March 1996 and we are off again. I decided that 7 days would not be enough, so this was going to be a 14 day holiday. There are 10 of us this time: Richard and I, John Hall and Nancy Howatt, Trent and Deb Danson, Gerard Hickey and Darren Waye, Bud Drover (Budster) and Roger King. Not everyone has two weeks off, but most of us did.
MACHINE SETUP
This season I'm riding a 1996 MXZ 583. I've installed 1 1/4" paddles, but I thought I would try a different pattern this year. Someone has convinced me that due to the smaller engine, I might get better performance by putting on fewer paddles. By this I mean that I would install a full width paddle, then the next one would be 2/3 width and staggered to the left. The next one would be full width and then another 2/3 but staggered to the right this time. This pattern was continued, but I have to say now that it wasn't very good. I found that when I was climbing in deep snow, I didn't have enough bite and wasn't getting enough speed. Live and learn, but I really should have seen this coming before I left Fort McMurray. For the primary clutch, I swapped springs and put in the violet/blue, and installed 289 ramps. I set the clicker to position #5, but ended up moving it to #6 once I was in the hills. In the carburetor I installed 210/200 mains, a #55 pilot, and left everything else stock. I installed an Ekholm mountain bar on top of the stock bars and put on a new TEAM NOBODY sticker and was ready.
This year we all left at different times, but all within a 12-hour window. Richard and I left Saturday morning because I had business to do in Edmonton. I was in the process of buying a new Supra ski boat, and I was meeting the Canadian distributor at the Sportsman's Trade Show in Edmonton to wheel and deal. Due to this stopover, we were the last to get to the hotel in Revelstoke, at about 10:00 P.M. that night. The rest of the gang was there and surprise, surprise, we found them in the lounge.
REVELSTOKE
We woke up Sunday morning to cloudy skies. There was a lot of snow in town, the snow banks were so high that we couldn't see the big rigs driving by on the road in front of the hotel. Half of the gang was working on their snowmobiles in the parking lot, changing jets and recalibrating clutches, and Hickey was even putting a new set of skis on his machine. Richard and I had already gotten our machines ready back in McMurray, as did Roger and Bud, but they were the busiest of the two. It seems that they had a big truck shoot a rock through the drivers side window the previous night as they were going through Rogers pass, and they were calling around trying to find a used one. I don't know who they were calling on a Sunday morning, that seemed a little strange to me, but the strangest thing is that he found one!
We all headed to Boulder Mountain, and found the parking area quite busy. It didn't take very long to reach the Alpine, and once we all assembeled, we headed out to play.
A couple of kilometers from the cabin was a pretty good sized hill that got steeper at the top, just as you started to power out. We decided to play here a while. John had brought two machines with him that year, his new Polaris XC 600, and his old INDY 650. He had done some work to the 650, trying to make it into a specialized mountain machine. He rolled the chaincase, installed a long track with 2" paddles and put some pipes on it. He used after market rail extensions to achieve the proper length he needed for the new track. I'm sure that there will be people who will argue with me, but I have never really seen a good set of after market extensions. His were giving him some problems that day, I didn't pay attention to exactly what was wrong, but he spent most of the day fiddling with the rear axle.
The weather was similar to what we experienced last year, heavy cloud cover. This limited our riding, but most everybody was playing with their jetting anyways, and eventually the cloud turned to rain, so we went back to the hotel.
We decided to leave Revelstoke that night and head west in hopes of finding some blue sky, so we drove to Sicamous and took a hotel. When we got up on Monday morning, John needed to get some parts for his 650, so everyone took a quick drive south to Mara Lake, where Baccus racing is located, a Polaris dealership. We stopped here last year, and found Everett Baccus, the owner, to be very knowledgable and helpful. If you are having carb or clutching problems, and are in the area, look him up. Mara Lake is south of Sicamous on highway 97A and you can call him at (250) 838-7611. We spent a long time there that day, and it looked like it would be too late to go riding at our planned destination, Crowfoot Mountain. Everett recommended we try riding at Hunters Range in nearby Enderby. It was now well after 1 o'clock and we had about 1-1/2 hr drive to Crowfoot, so we thought we would give it a try. We offloaded sometime after 2 o'clock and headed up the trail. Again, we found the snow to be wet and set up. The temperatures were mild everywhere, however there was some blue sky here. Somehow, Bud and Roger had gotten lost on the way to the hill, and we never did see them again until later that evening.
I have to say that I didn't find Hunters Range to my liking. The trail in was too long and too bumpy (they are all bumpy), but I wasn't impressed with what I found up top. It was more like trail riding than mountain riding. We explored a little bit, but found that the trails went on and on and on. Admittedly, we didn't go everywhere on this hill, and I have seen some pictures of alpine riding at Hunters Range in terrain that was unlike anything we saw today. It is my intention to come back here and spend a full day. I will pack some gas, because I think that the play areas are quite a ways back.
