On Friday, February 27, my wife, a high school friend, and I arrived in Virginia, Minnesota, to do some snowmobiling. After checking in to the motel and unloading, we hit the trails about 3:30 pm. I rode my brother’s ’95 Polaris Indy XLT, after the recent engine malfunction of my sled. We rode the spur north of Virginia to the Laurentian Trail. We then rode past Kinney and stopped in Chisholm for fuel. We talked with a guy filling his pickup at the pump that gave us some good reports on the trails, and suggested we stop at Bimbo’s on Side Lake for supper. We did that. Food was good. We ended up staying and talking for a couple hours. We then rode the Taconite trail back to the Laurentian, and back into Virginia. We arrived back at 8:30 pm, and had put on 97 miles.
The red track on this map shows our Friday route:
Virginia Route
On Saturday morning, when we woke up, The Weather Channel said it was -28F; a record low for that day. We were there to ride, so we dressed warm. We decided to head north towards Crane Lake and were on the trail by 8:15 am. We reversed our route from the night before, in order to get to the Taconite. But we turned the other direction, towards Tower. We were the first tracks on the trail after the groomer had passed late the night before.
Taconite Trail
At the intersection of the Wolf Track Trail, every direction was freshly groomed, without tracks, so we decided to stay on the Taconite until we got to the Arrowhead Trail. After turning north on the Arrowhead, and putting on 40 miles, we met our first group of sleds. The Arrowhead transitions from a long straight wide trail through swampy area into a tight, twisty, narrow, hilly trail. We stopped for fuel in Cook, I ate three quarters of a Snickers bar, and my wife ate half of a beef jerky stick and dropped the other half on the gas station floor. I gave her the last quarter of my Snickers bar out of sympathy. Good thing I bought a king size. We proceeded north on the Arrowhead, and then the Crane Lake land trail, onto Crane Lake, and then to the Voyagaire for lunch at 12:15. We had 120 miles on so far.
Image from the Voyagaire website
After discussing the time, the map, and the odometer over lunch, we decided to take the “green” trail the 25 miles across Crane Lake and Lake Namakan to Ash River. A nice couple sitting next to us in the restaurant helped us make the decision. The scenery on the Lake was excellent. We stopped for a few photos.
Crane Lake
Crane Lake
Crane Lake
Crane Lake
Crane Lake
Crane Lake
From Ash River, we eventually found the land trail back towards the Arrowhead trail. About 5 miles south of Ash River we met a group of 5 or 6 Polaris sleds, led by an idiot on a red Gen II. The trail was about 15 feet wide and he was way over on my side of the trail on the berm on the outside of the corner. I took the backside of the berm, to avoid him by about 6 inches, and ran my ski into a rock, which bent the ski and wear rod, and tore the front of the ski skin off. Of course none of the other group stopped. While we were assessing the damage to the sled, we watched two more groups go through that corner in the same direction and none of them had a problem staying on their side of the trail.
XLT ski
XLT ski
We continued south and stopped at Melgeorge’s on Elephant Lake for a Coke and some deep-fried mushrooms. We also stopped briefly at one of the shelters along the Arrowhead Trail and took some photos.
Arrowhead Trail
View From Arrowhead Trail
From there, we went to Orr for more fuel, then through Cook and took the Wolf Track back to the Taconite. We decided to head west to the Wooden Table for supper. After supper, we rode back to Virginia, via the Laurentian. We arrived back to the motel at 9:15 pm and put on 285 miles for the day.
Our Saturday route is shown in green on the map. The red X is where the bent ski happened.
Virginia Route
My high school friend is a farrier, so on Sunday morning I used his hammer and anvil to straighten my wear rod. He had to leave early, but my wife and I planned to ride, being the day was sunny and nice. Only -7F Sunday morning. But, when I was getting the sleds ready to go, I noticed one of the rear suspension mounting bolts was missing. I went to the hardware store when they opened at 9:00, and got a bolt. But with a shortage of tools, I could not get the shaft to line up in order to get the bolt back in place. So, we ended up loading the sleds and heading for home around 11:00 am.
A sign in Coleraine caught our eye, so we went to check out a ski jump. I had never seen one in person before.
Ski jump
Ski jump
Ski jump
Overall, it was an excellent weekend with 382 miles in a day and a half of riding. 285 miles in one day is a personal best for us.
