sat afternoon and groomed it Sat night.

A good friend of mine claims that you’re not having fun unless you’re breaking sh-tuff, apparently we’re having a ton of fun. Not really we hate breaking sh-tuff but this has been a brutal environment and much of the junk that causes the breakage is buried in the snow and SURPRISE look what you just found.

Ok on to the trails. The hit that I talked about in the last report happened with the Frederic trail catching the brunt. There’s still snow on it, it’s just not the right color. Pretty snirty most all of the way. I would say that trail #7 is the worst of all the trails with it’s snirtyness and I rate that as a fair and the rest I would say fair to good. It all depends on what you are willing to ride or not ride on and this report goes to a wide spectrum of sledders and there are different opinions of what’s good and what’s bad. All we can do is pass on the conditions and let you decide. We really need some additional snow to freshen things up. A single dumping doesn’t last long with the amount of traffic we had.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

A very quick update on the lumber factor.

We are making progress, with all the trails now passable by sled although there are stretches where you’ll be bobbin’ and weavin’ through the leaners and we are continuing to bust butt to get them out of the way on a daily basis. Except of course last Tuesday.

The Frederic trail (#7) is open from 4 Mile rd. to Frederic and is being groomed as I write this. The Blue Bear connector (#79) is open and will be groomed tomorrow. My hope is that we will complete trail #679 from Frederic to Blue Bear on Friday which will open our main loop for at least a single pass each weekend evening. The Lovells trail (#47) still has 3.5 to 4 miles of leaners and is passable, so we felt it best to switch to the higher traffic volume trails and get at least one groomer on the move. Lovells should be completed by Sunday or Monday I would guess.

TRAIL CONDITIONS:

I’m putting the conditions as fair to good at this time. We anticipate lot’s of traffic over the weekend with little to no snow in the forecast and everyone that has any experience with this scenario knows that the system will take a hit.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Sorry for the delay in getting this out but I was vacationing at our winter address, 7830 John Deere Dr. the last few days and unfortunately I don’t have online access there.

To recap: We got 6"plus of wet snow and panned the system, this was followed closely by a light rain which turned to freezing rain and an additional 6" plus after that.

The trails were in great shape with probably the best base building weather combination that we’ve seen in a long long time. The only problem was the fact that on some segments Sledders could only go a few hundred feet at best before running into a tree blockade which is what we’ve been diligently working to resolve. Last March we had a similar situation and I would tell you that that event was a walk in the park compared to this one. I’ll give you and example. Today four of us plus a tractor worked all day to clear 1 mile of trail. When I turned the corner and looked down the straight I literally could not see the trail. Really ugly deal.

I suspect that the fact that some segments were impassable that traffic shifted to the passable segments which probably had the usual outcome and until we can get back to our regular grooming schedule where I can get first hand visuals I’m going to leave the rating as fair. What good is any trail regardless of the snow if you can’t get through to the other end.

My best guesstimate at completing this neck aching task is unfortunately no earlier than Thursday, although I should have a better feel for overall conditions before that.

We will keep you informed.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Very quick update. I’ve been doing lots of things with snow today and I’m tired, sore, and hungry. Grouchy probably figures in there as well but that’s not important.

We got 6+" of the type of snow that groomers dream about today and we started the base building process which is panning. It also means that if you start off with 6" you cannot report that you have a 6" base as this is physically impossible. I figure that after this squishing process is over you may have two inches at best, However that is the way that we build trails, one layer at a time.

Right now I’m calling the trails fair to good, after all this is early season. If we get the 5-7" forecast for tonight than I will upgrade to good with the same caveat, it is early season.

If you don’t hear from us before the Holiday, have a great one.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,

Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Holy crap what a weekend. I knew the minute the lightning flashed that we were in real trouble because that meant super moist snow and it also means that we will be down a groomer because the old technology drag that D1 pulls will not process wet snow, strike one. The snow couldn’t have come on a worse day because we wouldn’t have time to get to it before the traffic hit, strike two. I thought that I would get in D1 out in front of D2 and at least do some blade work but I was doing more harm than good and had to bail on him and all he could do was a single pass Friday night. Not quite a strike but close.

Saturday morning I got up to face better than a foot of heavy snow and my first obligation is to Fay’s and it’s guests and while plowing my phone was ringing and people were telling me about downed trees, strike three. Once I got the place so everyone could get in and out and Sandy could get to all the rooms I hit the trail at 10:00am and I figured I’d go out and move a few trees and that would be that. OH SO WRONG Mister "this won’t be a big deal" there were trees everywhere and eight and a half hours later I finally got the Lovells trail cleared. I returned in time for the night shift to go out and do the main loop. By this time the trail had stiffened to the point that D1 was back in the game. The tandem run on the main is 42 miles and is always done in 6 to 6.5 hours max., at one stretch of pines on trail 79 it took the guys 4 hours to go 12 miles, that’s how many trees were down.

All in all it took us less than 24 hours to clear the main trails and I finished the tree pushing extravaganza on a little used trail segment to the south yesterday, it too had a mile plus stretch of pines and was horrible.

