Tomorrow, two of us are planning to ride from the Wyndmere area to Cummings, a little north of Hillsboro. We probably won't get a real early start, so I would like to take trails as much as possible in order to make good time. By the trail maps I've found, I can take the trail from Mooreton up to Colfax, then over to Old 81 and up to Wild Rice and cross into Minnesota. Then ride through Sabin, Glyndon and up to Georgetown, then cross back into ND.

From there, I'm not sure what would be best, since there are no trails. Should we cross the interstate, ride cross country/ditches and catch the trail just west of Hillsboro and ride it up to Cummings? Or we could just ride the Old 81 ditch north for 20 miles to Hillsboro, the cross the interstate and take the trail north to Cummings. Or, maybe follow the Red River north, the ride cross country west to Cummings. Or just go cross country all the way from Georgetown to Cummings (30 miles?)?

Other part of the question: Is there anybody who knows if the southern valley trails will be groomed? I know it's windy now, but it's supposed to calm down today and tonight. Maybe they'll groom today. How about the Clay County trails?

Would cross country the whole way from Wyndmere to Cummings be out of the question? After the snow last night and wind, any open area looks unrideable to me. Rough as hell with 1-foot drifts spaced at random. Maybe along the rivers and sheltered areas is better, but there are a lot of unsheltered areas between point A and B.

What does anybody think?

It sounds like most of the trails around Fargo are going to be groomed on Friday and Friday night. I know the loop up to between Gardner and Argusville should be groomed on Friday sometime. I have not heard if the MN trails will be groomed.

If you ride to Georgetown, take the trail west into ND, ride the trail untill you cross over I-29 and go untill you need to take a left turn. Go 1 mile west at that point. Then, head north. Go north untill you get to the turn that takes you into Grandin. Go north one more mile at that point, then go west one mile and then go north. You will have to go about 5 miles north, then go east a mile, then back north and follow that road along the interstate. You will have to go back west a mile once you get to Highway 200 to follow the road that brings you to the west side of Hillsboro. From there you could take the trail. At that point, go west on the trail or work your way north by the golf course and over to Highway 81 and go north. I would take the trail myself.

Another option would be to come from Georgetown and ride the river road north untill you get to Halstad and then work your way twards Hillsboro. You can ride the river at your own risk, I have not ridden it yet so I don't know what it's like. I woudn't ride it myself. All the cross country stuff will be really ruff.

Good luck, I am planning a ride from Harwood to Hatton on Saturday.

Jason

Thanks a lot, Snowcatnut. We just may try that first option you mentioned. In the second option, I'm assuming that river road is on the MN side?? I wasn't planning to ride on any rivers. Too many unknowns for me. Along rivers, up on the bank, is more my style. I saw on www.snowmobilend.org that the trail near Hillsboro is not planned to be groomed until a week from now, so I guess we'll probably just wing it from there. Thanks again. Good luck on your ride to Hatton.

The river road is on the ND side. It's a major gravel road just on the ND side of the river. It's a good ditch and you can ride down along the tree's if you want to try and smooth things out a bit. Hope I got this to you soon enough.

Let me know how the ride was. We rode from Horace to Whapeton thru Morton today. It was a good day but the wind sure raised hell with the grooming that was done on Thurs and Fri.

Jason

The ride was fun and I'm glad we did it Friday, versus waiting until Saturday. We didn't leave the Wyndmere/Barney area until 2:00 pm. None of the trails we were on in the Southern Valley system were groomed until Friday late morning. We rode cross country and along creeks to hit the trail north of Mooreton where the trail goes around the closed bridge. From there north to Colfax was great pretty much the whole way. The trail is marked like crap through Colfax, but I'm assuming it just goes right down the county road. The intersection sign near the bar is confusing. Is it a "spur" to the bar? When we got over to the Old 81 ditch trail north of Abercrombie, we ran out of groomed stuff until we got up to Christine. Then, 2 miles north of Christine we passed the (northbound) groomer, so we hopped to the west ditch and rode the already-drifted trail north to the intersection south of Wild Rice and headed east. From the river to Sabin was okay. Some portions good, some drifted. It appeared to have been groomed the day before, but the wind was worse than forecasted. From Sabin north was great, especially the section near the (Buffalo?) river where the trail crosses the interstate. About 2 miles south of Hwy 10 we passed the northbound groomer again and had absolutely choppy trail until a few miles out of Georgetown where we met another groomer. At that point we had seen 3 other sleds and 3 groomers. Good ratio of groomers to riders, I would say. The trail markings and grooming stopped at the east edge of Georgetown and after taking a tour of the bustling metropolis of Georgetown we figured out that we needed to be 1 mile north of where we were. (Once again the "spur" to the bar was marked. Ha ha.) We arrived at the Red River again and crossed under the bridge. There were two tracks down the river, which looked tempting as heck, but we opted for terra firma on the west bank of the river. We decided to try riding along the river, as the open areas/ditches we had ridden were bad. After about 12 miles of that, we decided it wasn't worth it--about 11 miles of rock-hard drifts and 1 mile of smooth powder. Plus, it was going to be dark soon, and the river is not the easiest to follow at night. So we followed the river road ditch until we hit the next county road that headed west towards Old 81. After a few miles of crappy ditch we decided to cut diagonally NW towards Grandin across even more crappy open field. At least we probably saved a mile or two. Once we hit the Old 81 ditch, it was surprisingly smooth/fast compared to the other ditches we had ridden. A previous track through the powder made it easy to make good time after dark. We cut through Hillsboro past the John Deere dealership and Tesoro and then rode north to rural Cummings. We arrived shortly after 7:00. All in all, I'm glad we did it, even though the off-trail riding was marginal at best. 148 miles on the trip-meter.

