Adventures in Thompsonville – February 2021

Ready?

Next stop on the 2020-21 snowmobiling season is Thompsonville/Copemish! We had reservations at a familiar lodge and although excited to go, we were hearing the trails were not in the best of shape this weekend. I hoped the 3″ – 6″ of lake effect snow that was to fall Friday would help.

OMG. Like regular unpredictable Michigan weather, they got 8″ – 10″. I was overjoyed for the trail conditions but not the white out conditions we drove through to get there on Friday evening. The trucks headlights into the blinding snow made it hard to see and I watched out the side window to tell Bill how far away he was from the shoulder of the road. The below doesn’t even capture it.

We made it though! We settled in to our home away from home for the weekend at the Mountain Valley Lodge. It had everything we needed but a microwave, which was across the parking lot in their rec room, furnished with a full kitchen along with a pool table, ping pong and lounge area.

We moved our gear into the room and I was SO excited to try out our new helmet intercoms (not an affiliate) that had arrived on Thursday night (that story is a whole other blog post!) We got them attached to our helmets, connected and couldn’t wait to see how they sounded with the sleds running. Not new technology but new to us. I was really looking forward to being able to talk to Bill without screaming our heads off at each stop sign.

The next morning we were ready to head out onto a fresh blanket of snow.

I went to the office to check in, and Kim and Luke, the owners, could not have been more helpful! They confirmed that we could in fact access the trails from the motel and told us what back roads to take to get to the gas station and then the staging area to get to trail 3. Kim even printed off maps for me and gave me a plastic page protector to keep them dry.

The sides of the road were quite thin in terms of snow, and Bill, after a while, zipped off to the right in efforts to not ride along the thin snow and gravel on the paved shoulder. And promptly got stuck in the deep snow, unaware of how deep and powdery it was. “Don’t follow me!” came through the intercom. Note taken.

I stopped my sled and walked in after him, sinking up to my knees in the fluffy snow. Within minutes, an angel appeared at the roadway in an SUV, asking if we needed help. “We’re stuck!” He got out, produced a long yellow tow strap and along with my tow strap to lengthen it, pulled Bill back onto the shoulder of the roadway. Our first adventure is in the books and we hadn’t even gotten to the gas station, let alone the trail.

We made it to the gas station, after a slight detour because I’m directionally challenged, and in looking at the map, Bill discovered a back way to get to the staging area at the 231 Bar and Grill. We decided for today to just make the run to Beulah and back, as we’ve done before. It’s a nice ride, most of it along an old railway corridor.

I love this pic of the granary atop the hill before you get to Buelah. It’s a familiar picture but this time with our new to us sleds. Beyond the overpass in the background is the trail.

We walked down the hill to the Corner Pub, our old haunt, just a block away from Crystal Lake. We ordered burgers and shared laughs with the locals, particularly one guy at the end of the bar who put away two beers and a bourbon in the time it took me two sips of my diet coke.

This is Bill, not said local. 🙂

I loved this sign by the door.

So we made our way back up to hill to the sleds. I took one more shot of our sleds with their new friends. It was snowing pretty hard now, which made for a very scenic ride!

Except for the fact that Bill’s intercom quit working. Our brand new, $400+ helmet intercom system that we just installed. We were not happy. He could hear me, but I could not hear him. $#@%$#! We determined it was an issue with his microphone. We tried everything we could think of and decided to just get back on the trail.

About 2 miles down trail 395 I spotted a dark object on the left side of the trail. It looked too big to be a broken belt or piece of plastic. I said to Bill that I saw something and needed to stop. I walked back, and almost buried in the fresh snow, was a Ski-Doo bag, relatively heavy.

My heart sank. I told Bill what it was through the intercom as he started walking towards where I found it. We looked inside just far enough to see it contained tools and some other items, but no identification. Some of you may remember several years back on a bike trip to Sturgis, I mistakenly left my backpack on the ground at a gas pump and rode away after gassing up. A good Samaritan found it and picked it up, but drove the opposite direction to North Dakota, with plans to mail it to me in Michigan. (Though I was in South Dakota for the next two weeks!) With the help of the gas station attendant and the local sheriff, we were connected with this person the next day, we then rode to North Dakota to meet him and I got it back. I still send this angel of a gentleman a Christmas card every year. It was a horrible 24 hours thinking my ID, cash, credit cards, phone were gone.

I put the bag on the hood of my sled to take a picture for Michigan Snowmobiling Lost and Found. But for now, we had to take it back to Buelah in hopes to find the owner. My awesome husband, knowing what anguish I went though in the backpack incident, turned his sled around and we sped back. There were black exhaust marks in the snow nearby, which led me to believe the person stopped, undid the bag for whatever reason, then took off (towards Buelah) without securing it. We rode back to the parking area on the hill.

I called the Corner Pub to save us some walking, but the person on the phone came back and said no one said they were missing a bag. We didn’t know any of the other establishments to call, so we started walking, asking every obvious snowmobiler on the street. We visited the Lucky Dog Bar and Grille, the Five Shores Brewery and stopped a truck and trailer leaving a parking lot, to no avail.

So we continued on back to Thompsonville. I attempted posting it on Michigan Snowmobiling Lost and Found, a very handy page on Facebook. My plan at this point was to hang on to it and share the hell out of the photo on social media with the hopes the person would see it. I couldn’t leave it on the trail, thinking 1) it would soon be covered in snow, 2) the groomer might catch it and tear it up and 3) the next person might not be as honest and just help themselves to a very nice tool bag.

