No Winter Maintenance

I had never seen this road sign until I moved here to Potter County.

No Winter Maintenance.

In the summer, these are beautiful secluded little country roads perfect for taking walks, picking blackberries, and they're a great short cut from here to there.

But, these roads don't get plowed in the winter.  The only things that drive down them at this time of year are snowmobiles and occasionally big farm tractors.  If you drive down these roads in the spring, your car could sink in the mud up to it's axles!

There's a funny thing about these "No Winter Maintenance" roads - GPS and other navigation systems in your car don't recognize them as impassable.

A few years ago, we had a group of friends come up here for the spring Maple Weekend and one of them was sent by their GPS over a road named "Black Hole Road."  There's a reason it's called Black Hole Road.  On this road there's no cell phone service and they hit mud so deep that it even kicked up onto the roof of their little SUV!

They were lucky - they made it out.  But now I always tell friends that if GPS sends them over Black Hole Road - Don't Go!