Glad you had fun. I was going to run the groomer for the Rural Cass Club but was told it was too windy so they quite. We put on 125 miles on Sat. riding from Horace to Morton, Whapeton and then north from there mostly on the trail. I found to that from Colfax north to Christine is not groomed anymore. I though it was a trail but must have gotten dropped. It was so warm by late Sat afternoon that I was open jacket for most of the way home. It was a good day though. The heat on Sat will make the drifts harder. I am hoping we can groom before this coming weekend but not sure it's going to happen as the weather sounds like snow and wind again Thurs and Fri and then really warm again for the weekend.

I am from Grandin and used to farm just west of town. Thanks for the update.

Jason

The trail between Christine and the intersection east of Colfax was groomed earlier this year, so I'm not sure what the deal was this past weekend. The wind was really unhelpful with the trails. I don't understand the grooming schedule, though. If it's too windy on Friday, the trails don't get groomed at all that week? Why not groom on Saturday? Or Sunday? Anyway, I'm thankful for the grooming we do get. And I hope the Southern Valley system is able to keep running their big groomer. It does an excellent job versus the smaller ones that the other clubs seem to have.

Anyway, thanks a lot Snowcatnut for the tips.

I belong to the Red River Sno-riders and we groom from Wild Rice to Christine and have always turned to go to Walcott there. Not sure if our club does the three miles south of Christine to the turn that goes to Colfax but I know that it did not get signed this year so the state will not let it be opened as a state trail and because of that it can't be groomed with the state owned groomer.

Oh, at least I thought it was groomed earlier this year. Maybe not, though. I think the Southern Valley club has groomed it before. I don't see why they wouldn't mark and groom it. It's kind of an important link in the Old 81 trail.

I agree but it all depends on what got signed. Hopefully next year it's signed. I see on one of my maps it should have been groomed and signed. I hope that we can groom on Thurs and Fri this week so we can have a great weekend of riding before all the snow goes away.

Hey, don't talk like that, yet. The last three years, I've had more miles in March than any other month. I think the last two have been more in March than January and February combined.

Good luck with the grooming. And thanks for the time you put in.

I was kind of hoping the Fort Ransom area would get some more snow so they can start grooming, too. It's kind of a fun ride through that area.

I agree. I am headed to the groomer now, hope things go well. Looking for someone to ride with tomorrow out of Horace to Whap during the day.

You should have good trails in the Southern Valley area. The three places I drove past the trail last night/this morning were freshly groomed. www.snowmobilend.org said the eastern part of the Cass Co trails will not be groomed this week. I'm assuming that is the portion around Horace, Wild Rice, Walcott, and Christine. I'm surprised they wouldn't groom. When I passed the groomer last Friday, it was drifting in already. It said the western portion will be groomed, though. Does that mean the Rural Cass Club's portion? Kindred area? I get somewhat frustrated at how vague the reports are on that site. I'll probably head north this weekend until I run out of groomed trails, since the off-trail riding is like taking whitecaps in a rubber raft.

Post a report on here at the end of the day, if you get a chance.

I groomed the Davenport, Lenoard, Casselton, Mapelton loop last night. It took a while but it should be nice and smooth. The north loop groomer broke about half way around. Not sure how the repairs are going today. I am not sure if they are grooming the Wild Rice and south area. We groomed from the Interstate to Davenport, up into Horace and then our loop. That much is going to be great, not sure if they found someone to groom the rest of the trails today or not.

The Website is vague because it's based on Associations if I remember right. I will help keep everyone updated if I can. Hope to make it out Monday night for a ride but not sure what the weather is going to do.

Jason

I don't understand what you mean. Does each club report their conditions to SND?

Each club sends in a report. There are two clubs in the Association that is posted on their website. The reports are different from each club and each club is responcible for their parts of the trail system. I wish there was a way to make showing the trail conditions better. I have been looking at differnt ways for them to share what condition the trails are in. Wish they could do something like the road conditions site where green is good, red is closed, purple is marginal, and yellow is poor.

Or just post the complete report that each club submits, instead of summarizing it into something that is so vague that it doesn't really help somebody who wasn't actually sitting in the groomer. I think SND was working on numbering all trails in the state, which would help the reports be more specific, too. I don't think a lot of people realize that accurate reports do a lot for tourism and local economies.

Very true. I will bring it up at our next club meeting. I hope that it can get better and inputs from the people that use the site to plan trips always helps.

I tried to join the posting forum on SND a couple times. Last year, I finally got on there a few times late in the season. Then my account somehow got deactivated. Since this fall the admin over there has been trying to get that figured out so I can post on the forum. If there were a few people from each region posting trail conditions on there, I think the SND forum could become a good resource.