Freedomflyer

Depends whether you have nervous riders wth you or not.😁 Wouldn't bug me but have a wife that wouldn't be too keen on the idea, and a brother who is just a nervous Nelly!! He gets uptight if I even use words like "not sure exactly" , " I think" or "maybe try" even up tight if it starts getting a little late in the day. 😄 Try to sneak out without him one in a while just to have a more relaxing day🤣😂🙂.

😁that's nice too.

We're pretty spoiled in this part of the country, in fact our state is actually larger than New Zealand by 44,000 Square miles. Our population is just barely over a million, I think 1.069 million. So a very rural state. Pretty much the whole western 1/3 of the state is mountainous and forested with a ton of 50" wide trails and roads that are maintained by The U.S. Forest Service. Up until a couple years ago we were able to use all of them with a permanent license plate and sticker we we bought when registering and licensing our machines. Within the last couple of years they implemented an extra trail pass sticker for each machine that we have to purchase every two years now. It's a bummer but is still reasonably priced to give us access (legally) to the trails and roads. There are those of course who will go ahead and ride without it until they get caught then claim they didn't know about it. I have some friends, well more acquaintances than friends who are doing that. To each there own I guess. I'm thankful we still, at this point, have access to the public lands.

Yeah I think it's too easy to do, time passes quickly and before you know it loved ones are gone and you didn't do anything. He's 14 yrs. older was gone and in the Navy when I was 4 yrs old, after he was discharged and came home, there was such a huge age difference between him and the next brother (12 yrs) I just didn't really have any sort of relationship with them. It was like two different families, even the 6 years between my 3rd brother and I was so big that I was just a pain in the neck to him as well. Ot wasn't until I was in my mid 20's that I started connecting with them. And well into my mid to late 40's that was we were able to relate and develop our friendships. I was raising a family so that took a lot of time as well. Thankful for the relationships and time I get to spend with them now and the fact that we can share the same interest in ATV's and get out together. With failing health, will make a more concerted effort to get out more frequently. As of late have shared interest in Radio Controlled Rock crawlers. We have come across some great areas out 4 wheeling that have some awesome areas to use those. We plan on making some ATV outings this coming summer to go do that as well. One of the places we want to go is about a 10 mile ride in to some huge granite rock slabs, will be a fun outing. Hoping to talk the other two into each getting one as well. Do you get out riding much or have places you are allowed to ride?

I live in Southwest Montana, most of these pics are taken about 20 miles from my house. Well, 20 miles to the trailhead, then 5-10 miles in. Some of them are at one trailhead that is about 50 miles away but all of them are in southwest Montana. Bozeman area.

I do agree that they are an important part of the food chain. Unfortunately this whole program was horribly mismanaged and the reproduction rate was well above what they expected. There really are too many in the area, I know several ranchers/farmers personally that have been dealing with them for the last 2 decades. They are constantly at watch worried for their livestock, pets, and even their kids at times on these rural farms/ranches and have felt like their hands have been tied, but now in the past couple of years, are able to buy up to 10 tags and start protecting their livelihood. I found out today there was 2 other wolves with this one that was killed, they ran off and another one was killed by another rancher down the road, the 3rd got away.

MGoing to apologize in advance to those that have a soft spot for wolves. They are definitely not my favorite species of animal. They continue to grow bolder and bolder even with the population exploding all around us in this wide open valley floor. This valley is approximately 40 miles long by 35 miles wide. Was once mostly agricultural but over the last 25+ years, the kids of long time property owners have sold to the highest bidder. Developers buying up small farms and ranches for millions of dollars and eating away at the local agricultural way of life, destroying the rural Montana I, and many natives, once knew, covering up perfect farm land with urban sprawl, never again to produce a grain of wheat or barley, potato, canola seed, or any crop of any kind ever again. Lining developers pockets, raping and pillaging another rural area and leaving the infrastructure in a colossal mess and the local cities trying to figure out how to pay for the improvements to move the traffic, overloading an already overloaded tax base. FINALLY, after years of farmers and ranchers lobbying and legislation, they finally opened up a season to hunt the destructive and devastating consequences of the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park. These animals have become a huge problem outside of the park boundary. Did the powers that be actually think these killing machines would stay inside the park boundaries? Really? Hmmmmm, not the sharpest tools in the shed. Their population has exploded over their reintroduction into the park in 1995. They released 41 wolves into different areas in Yellowstone Park, then made it illegal to kill any of them that came out of the park boundaries. Pretty much leaving farmers and ranchers defenseless in protecting their livelihood without becoming a criminal. If they did ever shoot one the investigation process has been so stringent and stressful a lot of them have done the 3 S's. Shoot, Shovel, and Shutup! There are now over 1500 wolves in western Montana, over 1100 in Idaho, over 400 in Wyoming, and almost 150 in Eastern Washington. Who knows how many have migrated back into Canada. They finally delisted the wolves and opened up a hunting season on them, something that should have been done years ago before they decimated our elk population. A friend of ours was able procure a tag and was able to fill it yesterday morning. The wolf was down in the middle of the valley floor stalking his cattle on his family ranch, definitely deserved to be taken out. Personally would like to see more taken down, they have gone well beyond repopulation with this program and have spent millions on tracking and thousands of man hours, colossal waste. Glad to see another one gone.

