Category: Trail Reports

After some additional discussion last night, we’ve decided to close all trails outside the Michigan area.  The Michigan area are the section of our trails that are mainly in the national forest (Bloodroot, Carmel, North Pond, 73/74/745).  Riding in town or heading North, East or South of town is not possible now with those sections of trails closed.

We don’t like closing trails with a few more weeks of riding left, but this is necessary to protect our landowners and have trails for next season.  Thanks!

Remember – you can always view trail info on the VAST map online.  Just remember, some clubs are not as quick to update, so just because something might show as open, it is always good to check.  I have seen that Bridgewater has closed all their trails.

https://vtvast.org/trails.html

This past weekend was great for some added riding, although with the warmer temps and the number of sleds out there, we now need to close some sections of our trails.  Best riding is in Michigan.  See image for current update.  Trails in the Michigan section (73/74/745) still have plenty of snow and you can still ride over to Chittenden.  You just need to trailer in most cases to get out there. Parking is available at the end of Upper Michigan rd.  We’ve had to close the trails in the valley as they are bare/mud in most spots.  We expect conditions to deteriorate further over the week and will update when necessary.

Today we had a close call, in an otherwise great day of riding.  While we were approaching a corner, another rider was going far too fast and couldn’t make it and ended up going straight into the snow off the trail.  Fortunately he ended up going behind my wife and her sled and my son and I we’re able to stop.  This could have been far worse.

I’m sharing, because I hope at least one rider who rides like this one did might change their riding without having to have a near miss or an actual accident.  Everyone wants to enjoy their ride and also enjoy a ride the following day.  So please, ride for the trails and conditions.  If you can’t see what is up ahead, slow down.  There is a time and place for speed and it is not when you can’t see far ahead.  You should always be able to stop for turns or any unexpected hazard that might be in the trail.  Just imagine if we had been in the groomer, not on sleds?  This would have been a collision for sure.  So please, ride within control and speed appropriate for the trail and conditions at all times.

To the rider, I hope this was a valuable lesson learned.  We all do stupid things, we just need not repeat them.

Trails are in very good shape now.  Due to the past warm ups and rain though, the ground underneath and water isn’t frozen.  So there are some spots where there’s water/mud and slush, but everything else looks really good and has very good snow cover, especially the higher elevation trails.  Trails in the valley have less snow, but still decent cover.  We’ve done a lot of grooming over the past few days, but given the depth in some areas, you might not even know it!

Enjoy the riding while you can!   This is the best we’ve had in awhile!

We did get snow yesterday.  It was not as much as we’d like, but enough that we can say trails are open with caution.  Conditions are variable with the best riding up high.

If you come across a section of bare trail, please turn around.  Do not ride on bare grass, it will damage the land – please respect our landowners or we won’t have trails to ride.

Hopefully we get more snow this week, looks like next weekend might be better (fingers crossed!)

Until we get more snow, we are not recommending riding at this time.  Lower elevation valley trails are bare or have minimal snow cover.  Please do not ride on any bare section of trail.  Higher elevations are mixed with ice as well so caution should be used.  We’ll update as we have more info.   Thanks and think snow!

With the snow we’ve had in the past week or so, trails are looking much better now.  We’ve been out and have groomed the majority of our trails at least once.  We still need to do more and things aren’t perfect, but they might be the best we’ve seen this year (either that or I’ve got a short memory!).

So enjoy riding and as always, please use caution.  Forecast this weekend looks questionable.  If we do get any rain, please refrain from riding during any rain and wait until things get cold before riding following it.  This will help keep the trails in the best shape possible!  Happy Riding!