Pittsburg - general questions
 

So being new to this whole snowmobiling thing and having two years with lack of snow around the lake I concede you must travel to really make this work. So, in general, when does the snowmobile season start in Pittsburg? Is Martin Luther King Weekend typically good up there? How long do you usually get to ride up there, end of March? Is it tough to get lodging during the season or typically book it well in advance?

Are there any other areas in NH that you typically can get riding that are not as far as Pittsburg? What are the odds of next weekend or is the season screeching to halt because of no snow?

Thanks for any input.

Pittsburg etc...
 

Pittsburg officially opens Dec 15 but it depends on the conditions. This year, I think it opened around Dec 19, last year a week later and a three years ago they opened early on Dec 13. It closes when the snow is gone but it doesn't all close at once. Usually, the town closes weeks before the grooming stops up high. I find two types of sledders in Pittsburg. You have the "down low" people that ride from back lake to youngs store and around down low all day. They complain that the conditions are bad at the end of each Saturday. I think that these people ride for an hour per day. Then you have the "up high" guys like me that only go downtown to fill up with gas and spend all of their time in the upper trails or east of rt 3 in the upper area called East inlet. If you are an up high guy you can ride well into April most years until the club closes the gates. When there is 8 inches of snow down low there may still be 3 feet up high. The PRR club does a great job and has opened several more trails up high in the past few years. There is awesome riding up there but you are 25 miles from civilization at times and that makes some people uneasy. We never ever ride alone and we try to be prepared. Riding in Pittsburg is a whole other world. I rode 140 miles up there yesterday and loved every minute of it even with the additional snodeo traffic.

You can usually get pretty last minute lodging but it may not be where the good snow is. Lopstick, Rampblewood, Partridge allow you to get to the good snow quick. Tall Timber and Powderhorn are down lower (on back lake) but you can also figure out how to get up high pretty quick once you learn the trails (141 will get you up high quick)

Downtown places are best reserved for the middle of the season.

Of course, all of this is my personal opinion and others will probably feel otherwise so take all of the information and decide for yourself. I love riding in the lakes region but we just don't to get to do that every year due to the snow. So, like you, I bought a trailer several years ago and began our adventure. You'll find great riding in Groveton, Lancaster, Eroll and Pittsburg and see a lot of NH.

Just a little correction. December 15 has very little to do with it and is a very common misnomer. It only signifies the date after which the clubs can get reimbursed for grooming.

Some years riding can continue well into April and has even taken place as late as May 1 via trailer.

Locations to ride that are as good as Pittsburg
 

I have been to Pittsburgh NH and its really cool up there but Twin Mountains is sooooooo much closer with conditions almost as perfect as Pittsburg. I cant stand that looooooooooong ride to Pittsburg. Check out Twin Mountains. You'll be glad you did!!

Pittsburg can be like the Wild West on the weekends. Although I don't ride any more, if you are a weekend rider I would look elsewhere. Venture over the border into Canada and you won't be disappointed. On a typical ride I would see 20 sleds all day and cover a few hundred miles whereas in Pittsburg you will see 20 riders in the first 10 minutes. Midweek is great in Pittsburg. Lots of fish and game speed traps.

We used to ride in rangeley a lot, and it is a slightly shorter trip. The trails in the 7 lakes region of NH (Milton, Wakefield, etc) are surprisingly good and very well maintained, without the crowds.

A few good rides I have taken are from Errol to rangeley and back, or from the Canadian border to thetford mines and back. Both are long day trips.

Oh so true.
 

I couldn't agree with you more and why we bought our camp in Maine verses Pittsburg NH. A lot longer drive but well worth the trip if getting away from the crowds is what you are looking for.

Thanks for that info. I am going to do some research. I have heard the riding is good over in Rangley. A friend of my son also does alot in Milinocket. Will look at Twin Mtn. I was on a site called White Mountian Ridge Runners last night that showed good cover and conditions over toward Berlin.

I always found Twin Mountain to be a midweek ride as well. I spent many an early season day between the Notch and the Cog. Being so far south it gets busy. It is good for curing that early season itch.

WOuld be nice to get some snow out this storm Thursday and reduce a potential lengthy ride. My son just picked up a new machine today. Wish I had a piece of private to land to run it on without registering for a day or two.

Honestly the riding here in the Milton, NH area and north has been pretty good from what I am told. You are welcome to park here at my building and trailblaze if you like. There is a network that can be reached from here, but the trail to the pit has not been broken.

You can probably park down near the 3 Ponds and ride from there as well.

When we were new to snowmobiling we started out at the lake and thought the ridng was great. We quickly graduated to Pittsburg and thought it couldn't get better. Plenty of snow, and trails. We thought the crowds and afternoon moguls were just normal. We were the typical weekend warriors.

When we grew tired of the overworked business owners and moguls in Pittsburg we moved over to Maine. Great riding, plenty of trails. Just a bit furthur.

We then discovered Quebec. No crowds, No bumps, 10000 miles of trails, super friendly people. Do yourself a favor and do some riding in Eastern Quebec.(East of Beauceville QC) You just can't compare it. Go to Quebecrider.com for lots of info. Saddlebagging in QC is awesome.

I have taken the last couple seasons off due to little guys running around the house and limited time. I have considered going back to Pittsburg since it's the closest big riding area but it just doesent compare to QC.

You need to be real careful going over the border with your sleds and trailers, there is a lot of theft with American stuff up there. I have had one friend have his sled stolen while it was chained and I had another buddy who had his truck, trailer, and sleds all taken. Just be careful where you go!