MGoing to apologize in advance to those that have a soft spot for wolves. They are definitely not my favorite species of animal. They continue to grow bolder and bolder even with the population exploding all around us in this wide open valley floor. This valley is approximately 40 miles long by 35 miles wide. Was once mostly agricultural but over the last 25+ years, the kids of long time property owners have sold to the highest bidder. Developers buying up small farms and ranches for millions of dollars and eating away at the local agricultural way of life, destroying the rural Montana I, and many natives, once knew, covering up perfect farm land with urban sprawl, never again to produce a grain of wheat or barley, potato, canola seed, or any crop of any kind ever again. Lining developers pockets, raping and pillaging another rural area and leaving the infrastructure in a colossal mess and the local cities trying to figure out how to pay for the improvements to move the traffic, overloading an already overloaded tax base. FINALLY, after years of farmers and ranchers lobbying and legislation, they finally opened up a season to hunt the destructive and devastating consequences of the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park. These animals have become a huge problem outside of the park boundary. Did the powers that be actually think these killing machines would stay inside the park boundaries? Really? Hmmmmm, not the sharpest tools in the shed. Their population has exploded over their reintroduction into the park in 1995. They released 41 wolves into different areas in Yellowstone Park, then made it illegal to kill any of them that came out of the park boundaries. Pretty much leaving farmers and ranchers defenseless in protecting their livelihood without becoming a criminal. If they did ever shoot one the investigation process has been so stringent and stressful a lot of them have done the 3 S's. Shoot, Shovel, and Shutup! There are now over 1500 wolves in western Montana, over 1100 in Idaho, over 400 in Wyoming, and almost 150 in Eastern Washington. Who knows how many have migrated back into Canada. They finally delisted the wolves and opened up a hunting season on them, something that should have been done years ago before they decimated our elk population. A friend of ours was able procure a tag and was able to fill it yesterday morning. The wolf was down in the middle of the valley floor stalking his cattle on his family ranch, definitely deserved to be taken out. Personally would like to see more taken down, they have gone well beyond repopulation with this program and have spent millions on tracking and thousands of man hours, colossal waste. Glad to see another one gone.

I use Onx Offroad maps, download a satellite of the area you're going to ride, then start to record the track when you start your ride. It runs off satellites not cell service.

Boy jamo, I haven't had that issue with any of the machines I've had my plow on. Used a 2013 Honda Rancher, a 2018 Can Am Outlander, and now a 2016 Outlander Max. Never had my battery run down and have done quite a lot of plowing with all 3 machines.

A bit cooler than expected 🥶😕

Getting more snow, supposed to snow all day, not sure how heavy but have about 5 inches of new snow.

Finally got some snow, enough to mount the plow.

