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By Bill Preis
Bridgton Easy Riders
MILLINOCKET — During the first two weeks of march, Millinocket received between three and four feet of fresh snow from three nor’easters.
After looking at the weather forecast for the town, which was showing four days of sunny blue skys, temperatures between the mid teens at night and mid-30s during the day, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the “perfect storm” for our last snowmobile ride of the season.
Bob Calileo, Pete Hathaway, Jim Medcalf, Victor Alperin and I, all members of the Bridgton Easy Riders, dropped everything to make the trip.
We each made reservations at the Baxter Park Inn and were lucky to get a room with a view. We trailered our sleds to Millinocket on Monday morning. March 19, and in the afternoon we had a couple of hours to make a short tune-up ride of about 25 miles.
We like to ride on the weekdays since the trails have much less snowmobile traffic and thus remain in better condition. Rooms are widely available as well.
On Tuesday morning, we made our annual pilgrimage to have lunch at the restaurant/gas station in Kokadjo, which is about 60 or 70 miles west of Millinocket, not far from Mooshead Lake.
The owner, Marie, is known as “Miss Sunshine” among the locals. The legendary trails of the Jo-Mary Snowmobile Club did not disappoint, as they were groomed to perfection.
We stopped on the trail for several minutes to watch a spruce grouse cross the trail and go into the woods, one small step at a time. This is a rare sighting in Maine.
Mount Katahdin was there to seen in all its glory without the usual cloud cover. On Wednesday morning our group headed north on ITS 85 to the Matagamon wilderness, which is on the East Branch of the Penobscot River at the northeast corner of Baxter State Park.
We had an excellent lunch and then headed farther north and west on the cup handle of ITS 85 before turning south through Shin Pond and Patten, and then returning to Millinocket.
All of the trails were well groomed, in part because of the deep snow and reliably cold temperatures at night, which allowed the snowmobile clubs to groom. We crossed several snowmobile bridges and had stunning views of Mount Katahdin from every direction.
It is common for gas stations up north to sell 91 octane gas that has no ethanol. If you used that 91 octane gas you would notice an improvement in performance and gas mileage up to 24 MPG on our four-stroke engines.
We trailered our sleds home on Thursday morning as the clouds and more snow arrived. This was a trip to remember and I only wish that more of our members were able to make this perfect storm trip. Until next year.
TOP PHOTO: Pete Hattaway, Jim Medcalf, Victor Alperin, Bob Calileo and Bill Preis at Matagamon wilderness during the Bridgton Easy >> Riders’ final trip of the season (Submitted photo)