Guy in my office, his brother went up there with 4 other guys. All 5 sleds stolen first day. Wish the storm tomorrow was heading north with snow. I would like to try the Twin Mountain Saturday area since its a bit closer than Pittsburg just not sure how it will be.

FWIW - Pittsburg is not that scary. Sure around town can get busy, but same goes for Rangely. Get out of town and things thin out rapidly. Weather permitting the trails are very well taken care of.

Pittsburg does groom way more often the Rangely. Pretty much every night, every trail is groomed. Rangely cannot come close to this. JMHO.

IMHO Pittsburg and Rangley have a lot in common as far as the huge crowds that head there on weekends. I cannot speak of the grooming in Rangley but I will say we very rarely head that way because when we inquire on the trail we are told it is rough.
What I can say is that the areas north and east or Rangley have trails that Pittsburg just cannot compare with, they groom every night and even on weekends once you get out of town you can go for 50 or more miles and not see another sled.
We rode a lot in Pittsburg before going exclusively to Maine and I never had as good an experience as we have in Maine. In Pittsburg even when we got out away from town in any direction it always seemed to be ridden hard and though not crowded you rarely went far without company.

So, for the Maine guys, are there other spots other than Jackman/Moosehead and Rangley area to consider? If you we're limited to day trip or one overnite anything closer bye? Augusta area? Where have you all stayed for lodging in the tangled and Moosehead areas? Would like to do some digging for next season.

Fortunatly we never had any issues with theft. We have ridden 20 thousand miles in Quebec and never encountered a problem. We did lock our sleds up at night to be sure. Many times we would leave the truck in Jackman Maine and saddlebag in to QC. It seems the highest theft rates were always near the Montreal area.

The Bingham area is just as good as going to Jackman without driving the extra 1 hour. You can drive by sled not car. The Forks area is good they do get a lot of renters but do have 4 groomers so it is only rough in a few spots on weekends.We always went to Bingham to save the hour to Jackman and you can go any way you want north south east west all the trails are really nice.Jackman might have a little bit better night life but we were always so tired we eat supper had some beers and then went to bed.Its nothing to do a couple hundred miles in a 8 hour day and that's stopping for lunch.

+1

That is me to a T!

The only problem is on years like we just had, from the Forks on south was thin, very thin. but on a good snow year Bingham offers some great trails in all directions.
Unfortunately SAB1 if you want to beat the crowds you have to drive the distance. Another thing for us was with only 200+ miles of groomed riding Pittsburg can get really boring after a couple of years. Ya there are other places but still with that 45mph speed limit you are really limited to just how many miles you can go in a day.

I thought you rode in the woods anyway. :rolleye2:

Both, usually most of the riding through the end of February is trails. After that when the snow depth improves and settles we try to ride mostly off trail. The last two years was almost all trails due to lack of snow and depth.
Even on a good year it still only 70% trails 30% off trail. Even on a year that would be average for us of 3500 miles, at 30% that would mean 1000+ miles of backwoods riding. That's a lot of boondocking!
This year with my wife laid off we went up for 2 long weekends and only managed a little over 1100 miles for the season. Terrible year. Last weekend was the second and last weekend, the sleds are put up till next year.
Don't get me wrong Pittsburg isn't a bad place. It's like skiing is to Gunstock. Gunstock is a great family mountain, but if you want ski, you go north to the big mountains. I worked at Gunstock and had a free pass to ski and still drove to Cannon to ski.

The woods just got good. Plenty of snow out there now.

Nice sled, very similar to our Back Country sleds. 1 3/4 track?

Wrong burg
 

:offtopic:

You're all talking about the wrong -burg. You should head down to Lunenburg, MA.

...WORCESTER COUNTY...
HOLDEN 22.0 1200 PM 3/08 SPOTTER
SHREWSBURY 20.0 1138 AM 3/08 GENERAL PUBLIC
LUNENBURG 20.0 1209 PM 3/08 EMERGENCY MANAGER

154 x 2.25" track. Big difference from a back country. Still plenty of snow in Pittsburg. Pic of my buddy that's a little stuck with his. I came back down to help him dig out. Picture taken yesterday.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

Nice, been there done that oh so many times. We've also learned that when the temps get warm after a cold night we only go in the deep stuff until about noon. Any time after that the snow becomes so soft that we would find ourselves in this same predicament over and over unless we were just playing on the flats. One thing that we want to get is a set of the 10+ inch wide skies to swap on for that type of riding.
It looks like getting out of the throttle a little earlier might have helped.

FYI we pack snow shoes and a shovel to help in that type of situation.
We also have a bungee tool that attaches to the ski with a handle on the other end for getting out of situations.

Emergency Radio
 

Does anyone have any recommendations for an emergency radio? Anyone who rides in the Pittsburg area is way out of cell range. What is the best way to communicate with someone if there is an emergency? Early September and already thinking SNOW!!!

Spot gps
 

I purchased a spot GPS emergency transponder. It cost 25 and about $100 a year for the service. If you or someone gets hurt you hit the button and sends out your location for rescue. They have different options on equipment. I saw one that connects to your iPhone so you can make GPS phone calls.

Safest bet is PLB, personal locator beacon that connects directly to satellites.

This link has a pretty good overview of the technology:

http://www.oceanmedix.com/oceanmedix...12-04-plb.html

There are many being made now, they seem to be about $300.00

http://www.thegpsstore.com/ACR-2880-...FYOk4AodHVYAtQ

Good luck

Emergency Radio
 

I will check out both the GPS emergency transponder and the PLB. I appreciate your feedback. Hopefully we will never need it, but you never know when an item like this could save a life. Thanks again!