Ill try to finish up here without getting too lengthy. Day 2 of backpacking left Hayward with intentions of heading to ashland and hurley. A few miles outside of cable the primary came apart on the Doo. We ended up dragging it into town and were able to find a local guy to rent us a ZL 500 to continue our trip with. This set us back a couple hours. Later on that afternoon all 6 of us jumped on a lake to join up to a trail to the north. About a mile or two into a high speed run I noticed that a couple of our sleds were no longer with the group. Turned around to find that they had both blew belts. Coming from IA we don't get many opportunities to open our sleds up and I think that doing so eliminated the weak belts in our group. We were able to change them out on the lake but the spare we had for one of the sleds (nytro) was in poor enough condition where we didn't feel comfortable proceeding with it. Made our way to a really nice lodge on the south end of the lake (lakewood resort maybe) and were able to get the yamaha dealer in Cable to run us out a belt. After this we decided to bypass Ashland and head straight to Hurley. It was after dark at this point. We made Hurley in pretty good time other than a few missed turns that held us up. After a late night in Hurley took the grade down to mercer for lunch. Had plans to hit up the races in st. Germain but ended up running too late to make it worth the trip. Took the grade back to minocqua and then jumped on 51 to Tomahawk area. We had intentions of going out for another loop that evening but the bar stool at the motel was pretty comfortable and most our bodies had had enough. The trails over the course of the trip were fantastic. We put the first track on several trails throughout the days. Even the grade from Hurley to Minocqua was smooth on Saturday morning. Only moguls I encountered were south on Minocoqua on 51 for about 10 miles and then smoothed out. Some differences I've noticed from the UP where I usually run are that the trails in WI are narrower. Definitely makes some corners a little hairy with oncoming traffic. I know I mentioned I like to ride the twisties but some of these areas give a whole new meaning to the word. I'm cornered out for a while. As I eluded to earlier some of the fuel stops are few and far between or at least not well advertised and on the trail. I thought the trails were signed pretty poorly. Very easy to get onto the wrong trail and not realize it for miles. Some trail number markers in areas other than intersections would be useful. Also was difficult to plan an extended trip when we couldn't access any maps for areas until we were in that actual county. A lot of trails seemed to run down roads for lengthy sections. This was not a problem as we got 4-6 inches of snow across the area Thursday morning but imagine it to be troublesome once the roads burn off. I'm sure for a group thats familiar with the general area fuel stops and poor trail markings aren't much of an issue. Outside of those minor setbacks fantastic time had by all. Thanks for all the tips and recommendations I received before our departure.
Tomcat
Tomcat