Smooth Sailing......Till the Bitter End

Today was (almost) the perfect day. We got an early start from the Hotel and headed to Tim Horton's - Craig's new favorite place - for a quick breakfast.
After that we headed out for the Abitibi Canyon, which is just 170 miles south of the James Bay Frontier.

Twenty miles outside of town we ran in to the groomer..... and the trails were so good that at one point I was literally screaming with joy in my helmet.

and for the next 70 miles we experienced snowmobile heaven....it was amazing riding.

We even saw to Moose frolicking on the trail, which was pretty cool.

By 11 AM we were at the Extreme Tours base camp where we got some gas and had a snack and a warm up.

After that we headed out and crossed the damn Dam - the major power source for a large part of Northern Ontario - and then played around in some big hills by the power lines.


It was a bit intimidating but fun. Then we left and made the big turn, finally headed back toward home. By 12:30 we had put 180 miles on and were on our way to Timmons. I made a wrong turn, however, and we were soon in a predicament when my low fuel light came on and we were still 35 mile from Timmons. We decided to double back to Cochrane for fuel and a burger at A&W.

Then we headed for Timmons. One mile from the hotel in Timmons we had a close encounter with some careless riders that were ripping around a corner on our side of the trail. We avoided a head on collision but ended up in a minor fender bender with each other as I slammed on the brakes and Craig could not stop fast enough to avoid me. Minor damage but enough to put a damper on an otherwise perfect day. Checked in to the Super 8, showered up and headed to Casey's for a bite to eat. Once again met some cool locals who overextended themselves to make sure we were having fun. Cool people up here for sure.

We are headed to Chapleau tomorrow - about 170 miles. Supposed to rain for the next two days so we will see what happens, but we are having fun and life is good. With any luck our troubles are behind us and we will be back in the Soo Friday night. Mileage count at present is high 700's with a little over 400 to go.