You have to remember that we are as long as an over the road trailer working on 20′ or less wide trails amongst the still upright trees, lots of neck busting turning around and I for one am glad it’s over. We didn’t keep up with traffic as far as grooming goes and I never expected to this past weekend or any other weekend for that matter as it’s basically two against several thousand. Not real good odds, but we did our best.

The drivers would like to extend a huge thank you to all of you that give us a thumbs up and recognize our efforts and we hope you understand that last weekend was one that we have never experienced in terms of the severity of fallen trees coupled with the depth and moisture of the snow that we recieved.

I rode today with my good friend Robin C. and we travelled on our trails that were pretty good but going south fast. With temps going to 50 tomorrow and beyond I think the trails’ days are numbered and that number is probably on one of your hands, no need to take either boot off to count further.

It’s 45 and Sunny today and the forecast out to the 15th is calling for more of the same. So I guess I’ll wrap this deal up for another year. This has been a year of RIRN (ride it right now) to say the least and it’s been one of the toughest to report on. We try very hard both in the report and on the phone to provide you with information that doesn’t set the expectation bar too high, we would rather set it lower and have you walk away happy enough to become a volunteer groomer jockey which would allow me more time to go play. Hopefully we were successful.

On behalf of Sandy and myself and the Girls who only speak Dog, have a good off season.
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Quick update as I am happily busy moving snow around.

We got 6" plus of heavy wet snow this morning and riding right now has to be the best that it’s been for quite some time.

The next question is will it make it through the weekend and right now the confidence level on that is high on the yes side. Temps are supposed to be above freezing tomorrow and Friday with a possibility of more snow Friday night. The temps aren’t the big stick the Sun is and looks like it will be cloudy both days.

We will start grooming most likely tomorrow and will continue as long as Mother Nature will allow.

Based on the long range forecast this weekend could be the last hoorah for a while. Starting around Tuesday the temps look to go into the forty’s for several days in a row.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

I’m taking a break from the ever interesting and somewhat repetitive political ads on the tube to announce that I’m running for President. After all who knows how to cut spending and rite the ship better than a northern Michigan small business owner caught in the midst of the worst winter in recorded history. Sandy will be my VP on the ticket as she’s the one behind the crunching in this organization. I vow that the one and only commercial that I could possibly afford to make will be kind of honest.

I rode 76 miles yesterday and the difference between your 76 and my 76 is that it took me 9 hours to complete and had a fuel cost of 250 bucks attached to it. My counterpart in the other Deere logged similar numbers and it turns out that the trips were well worth the hours and dollars spent.

I rode the smaller, faster machine today and I’m pleased to say that finally, finally we are in the process of true base building. A combination of grooming with the Sun in high gear providing some moisture with little traffic and freezing temps last night provided a nice stiff base today. The trail rating is for the time being going to good.

WEATHER:
Here’s where it gets sort of goofy. Look at one site and it’s, for a minute or two, calling for snow, look at another and it’s ice pellets, and another is calling for dancing girls in hula skirts, who knows at this point it’s all a matter of the tracking. I would say this, if we get some ice mixed in with what we get Tuesday night into Wednesday that will actually be a great set up for grooming and adding to the base before the weekend.

Gotta go and get to work on the commercial.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Sorry to bother you but something’s come up. It snowed last night and it’s continuing as I write this amended report. I have generated this thing for 12 years now and this has to be the most frustrating of all those years. The weather forecast continually dances around like a ballerina on steroids making it very difficult to report with any degree of confidence. We went from not going to get anything to maybe 1 or 2 to what actually is happening which is 2" last night and another 2" forecast for tonight.

What does that do to the conditions rating? It elevates it to fair is the simple answer. The rating can’t go to good without having something other than ice for a base and the 2-4" that we are looking to get does nothing to contribute to base. I could easily say that we got 2" therefore we now have 2" of base. NOT. Doesn’t work that way, base building is a work in progress and it takes many snow events for us to pan and build base. Personally I think people are more interested in what they are riding on ( ice, dirt, loose snow, tight snow ) rather than the so called depth of base.

Promise I won’t bother you again till Monday, maybe.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Well the Monday meltdown wasn’t nearly as severe as it could have been and the saving grace was a lack of traffic. On the other hand we didn’t get squat for snow to recover what we did lose. So where does that leave us you ask?

I’ve been doing daily road trips to the crossings and have driven to the trails from two tracks and I’ve found poor to fair conditions only. Nothing in the good category as we’ve not been close to that prestigious ranking all year. There’s good and bad to every segment we have. Take as an example the Lovells trail, it starts out on a 5 mile protected straight away which is icy but snow covered,goes into a wooded section that is fair, then comes out into an open stretch that is bad for a half mile but skirt able. Another challenge to that trail is getting to it due to Lewiston Grade Rd behind us being thin to bare all the way there. I suspect that all of our segments are going to reflect this type of riding. Fair to poor, poor to fair and so on.

Unfortunately there’s not much snow in the forecast maybe an inch or two and there’s no guarantee of that.

