Ride Along With E Ont OPP SAVE Team ....
.Yesterday I had the oportunity of going on a ride along for the day with Constable Sean Mc Caffrey. Sean is part of the Eastern Ontario SAVE team (Snowmobile, ATV & Vessel Enforcement Team), in the Kingston Ontario area .... what a great experiance.
Conditions in the Odessa area varied from very poor to pretty darn good, still well worth a day out on the trails. Quite for the most part due to deteriorating conditions and the holidays. Here's a few pic's and some explanation of our day.
8:30 am I met up with Sean at the Odessa OPP detachment for the tour of the facilities
and suit up, here's the in season toy box for the Eastern Ontario SAVE Unit .. real cool !!!
Sean and his Snow Cruiser .. these Doo's certainly are equiped to do the job.
Here's a peek at Sean's gear locker, nice to se things have stepped up
couple notches from the days of Can-Tire bubble helmets, one piece suits and 377 Safari's for our boy's in blue
One of Save Unit tow vehicles
Now for the off season SAVE toy box, boats quads and more boats ... and bigger boats
Sean and I out on the trail taking a communication stop
Time for some stupid taxation .... we came upon this fellow who had a new to him sled, first 5 miles on it, and he tries to cross running water with sparse 1 to 2" ice coverage ... :roll: (Christmas gift so no reg paperwork with him .... US purchass to boot)
Time for more stupid tax, his buddy comes trucking down the side of the HWY
on a quad to pull him out ... with out a helmet !! :roll:
Sean writing up a couple Christmas cards for them while the guy's hook
up to pull the sled out .... I wanted to tazer them but Sean doesn't carry one
We then took a ride up through a great mix of field, bush and rail line trails to the
Lenox & Addington Ridge Runners club house, these guys'
did a an amazing job on the trails with what they have for snow, while there we got lucky
and I had a chance to meet Carl one of the clubs executives and founding members. For me it's always great to meet the folks who make the trails we ride on !!! So Carl and Sean
gave me a tour of L&A's facilities. I'd like to add that L&A is going through the same thing
many Ontario clubs are going through, an aging volunteer base and no younger blood stepping up
to take over. For those of you who live and ride in the area, give Lenox & Addington Ridge Runners a call, and do your best to give them hand for a few hours every once in a while, they could really use the help ... amazing trails they have too, I'll defiantly be back to ride there once winter shows again up and conditions improve.
Nice trails and club house L & A keep up the good work !!
A last pic of Sean and with our steeds I before heading back to the detachment and
calling it a day with just under 70 miles our belts for the day, and thats usually a high
mile day for a SAVE team.
Here's a pic of a real cool bridge the L & R put up right beside the 401 (just west of the Camden East exit)
it hardly moved with a sled going over .... cool well built bridge !! (Same river buddy dunked his Cat in, just on the other side of the bridge)
Again thanks for the awesome day Sean
For me a day like this is what sleddings all about, meeting and riding with new friends who share the same enthusiasim in the sport and give back to it in many ways, whether it's a another club volunteer or the SAVE team out doing search and rescue, or policing the trails for us to safely enjoy ............ awesome day with good people
.