This is a reminder that the Saab Club of Canada’s winter driving event, “Saabs in the Snow”, is set for this Sunday, January 19th. We will get in a lot of snow-covered roads in some very scenic locations around Beaver Valley.
NOTE: the route’s conditions will be checked today (Friday January 17th). Hopefully all will be good, but keep watching the website and your Saab Club of Canada e-mails in case we have to postpone the event due to bad conditions.
The meeting point is Coffee Time, at the junction of Highways 10/89 and County Road 124 (ex-Highway 24) on the east side of Shelburne. The Coffee Time, is paired with an Esso station on the NE corner. Departure time from the meeting point is 11 AM. We should be done and back in Markdale on Highway 10 by 4 PM at the latest. The drive includes a stop for food at a unique diner.
Proper snow tires are mandatory. We will be driving on snow-packed gravel roads, with some steep gradients and sharp curves.
Please note the following:
- Bring: a snow shovel (but you won’t need it!), a warm coat, and high winter boots to handle the snow: we will have photo stops
- Washroom facilities are non-existent in the backcountry in winter. Modify your coffee drinking accordingly. There may be one or two stops by a frozen port-a-potty at the side of an inaccessible snow-covered parking lot. That’s where the winter boots come in.
- We will visit a country store that sells excellent apples and other fresh local items.
- The weather forecast is for the event is: Cloudy with 70 percent chance of snow. Blowing snow. Windy. Low minus 8. High minus 2. Blowing snow may affect the routing. If we are very unlucky, roads may be closed–something we can’t tell ahead of time.
Despite all the above, the event is about having fun driving in conditions that are absolutely not like a slush-covered 401 in rush hour. It should be fun, so please join us.
RE: Saabs in the Snow
@saabscott, Yup… I’ll second that!
A highly enjoyable day in the snow country driving our Saabs in the conditions they are meant to be driven.
It wasn’t white knuckle driving but it was exhilarating.
@Ed. Many thanks for planning, organizing and ‘leading the pack’. Perhaps you might want to post this route, so that other members could drive it on another occasion?
It was a great route with a couple of interesting stops! I have never been down some of the those roads before. I will do this trip again with one or more of my family.
Hi George;
Thanks for coming, it’s always nice to get people out.
I will figure out how to attach the route document I wrote up to either this post or the one with pictures in it.
Of course if you already have the document, it’s all there. We didn’t do the bit after Frog Hollow due to time and weather.
What a great event … even the weather cooperated (much like it does for our summer / fall drives).
On the way out, we beat the closure of Hwy 124 … not sure by how much.
On the way home, we made it onto the last stretch of Hwy 10 north of Shelburne JUST as they had arrived to put up signs closing that road!
The drive in between was fantastic and the dinner we stopped at for lunch was pretty great too.
I took lots of video on the drive following lunch. Combine that with photos taken by a couple of our navigators and our February meeting should be a fun one!
Many thanks to Ed who conceptualized this and planned the entire thing!