8hrs Had the opportunity to get out for a ride yesterday. A friend came for Thanksgiving from North Dakota so since I had a 5 day weekend this weekend, we headed to one of the few trailheads that are still open this time of year about an hour away. Was a fairly blustery day and only 28 degrees when we left the house. Pipestone (our destination) is about the same elevation at we are but for some reason doesn't seem to get the same amount of snow. Always seems to be bare there when we have snow on the ground. We got unloaded and on the trail at roughly 8:45 a.m. was only about 33 degrees, wind was a steady 20mph which makes it feel like it's around 22. I don't think he was too excited as we were unloading as the wind was biting at us in the parking area. I told him it would get better as we got down the trail and into the hills, and it did as we moved on. Took him to one of the places here that is very unique, even by world's standards We have a place called the ringing rocks and it is really strange how it works. It's a huge pile of rocks that are just sitting on one another, they are called sonorous rocks and resonate sound like a bell when struck with a metal object. Very unique areas, and very few places in the world, 4 or so that have these rock fields. There are only 2 areas in the U.S., one here in Montana, an area in Pennsylvania, an area in the United Kingdom, and one in Australia. Although a pretty cold day there were bits of sunshine that showed through throughout the day. Trails were pretty much dry and sandy. We had 3 small water crossings of about 14 or 15" deep where ice has started to dam up small creeks. These are fairly small and only 20' or so across. At 1 point we thought maybe we might have to turn back as skies were getting pretty black and dark but decided to push through and only ended up with a few flurries of snow that disappeared and then followed by patches of sun. We put on about 40 miles and had a great day stopping for lunch with some turkey sandwiches. One of my favorite places to go and would like to do a bit more exploring as there are hundreds of different trails there are hundreds of different trails that crisscross and connect. Lot of history here with mines and trestle bridges, there is also a spot where an airplane crashed and they never did remove the plane, that one I would really like to find. The landscape is just cool as there are huge house sized, and larger, Granite rock slabs throughout the Trees and hills. Another benefit is most of the trails are sandy type soil and pretty smooth. With all of the granite here they actually had a quarry that they cut huge slabs for the court houses in the surrounding counties. Unlike the trails that are close to us that have sharp protruding rocks, in a lot of our area, different type of rock. Was a great day as it always is when you're on the trails

Angle blade and run the length if you can, if you get large amounts of snow frequently and are able, pushed it WELL off each side of the driveway because it will build up making it more difficult to plow as winter drags on. Of you don't get it far enough off your driving lan will become narrower and narrower as winter progresses.

I know a gal that is a Veterinarian that works for the Fish Wildlife and Parks, I kind of put her on the spot regarding Grizzly Bears and asked her what her thoughts were about people hunting them. She didn't even hesitate when she said, and I quote, "If they had people hunting them, we (FWP), would have to kill a lot less of them" she said "There are way too many of them and they need to learn respect and fear of humans again, it's time to open hunting season on Grizzlies again." The tree huggers would absolutely flip out but it is getting bad in certain areas around here, and areas in Wyoming and Idaho. Same thing with the Wolves their population exploded when they reintroduced them into Yellowstone Park, they have decimated the Elk population. They finally delisted them and opened a hunting season on them, it is helping some but there are so many it's going to take a while to get them back under control, same needs to happen with Grizzlies, they were never a problem until the greenness got involved.

I have an ap called onX offroad, it runs about 30.00 a year but is well worth it as you are not using a separate device, uses your cell phone and you can save areas prior to riding on your phone then go to that area offline and record your rides, mark stopping points etc. They also have a hunting version I believe. They are based out of Missoula Montana, I believe, my nephew works for them, is the web page designer. Pretty cool ap works well, in our area we have trails that shut down certain times of the year, when you click on that trail it tells you what dates it opens and closes so you aren't riding illegally when you're not supposed to be. Might work for some of you guys. https://www.onxmaps.com/

Very cool video! I'm too much of a wuss to put my machines through the paces in mud, I hate cleaning them up. Wouldn't be bad if the wife came out and helped,🙄 she just gets on turns the key and gets it dirty. And........POOF!!! The next time she gets on...........it's squeaky clean, hmmmm.......that was easy. 😄 Nice King Quad, Suzuki's are pretty bullet proof machines. Kind of you to get the 90 for your niece she'll have a blast. Don't know much about the era of the one you're working on, I just know Suzuki made a tough machine. We don't have parks we ride in here in Montana. We have access to Forest service property, 17 million acres worth and BLM property, (Bureau Of Land Management) 8.3 million acres worth of that as well, not that we have trails on every acre of those properties but there are thousands and thousands of miles to ride in the Western half of the state. We used to be able to ride the trails just by having a permanent offroad registration sticker but 2 years ago they started making us buy a trail sticker for each machine that is good for 2 years, mine expire at the end of this year, so will have to get 2 new ones on January. $20.00 for 2 years, not terrible, more of an inconvenience than anything. We have quite a few trailheads within 20-30 minutes from our house, and often when we're out, very rarely see anyone on the trails. The only drawback is we have limited times that we can ride, beings we are at the altitude we're at, some of our trails don't open until the middle of June and some close the middle of October, others December 1st. Too much snow, if they open them up people will tear them to shreds then they become very dangerous. And some of them are fairly technical even when they are bone dry, a wrong move and you can slide off a trail and drop along ways before stopping, so a bit unnerving at times when we get caught in the rain or come to an icy or snowpack trail in early spring on the ones that do open. I feel pretty blessed to live where we do and to have the freedom to ride on our local forested mountains. Here's a couple of pics of my machines, I'll personal message you with some other pics that I've already posted on this forum, don't need to bore anyone with repeat pics.

