Golden Triangle

[Sledderglen]

The Golden Triangle will be open again this year. For those of you that don`t know what the GOLDEN TRIANGLE is here it is.

Maintained snowmobile trail between the towns of Whitecourt,Fox Creek and Swan Hills. Towns all involved and funding in place. Trail will be groomed and all signage will be inplace.
So all those coming to ride please have a Trail Pass,plates and insurance. Buy your Trail Pass locally and help out the club in that area.

 

[tmo1620]

Sounds awesome, cmon snow:d

 

[Mr.Plow]

How is the snow pack in Whitecourt, Swanhills & Fox Creek??? We are looking for a riding area for this weekend.

 

[Summiteer]

Whitecourt 8 or so inches, pretty fluffy.

 

[old mountain man]

Rode Goodwin trail and then north to the river. Not bad. Put on 60 miles.

 

[mtndoo]

I am organizing a 3 day ride of the Golden Triangle, starting in Whitecourt, then to Swan Hills, Fox Creek, and back to Whitecourt.

I have a couple of questions & am hoping I can get some advice:
- what is the condition of the trails (are they groomed, or at least ridden on)?
- are the signs up?
- any advice on accommodations in Swan Hills and Fox Creek? Anybody give a break to sledders?

Thanks in advance!

 

[old mountain man]

There is a snow line @ 780-313-7383. Nothing groomed on the Whitecourt side of trail yet. Major dump of snow over the last few days.

 

[Summiteer]

I've been told that the trail is completely cleared from Swan hills to whitecourt. As of last weekend therewas a short section betweeh SH and Fox Creek that hadn't been done but may be complete now. The Whitecourt club has plans to groom our section twice this year, not sure when the first pass will be made, probably next week barring equipment problems. Old Mountain man is one of out groomer operators so he would have better first hand info.

 

[mtndoo]

I am organizing a 3 day ride of the Golden Triangle, starting in Whitecourt, then to Swan Hills, Fox Creek, and back to Whitecourt.

I have a couple of questions & am hoping I can get some advice:
- what is the condition of the trails (are they groomed, or at least ridden on)?
- are the signs up?
- any advice on accommodations in Swan Hills and Fox Creek? Anybody give a break to sledders?

Thanks in advance!

Four of us just finished the Golden Triangle ride, started out in Whitecourt, rode to Swan Hills Saturday, Fox Creek Sunday, and back to Whitecourt on Monday.

Sled conditions were - _interesting_ to say the least. Here is a summary:

- Whitecourt to Carson Cabin - groomed and great conditions, but we found it quite confusing to get from Whitecourt (Quality Inn) onto the start of the trail system. After we got onto the trails, we were again confused trying to get to Swan Hills as the first sign that we saw at the very southern peak of the trail pointing to Swan Hills indicated that we should go toward the Eagle River staging area, but that made no sense to us. We spent the next while messing around on the trails trying to figure out where we should be going, finally caught up with some sledders that pointed us in the right direction.

- after Carson Cabin, the trails were ungroomed but there was a sled trail that we could follow. There was occasional seismic work that messed up the trails through the start, but as we progressed the seismic work got more extreme to the point that we could not longer ride the trails. We talked to some of the seismic workers that we saw when we got lost and found out that they have been clearing trails right through the snowmobile trail system and have been taking out the trees with signs on them. We ended up finding our way over to highway 32 about 23 km south of Swan Hills and we rode the ditches/highway into Swan Hills (lots of bridges forced us to spend quite a bit of time on the highway). Destroyed our skags, but got to Swan Hills at about 10pm.

- Swan Hills trail to the warm up shelter at Goose Tower road was ungroomed, but travelled and easy to follow. After the warm up shelter we were breaking trails almost all the way to Fox Creek. The ride was absolutely fantastic, but you could not get through without a mountain sled. We spent quite a bit of time stuck and built a few makeshift bridges to get across creeks, but the trails were very well marked - much better than Whitecourt to Swan Hills. The last part of the ride to Fox Creek was freshly groomed.

- Fox Creek trails to Whitecourt were completely groomed - very easy drive, but we were a bit challenged keeping the temps down on the sleds. Temperature gauge was great to have, next time I will have ice scratchers. Also - we stopped at the Snogoers cabin for lunch and it is in extremely rough shape. Five minutes down the trail, we went by the Whitecourt cabin which looked absolutely fantastic. If you want some advice, just get rid of the Snogoers cabin & share the Whitecourt one.

So - as a summary, IMHO there is no way that there will be any group rides of the Golden Triangle until the seismic damage is fixed up on the second half of the Whitecourt/Swan Hills leg, and grooming the middle of the Swan Hills/Fox Creek leg is going to be a pretty good challenge.

 

[JamesZuk]

the main problem with our shack is that it is too easily accessible IMO to way too many A$$es that do not respect it... But with the limited funding we do have we try to keep it in the best shape that we can, but with being vandalized on a regular basis (even with the cops touring regularly) we try our best but.... theres always the few that have to wreck it for the others

 

[Sledderglen]

Siesmec crew cutting down trees with designated signage on them. I would be calling the boss of these jokers and get some compensation. That is a reconized provincial trail system. Burns me up when I hear how hard working volunteer clubs get the shaft by these outfits coming to do some work. when the job is finished they take off and leave you with a wrecked trail and thousands of $$ of work and hours to repair..

