The Saab Club of Canada

We certainly got what we asked for with respect to winter weather! The high winds and drifting snow on Sunday put both our cars and our drivers to the test. The event was a success with 6 cars and 10 participants, a good turnout considering the very challenging weather.

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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:

1. 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
2. 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.
3. We will visit a country store that sells excellent apples and other fresh local items.
4. 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.

Thanks for everyone’s interest–we’re going ahead with this event.

At this point, Beaver Valley is in a commanding lead in our poll, and there is an excellent country market stop we can make (I have been buying apples from there for years), as well as a lunch stop that I am very sure you would never stumble across on your own (it was recommended to me at the market).

As we have seen in Eastern Canada recently, weather is unpredictable. For this event, we don’t want “too good”–warm and sunny will just make a mess–and we don’t want “too bad”–the roads will be closed, dangerous, or both. Therefore, I am proposing that we have an event date and a weather alternate: January 19th as the event date, and January 26th as the alternate seem to be the best choices.

If the weather is okay, but the roads are really bad, Tiny Beaches remains a viable alternative.

Because the weather and road conditions can change dramatically over just a few days, we will have to have a GO/NO-GO decision fairly close to the event. In addition to posting here, I am looking at ways for interested people to register for e-mail updates. Further details will be posted early in the New Year.

Please let me know what you think.