Any pics of your machines or area you ride? Gotta be some pretty area there.

I think they're a useful tool when used properly, but agree they have not helped our society one bit.

Welcome, I am guilty of not posting here as often as I should, busy life. I don't do Facebook and don't plan on it, my wife is always staring into her phone, annoying! Hope you can find what you're looking for here. Sorry but I can't help you, I'm a Can Am guy.

Had the privilege to get out both days this weekend, weather was fantastic. Was able to take my oldest brother out to an area he hadn't been to yet, and was thankful that we got to spend that time together just the two of us. I did ask some others to go but they were unable to make it so it ended up making a special day for us. His health is not the greatest so will definitely treasure the time and memories of this outing. Was also able to finally link up with my neighbor and some friends of theirs and take them on one of our favorite trails today. They seem to be gone most weekends over the summer so has been tough to connect over the past 4 years since they bought their Razors. They seem to stick pretty close and go riding and camping together most weekends. With fall setting in and it dipping into the high 20's and low low 30's at night, our camping season is coming to a close. Still in the 50's - 70's during the day but pretty chilly at night. They had a free weekend so we were finally able to take advantage and get out. Today confirmed for me, once again, why we haven't moved to the sidexside realm yet. We were going to ride on one trail, and even though they have 50" machines. The trailheads have huge rocks, posts, or arched cattle guard type gated areas that are exactly 50" apart. This keeps the larger sized SxS's, jeeps and other 4 wheel drive vehicles off the trails and from getting torn to shreds. My wife and I drove our ATV'S through and friends attempted to do the same. Even though the posts were 50" apart and perfectly plumb, the ground was sloped side to side causing the fenders and door area to lean too far to the side and would have scratched the entire side of the machine as he drove through. He couldn't even get the front fender flair through with out it getting scraped and gouged by the wire of the fence wrapped around the posts. So had to change plans and go different route. Still ended up being a terrific day and they had a great time riding in a new area. No SxS for us in the near future!!! Here's some pics from both days

In retrospect it wasn't terrible, I think being late in the day played a big factor. We were in a strange area and my wife wanted to be out of there before dark. So maybe felt a bit rushed an earlier start might have been better.

Took a ride yesterday, thought we'd try a different area out of the valley. Had been talking to a guy I've been working with and he told me about an area 100 miles from us. We decided to check it out and drove over there, we got a pretty late start from home and ended up at the staging area around 4 and on the trail/road about 4:15. Should've done a bit more research about the area itself. It was more of a jeep road than a 4 wheeler trail. We met a full size Hum Vee pickup coming down along with a couple of other pickups. Starting out the "road" was pretty much like any other forest service road to an atv trailhead except there was never any trail head as it was not a 50" wide trail. It just continues to deteriorate to probably one of the roughest, bumpiest, rock filled excursions we've been on in all of our 6 years we've been riding. The area was nice enough in that the forest is nice and healthy with lots of trees and normally we would've enjoyed exploring a new area but the roughness of the road made it somewhat unpleasant to ride. Maybe part of it was the fact it was laten in the day but my idea of a trail ride is not 1-5 mph most of the way. We just expected it to get better and it didn't. There was a loop and bt the time we finished the loop we had no interest in taking the spur up to the lake. Some folks might have really enjoyed it by was really not the kind of riding we enjoy, maybe if it had been an early morning ride we'd have felt differently. So we'll chalk that one up to experience and probably not do it again. Plus it's very very smoky.

Have seen evidence🤣