 

[brew_doo]

Siesmec crew cutting down trees with designated signage on them. I would be calling the boss of these jokers and get some compensation. That is a reconized provincial trail system. Burns me up when I hear how hard working volunteer clubs get the shaft by these outfits coming to do some work. when the job is finished they take off and leave you with a wrecked trail and thousands of $$ of work and hours to repair..

A group of seven of us Trailblazers headed out today to clear deadfall b/w the Carson cabin and letter 'O' on the triangle towards Swan Hills. We cleared alot of trees from last weeks wind storm but hit trail cleared to the dirt from a D8 working our trails for seismic work. The trail is pretty well clear of snow 5 kilometers on either side of letter 'N' on the trail. Will update once the seismic crews are completed and we get some snow to cover the mess they have made.

 

[badmonkey]

A group of seven of us Trailblazers headed out today to clear deadfall b/w the Carson cabin and letter 'O' on the triangle towards Swan Hills. We cleared alot of trees from last weeks wind storm but hit trail cleared to the dirt from a D8 working our trails for seismic work. The trail is pretty well clear of snow 5 kilometers on either side of letter 'N' on the trail. Will update once the seismic crews are completed and we get some snow to cover the mess they have made.

Bastichis!!!!!!!

 

[brew_doo]

A group of seven of us Trailblazers headed out today to clear deadfall b/w the Carson cabin and letter 'O' on the triangle towards Swan Hills. We cleared alot of trees from last weeks wind storm but hit trail cleared to the dirt from a D8 working our trails for seismic work. The trail is pretty well clear of snow 5 kilometers on either side of letter 'N' on the trail. Will update once the seismic crews are completed and we get some snow to cover the mess they have made.

Our trail co-ordinator has spoken with this crew and they are going to blade snow back onto the trail by the end of the day Wednesday, Feb. 9 .

 

[ridehard]

The blading back did not happen in time for the Jamboree weekend.
A group of 4 of us sledded from St. Paul thru Ft. Assiniboin to Location P (or 8), then turned southwest-bound for Whitecourt. about 6 to 10 kms in, the seismic started and the trail ended. 50 or so kms later, skidding on bare ground and with very few trail signs, all while trying unsuccessfully for an alternate westbound route to the hiway, we finally got south far enough to get on some south and west-bound pipelines that got us back on to the undestroyed Golden Triangle Trail, that took us into Whitecourt. The 85'ish kms. that should have taken us a couple of hours, took us 7hours to do.
Fortunately, we had good fuel range, decent navigation sense, a patient and logical crew, and nice winter weather.
Finally got to into our Fox Creek destination at about 2am.
No mechanical issues or injuries, except for one (almost) "poke in the eye with a sharp stick", at nite while looking hard for snow.
Somebody could die out there. Exploration should at least be responsible enough to consider the safety of the riders out there, and the well-being of so many hard-working volunteers. You all do a great job of your trail system, and otherwise, the weekend was hugely enjoyable for us.
1120kms in the 3 days (approx 500ms there, 120kms rally, & 500kms back home).
236kms on a normal tank of fuel with the 800 e-Tec!, and even more with the 600ACE.

 

[Sledderglen]

Jerry told you could find info here. Snow and mud is where you find trail updates.

 

[ridehard]

Now that I know that, I might suggest that you might move to modify the message at:
to suggest looking here for the most current trail conditions available.
I had also tried Whitecourt, Swan Hills and Fox Creek internet info.
Thanks, Sledderglen.
ps. nice sled you ride!

 

[rellek]

We did the triangle on the long weekend and the trail was good until we got to 'M' and the trail started deteriating. By the time we got to 'N' it was kind of a crap shoot as to which direction to go. There was brushed cut lines and no snow. Signage was hard to follow or at least I missed it. I had 'P' gps'ed so we made way in that direction stopping lots due to overheating. We made the fatal mistake of coming to a pipeline and following that thinking it would be faster as it was getting late and fuel was getting low. Ended up ditch banging it to the freeman river and then into Swan Hills on the trails. Other than the seismic area the trails were wicked. These 3 clubs do a great job on the trails. Swan Hills to Fox Creek and then to White Court the next day were two great days of awesome riding. We could use some snow on top of this again but the wives enjoyed the trail riding. With that being said I don't think I would do the triangle again until the problem area was repaired or properly routed around.

 

[ridehard]

Our Minister of SRD has recently gotten the message, and also acknowleged that the good work of the volunteers needs to be better protected. The seismic trail destruction that we both experienced should no longer be tolerated, instead be budgeted into a very prompt and proper repair by the energy company. Honorable Mel Knight is a good man, and our biggest problem is that we ourselves do not keep the pressure on to get the issues permanently fixed by motivating that clear Gov't policy gets put in place and honored.
3 Clubs: guys, your opportunity to get fixed a Provincial problem is truly Golden.
Look at your calendars, book an appointment in Edmonton, spend 1 day protecting that which you spend thousands of hours to build and then repair.