There you have it poor to fair and I am somewhat cautious about using fair but people are riding and there are areas where it’s okay.

I also drove out to the Range areas and off trail remains a viable.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

Most everyone that we talked to that rode from here said they had better than expected rides. This was a result of the surprise 3" that we received early Saturday morning which grabbed the trails from the clutches of Friday’s partial nuclear meltdown. Pretty dismal year when we have to rely on 3" to save the day.

Speaking of dismal we’ve groomed a grand total of ten days this season and racked up a whopping 1200 miles. WOW, never seen anything like it in the 13 years that I’ve occupied a seat behind the wheel.

Took a road trip this morning and the trails are still white at the crossings although that might change given the sunny 45 degree day that we are having. We aren’t sure what to expect weather wise for the remainder of the week due to conflicting forecasts.

So I’m going with a cautionary poor to fair rating that could easily change as the weather mystery unfolds.

I’m thinking about ditching the trail report and starting a review of newly released DVD’s, God knows we’ve seen all of them worth watching. Haven’t decided on a name just yet but I might go with the NRD’s Review. Gotta go I’m off to Family Video to renew our half off program.

Next report Thursday or sooner if needed.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

We got 3" of heavy wet snow overnight and I decided to take the Classic out for a spin. All in all it was a decent ride but the $64,000 question is how long will it hold up.

To find the answer to that perplexing question we have to look at what we know and take a guess at the impact of what we know 1) The temps tomorrow will be in the mid to upper 30’s which could be real ugly if the cloud cover clears. 2) Without a doubt there will be traffic and I noticed some corner ripping on the Frederic trail already and we all know what happens as traffic increases. 3) There isn’t much in the way of new snow in the weekend forecast ouch!!

That said, we are rating the trails as fair and it’s likely that some segments like the Frederic trail for instance will fall back to poor by the middle of the weekend at the latest. Other segments that gets less traffic will probably stay in the fair range. Off trail and two tracks should stay in good shape.

This is a best guess folks as we don’t have the device that you look into to see the future. I would not rate above a fair in any event.

Next report? Don’t know at the moment probably Monday.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Would-Be Sledders,

Haven’t posted an update for awhile because there wasn’t any need to and if I did it would have been a waste of your valuable time reading it.

We got about 2" of dry LES on Friday and two inches of that stuff does not a good trail make which is why we didn’t update. There’s no base and your ride would entail a lot of rock busting and not much fun in our estimation.

The outlook for the week is bad and good to some degree. The bad is the Sun is going to be in high gear until a system comes through Thursday. Current forecasts show that the event is going to skirt us to the north, go figure. But that is subject to change, we’ll have to wait and see.

Right now the trails are poor at best and could get worse depending on the Sun damage.

Next report Thursday.

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls.

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Dear ATVers,

Please feel free to use the snowmobile trails that are marked "ORV ROUTE" on a yearly basis as us snowmobilers sure as hell can’t. We advise that you stick with 4 wheel drive machines with good mud flaps to handle the ice and mud and rain gear would be the appropriate attire to ward off the water from the low spots in the trail and the monsoons that we receive on a regular basis. Oh yeah suntan lotion is also a must when the rains do take a break, as temps tend to rise in these here parts. Welcome to the Michigan tropics!!!

Greetings Sledders,

Well I guess that about sums up what took place over the last week or so, hell, over the entire non-winter. It’s not that we are way off in snowfall totals cause we aren’t. It’s that constant barrage of the Fat Lady singing that’s killing us. Not sure who the SOB is that keeps scheduling her concerts but we are in cultural event overload.

The good news is it’s supposed to get sunny for a few more days. SAY WHAT? Yes, that’s good news to me because if we are going to re-start I’d rather do it ice free, let’s get back to dirt. It’s not fun screwing around on a 25,000 lb ice skate. The bad news is there’s nothing on the horizon.

I’m thinking about a quad!! Need to road the girls in order to get them into shape for fall bird season anyway.

Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

Greetings Sledders,

We are back in the game for the time being. What happens the rest of the week weather wise will dictate what the weekend will bring.

Two of us groomed today after receiving 3-4" (46 gazillion snowflakes) over last weekend and another 3" (40 gazillion snowflakes) or so today. That adds up to a grand total of about 258 gazillion snowflakes for the year in which we are counting flakes instead of inches, just a few gazillion shy of the national debt. And the counting is why we are now cross-eyed.

Of the trails that I groomed today I was happy with the outcome, pulling decent snow, covering my tracks and creating sno-cones from the icy base that’s here for the duration, so watch out for that. All in all I thought the ride on a sled on today’s trail would be rated at a "good" and for those of you that aren’t accustomed to our reporting we are always on the conservative side.

Will update on Wed. once the weather wizards get a better handle on what Mother Nature has in store for us next. What a winter!!!

Ride Often and Please Be Safe,
Keith, Sandy and The Girls

At Fay’s Motel enjoy direct access to the Grayling Area snowmobile trails.

Visit Fay's Motel Website >>>>

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