Hey Folks
Got out for my first ride of the 2005 season yesterday … thought you might be interested in some trail conditions for the central and east side of Michigan … with sunny conditions and temperatures near 72F I opted to give West Higgins a shot … I know this is a tad early for the Houghton Lake trails for those of us who don’t ride in the snow and who do not have screws in their tires … but, if you got to ride in the snow, might as well be in the 70s with the sun out!
On the ride up to Higgins Lake [US-10 out of Midland to US-127 north to Higgins Lake] I observed several lakes and ponds along the roadway when nearing the junction with 55 that retained considerable ice coverage … all of the flowing rivers were completely thawed. Only saw one area with snow still on the ground … a north-side hill situation that is a functioning Ski Resort [Snow Snake?] … really didn’t see any snow in the woods along 127, even in the conifer stands.
Arriving at the West Higgins Trailhead I was greeted by a huge snow pile in the corner of the parking lot … otherwise the area was clean, dry and recently graded. The restroom had been cleaned, painted and equipped with a fresh load of paper … I took advantage … however I’ll leave that “moving experience” out of this description.
Got unloaded and changed into my riding gear … left the parking lot at about 1430 hrs … bright sunshine, low 70s and quite breezy, enough so that the wind gusts were picking up dirt off the roadways and creating quite a dust storm at times … I was glad to get moving and into the trails where conditions were near perfect for riding …
[See picture below left]
I intended to ride just the outside portion of the trail system in the counterclockwise direction … the southern leg of the east side all the way up to the second, intra-trail connector, was much like this photo. As you can see, the trail is for the most part dry in the open spaces … there is considerable mud in some sections in the forested areas and one can see some patchy snow and ice in these areas as well. The snow and ice was irregularly spaced, often punctuated with mud due to rapid melting, but was relatively easy to avoid. However, as is usual with early spring rides … despite obvious dedicated work by our CCC trail keepers, there were many situations such as this one involving trees across the trail. None of these were problematic … most could be ridden over or around without problems.
[See picture below right]
Having ridden through a clear cut area just short of the second, intra-trail connector I stopped and took this shot looking back. This foresting operation is considerably larger than last fall … in fact, the whole side of the large hill area is now completely denuded of trees … it’s almost eerie … the trail is relatively easy to follow through the clear cut and except for a couple of tree skidder tracks perpendicular to the direction of travel, easy to ride. Most of the debris has been pushed off the trail and the only major directional change is clearly annotated with a trail marker sign.