Riding at Snip

I bought both skis and my fat bike to Shenipsit Forest today, I have been having a lot of fun on the bike, but I figured there was a good chance the snow wouldn't be packed down enough to ride. Unfortunately we have a good crust under 2" of fluff right now so skiing, except on packed in trails is not very good. It looks like there were a lot of snowshoers and snowmobiles out this morning so the trails were nicely packed in - the bike it is!

I started riding the trail that goes around the base of the mountain, it was great to ride on - though a bit narrow from the snowshoers. I got about half way around the mountain and the hikers took two different routes, so the trail went from one perfectly rideable trail to two which were unrideable. I hiked the rest of the way around the mountain and jumped on a dirt road that was well packed in by the snowmobiles. I took that from Soapstone all the way down to the flats in Ellington, that's a long way down! I added in a side trail that was packed by a single snowmobile - which made riding it a lot harder.

When I hit Route 83 I turned around and headed back up to Soapstone, as fun as it was coming down, it was a long slog going back up. Riding in snow is possible with these fat bikes, but that doesn't mean they are free rolling, there is a lot of resistance.

We have a lot of snow on the ground and more coming down now!

I took the blue down off the summit of Soapstone, this trail is tight, twisty, steep and technical in the summer time, today it was still tight, twisty and steep, but the technical bits are all buried under snow. So much fun to come down that trail!