At every stop sign where there were stopped sleds, we asked them if anyone in their group were missing a bag. Nope. We came a upon a scene where a lady had gotten stuck nose first down the embankment and helped her group pull her sled out. Anyone missing a Ski-Doo bag? Nope.

Our last stop was Geno’s Bar and Grill in Thompsonville. A group of guys were standing outside and we chatted with them about the bag. One of them suggested we just hang it on a fence post so it would be visible if the person came back for it. Right. For someone else to see and grab. Right before we left Geno’s, we saw someone on a Ski-Doo zoom up to them. Bill hesitated and so did I. Then we continued on, figuring this person was with them that we had just spoken to. Honestly, we talked to so many people they all seemed to run together. We left.

At the next stop sign, a sled comes zooming past me beside Bill, flagging him down. Sweet mother of mercy, it was the owner of the bag! I cannot even describe the happiness I felt that this mystery was solved. Well, actually I can. It was like getting the call from the sheriff that he had located the person with my backpack and gave me his mobile number. Thank you God.

Meet Kevin! He was the guy on the Ski-Doo who flew up to the guys in the parking lot at Geno’s that we had just missed. He had been racing down the trail to find us all the way from Beulah for the past hour. Upon realizing the bag was gone, he rode back to Beulah and inquired at the Lucky Dog, only to be told we were just there asking if anyone had lost a bag. Every place he went, he had just missed us. This, truly, truly, made our day. He also shared the story on DooTalk.

We parted ways and stopped at the 231 Bar and Grill before heading back to the motel. What an adventure!

Parked outside our room, Maggie and Edgar called it a night. After hours of frustration trying to troubleshoot the intercom, Bill installed the boom microphone it came with, instead of the self adhesive one, and we got them working again. We figured it might be a broken wire in the original microphone.

The next morning, on our newly found route from the motel, we were able to ride to Rosie’s Country Cafe! A MUST if you are in the area! Amazing breakfasts with homemade toast.. I was surprised on a weekend, with snowmobilers, skiers from nearby Crystal Mountain, and COVID restrictions, we were able to get a table. The stars were in alignment.

Today (a bonus day, taking a 3 day weekend!) we decided to hit some trails we had not yet ridden and take trail 3 in the opposite direction of Beulah. It was a nice, neat little narrow trail, but we would soon find our trip coming to a halt.

The bridge is out!

Sigh. Would have been nice to know that but it was really pretty back there and I got it on my GoPro, so any riding time is well worth it. We rode back, checked the map again and took a different route, heading towards Bear Lake. We stopped for a moment and I thought Bill heard me when I said “SMILE!” but he didn’t.

So far my favorite stretch in this area. Much of it is deep in the woods, thick pines and a winding trail. Such fun to ride.

When we reached Bear Lake, the trail ends right at a gas station (thank you!) called the Saddle Up Gas and Grocery. Beyond it is the Grille 44, which I look forward to visiting on a future trip. Bill is checking out the wiring on his sled as his new electric shield on his helmet was not working properly. We gassed up, got some Gatorade and snacks, and also bought a new trail map from the Benzie Manistee Snowbirds showing the entire local trail system. I used this same map to plan our trip this past week, and then, on the Friday night that we left, the map was nowhere to be found. I was happy to replace it. They do a great job of clearly marking gas and food stops and it’s super easy to follow.

We took this opportunity to try out our new Muff Pot, also known as a Hot Dogger (also not an affiliate). I first heard of these years ago and thought it was a joke. It’s not! It’s a metal, mess kit looking pan that you clamp to the muffler of your sled. It warms your food as you ride.

Hahaha. I wanted to come up with a whole menu in which to cook on the trail, but time was limited and really, it was a trial run, so we opted for Hot Pockets as the experiment. I took them out of the plastic at the motel that morning and wrapped them in foil. They didn’t quite fit but we balanced them the best we could and decided to just see what happened.

We rode back from Bear Lake, and shortly determined after a while that Bill’s lights were not working. No headlight, no brake light. Several kind folks stopped to see if we needed help, along with a sheriff’s deputy. No luck getting it working and decided we needed to make tracks before it got dark. However, we discovered we missed a turn and ended up at the other staging area, on US-31 in Pleasanton. Sigh.

With the help of the Polaris Ride Command app, I saw where we were in relation to the trail. We made it back to our missed turn and were soon on our way. Soon we were back at the gas station on 115. We were closer to the motel than I thought, thank God. I was afraid we had wasted gas and daylight on our detour.

We had time to enjoy our freshly warmed Hot Pockets, courtesy of the new muff pot! They were perfect! Fully warmed through. Bill would have liked his hotter, but I guess you just have to experiment with what you cook and how hard you ride. I look forward to trying new meal ideas and have ordered a second muff pot so we each have one, as they are kind of small.

We rode down the back roads in the twilight to the motel, which has a huge parking lot for trailers, another really nice bonus. We were one of 3 rooms occupied, as most everyone had headed home today (Sunday).

I told Bill I had noticed a clackclackclack sound as I would coast to a stop, after letting off the throttle but just before grabbing the brake. It had just started in the last several hours. He rode my sled around the lot and sure enough, heard the same thing I did.

Upon further inspection, he found I was ready to break a belt. See those missing teeth? This was the original belt from my sled, from 1997. We put the spare on and put the new belt in it’s holder under the hood. Another disaster averted. Thank you, Snow Gods.

I was hoping to ride a bit Monday morning before loading up, but tonight it was clear, no precip and 2″ – 4″ more inches were expected overnight. Better to load up now than to clean off the sleds and load up in the morning. And we expected a dicey ride home. On to the trailer they went.

With that done, we relaxed in our room with a beverage. What a weekend! New trails, new experiences, new technology and a new friend.