Lake Winnipeg Recce Report: All Good for a Fatbike Adventure Weekend!

Lake Winnipeg Recce Report:

It’s going to be a great weekend!

On the Grand Marais Side: All the puddles are solid frozen now and the trail is well defined and rough (generally good traction) with the trail markers in place. No problem riding with no studs, but studs are a bonus and with them you can enjoy riding on the smooth areas. Very little snow left until you get out a few kms. The usual narrow cracks are no issue. Plenty of people out ice fishing using trucks.

Recce Ride 24 Feb 2017 - 3b — Here’s our American friend Bradley Paul from NY posing by the Snoman Trail signs (gotta love the STOP sign!). You can see some frozen puddles from the recent + temps, but the trail itself is not bad and gets better as you ride further from shore.

Recce Ride 24 Feb 2017 - 2 — It’s not snowpack but it is roughened and it gets better as you go.

Recce Ride 24 Feb 2017 - 2b — Thumbs up from Gregory ‘G-Mac’ McNeill and he was riding without studs.

After riding out a fair ways on the Grand Marais side, we could confirm no major pressure ridge or cracks and that the riding surface got better after about 4 kms. Then we drove around to Gimli.

On the Gimli side, we rode out from the harbour and looked for the main trail leading to an expected pressure ridge crossing point …

We discovered that the usual pressure ridge about 400 metres out from the Harbour had increased recently (we were warned) and stepping or jumping across was not an option.

We are looking at a way to bridge it with ramp support from our quad friends (thanks Kevin & Peter Champagne). Safety will be the priority, but we did find a good spot to cross (preferably with ramps).