Sault Ste. Marie Michigan and Searchmont Canada

On February 13th 2002 4:00 a.m. in the morning a long time friend of mine Eric "Rich" Jurgens arrived at my door step. Him and I were going to get an early start heading to Sault Ste. Marie Michigan. It was a very cold morning and Eric could not wait for this would be his first real long trail ride on a snowmobile.

After taking a slow ride up north due to poor road conditions we arrived around 11:00 a.m. in the morning. We did not waste anytime and unloaded our sleds right away. My goal was to bring Eric to the Tahquamenon Falls and then back to the Soo in one day.

We started off from my grandparents house and had to ditch dig it for about two miles down the road until we hit the trail. We noticed right away the trails were in great condition and this would be a good day. I could tell Eric was excited to be sledding because everytime I looked back to see where he was I noticed he was hammering the gas and pulling the skis off the ground. :-)

As we made our way to the city of the Soo we gased up and headed for the main trail. There was plenty of snow on the shoulder of the road which made it easy for us to get to the main trail. After taking a short break we were off into the woods. The trails could not be better and the beautiful scenery was just awesome.

On our way to the falls we found some powder to play in. Eric and I were having so much fun we must have wasted an hour or so in the powder. We knew on our way back we would have to stop here again. The trail riding to this point was awesome but the fun was just starting to begin.

Back to the trail. It sure was hard to leave that fresh powder behind us. Time was running out so we had to make it to the falls before the sun went down. Once we got into Paradise we stopped off for some pictures by the lake. It was not safe to ride on but it sure looked like it with the snow covering over it. The trails were once again great up to this point but they did start to get a little bumpier the closer we got to the falls.

Once in Paradise we gased up and headed to the falls. We were very hungry at this point so we could not wait to get there. We planned to take pictures ASAP then eat! We finally made it! It was about 85 miles of hard riding but it was worth all of it.

On Friday February 15th 2002 my brother Ken meet us in the Soo. We awoke to rain! This was not good at all. It was raining all night and was doing a lot of damage to the trails. At this point we did not have to many options so we decided to make our way to Searchmont Canada. We bought our trail permits after crossing the border. Once on the trails in Searchmont we could not even believe our eyes. The trails were so wide and smooth. This was nothing like the Michigan trails we were use to. We were not carrying gas and did not have reservations so we could not drive from point to point but we did have fun making the loops we did in Searchmont.

Saturday and Sunday we just messed around in the Soo and had a lot of fun. As a matter of fact we even started our own snow cross race on a mini track we found near the casino.

Well, even tho we had rain and some other bad complications that got in the way we all still had a really good time. It sure is nice to spend time with your friends and family while enjoying our favorite sport of snowmobiling.

And to my good friend "Rich" I will leave you with this:

-- Wanta go for a ride? --