Snowbiking In The Backyard

I love to step out my front door and go for a bike ride.  Where I live there are a couple parcels of DNR land about a 10 minute ride away one in this direction one in that, and the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest is maybe 20 minutes ride away the other way.  There's a nice trout stream that flows through the DNR land and many times I have thrown my waders and fly rod into my bike trailer and ridden there.  I love living where I do. But unless I'm missing something obvious (which happens with fair regularity) if I have limited time and want to get outside quickly we are lucky enough to have about two acres of woods for me to bum around in.  

Two acres isn't big enough for all that many bike trails but I can grab my bike, step out the front door and be riding on snow trails in the woods in the time it takes me to walk the few hundred feet to the edge of the woods.

But since I don't own a snowmobile (and wouldn't want one if someone gave it to me) or any other, as Gene Logsdon puts it, "piston ringed roarer" suitable for trail grooming, I had to make the trails myself using an engine powered by grits, cheese curds, carrots, chicken noodle soup.  It takes a bit of doing but you can make a perfectly fine snowbike/fatbike trail with snowshoes. 

Starting out I just took short, shuffling steps to start to pack things down

Then I turned around and made a second set of tracks next to the first.

And after the first couple of passes to give the general direction of the trail I went over it a bunch more and stomped it down.  We don't have all that much snow but it's too much to ride through and needs to have a good base for biking.

Since we only have a couple of acres of woods I have to make the most of the space I've got.  So trails criss-cross.

They not only criss cross but intertwine: in this picture you can go from bottom to top (and, of course, top to bottom), left to right, top to right.  This way I won't just be riding the same loop over and over.  Someone better at math (and, more importantly, with time and inclination for such silliness) could figure out how many options there are....

It became apparent rather quick that the trails hadn't quite set.  I'll ride 'em some more when they're hard.  

It's been pretty windy here the last several days.

Later in January...

Last week we had a January thaw.  We didn't have that much snow before then - may 8 inches or so - but it got into the 30s and 40s during the day and most nights didn't fall below freezing.  The trails I had stomped turned to mush.  Now it's back below freezing and things are frozen and icy.  I hope it snows again soon  (and I can start the whole process again and hopefully have time and energy to ride them).