This is the warm up shelter at Hunters Ridge. That's Trent in the doorway.
CROWFOOT
After riding at Hunters Ridge, we drove to Salmon Arm and took a room there. We were about 45 minutes from Crowfoot, but everybody wanted to be in a big town, because there were more choices for restaurants and night life. When we first got into Salmon Arm, we stayed at the Travelodge motel. They have an indoor pool and a hot tub. Having a hot tub is a very important factor when selecting a place to stay. After a long day of digging snowmobiles out, your muscles need the help. Snowmobilers are welcome at the Travelodge, and the rooms are nice. The next morning we were headed up the trail at Crowfoot. The weather was gorgeous, and the temperature was right around -4 C. Personally, I prefer colder, somewhere around -15 C, because the warmer temperatures mean wet snow. This was to be our first nice day of riding, we saw nothing but blue skies. You won't find the same big hills at Crowfoot that you will in Valemont, but that isn't to say that there are no big hills. I like Crowfoot because there are lots and lots of play areas, with jumps and big snowdrifts. Most everyone in our group agreed that this mountain is the best place to ride.
Our local Polaris dealer was moving out certain models at discount prices, seeing as how it was the end of the season, and Gerard had just bought himself a new longtrack XLT at a really good price. This guy is a bit of a nut bar, and I don't think he was really that much in love with his new sled, so he started putting on a bit of a show. He would go over the edge of a hill and then jump off, and roll down the hill while the XLT went its own way. He dumped the machine once or twice, but didn't really cause too much damage doing this. He did manage to roll it on a big steep hill though. A few of us were sitting around in a big basin climbing hills, and we commented about one particular side of the bowl, how vertical it was. No sooner were the words out of our mouths, and Hickey took a big run at it. Nobody had ever climbed this thing, but that didn't stop him. He held the throttle to the bar, and just as the machine was about to power out, he pushed it away from himself, and both he and the machine tumbled endlessy to the bottom. Aside from a few small cracks, the only other damage was a broken windsheild.
Darren is modeling Hickeys' break away windsheild.
One day we found ourselves a nice long hill, with a rounded edge which would launch you if you came over the top carrying a lot of speed. We all took turns on jumping over the top, and there was almost always someone at the top with a video camera or 35mm. I say almost, because we missed one important shot, and that was when Hickey came over the top wearing nothing but his helmet and boots (the temp. was +14C). There is a rumour out there that somewhere in our group, someone has a picture. If I find it I will post it here.
This is the hill we were playing on. Look real close, you can see a couple of people standing at the top, in the center.
This is Nancy coming over the top.
Trent is taking a run at the hill.
He's not naked yet, but he's working up to it. Won't be long now.
The main chalet has a propane barbecue on the front deck, and one day we packed up some steaks and had a big cookout at the end of the day. After a long day of riding, I am so hungry that I could eat a bowl of lard with a hair in it, so imagine what happened to that poor steak. This was the same day that Hickey did his Lady Godiva thing, and we didn't notice at first, but he disappeared without saying anything to anyone.
Someone yelled "hey, where did Hickey get to?", when all of a sudden he comes blasting down the trail naked again, only this time he substituted his helmet for a ball cap. As he went by us, he stood up, leaned forward and showed us his best side. He continued down towards the main access trail, as I silently thought to myself "what a shame if he should meet up with some other riders heading towards us".
Here is the group lined up. I must be behind the camera.
Roger King going big on his EXT.
Here's the Budster jumping. He usually doesn't like to ride aggressively, but I guess he couldn't help himself. Everywhere you look there are fluffy snowdrifts beckoning.
This is me, over at Grizzly mountain. They have lots of snowdrifte there too!
Roger is a little embarrased after getting sucked into a tree well. Don't worry old boy.......
It can happen to the best of us. Same tree well, different day.
As we drove to the hill each day, we noticed signs for the Quaaout Lodge, which is located on the Little Shuswap Lake. We had heard that this hotel was supposed to be kind of posh, and Deb went to have a look one day because she didn't ride. This place is only about 10 - 15 minutes from the hill, and it is a palace! The best part of it all is that this is a summer resort, and they are just about empty in the off season. The price for a double is $49.95, cheaper than what we were paying in Salmn Arm! There is a huge hot tub, a sauna, a pool, and everything is indoors, you don't have to brave the cold. Across the hallway from the hot tub/pool is a coin operated washer and dryer. You can throw your wet gear in the dryer while you soak in the tub. If you ride at Crowfoot, don't let this place pass you by. Call 1-800-663-4303 for reservations, not that you need one, but they do have dinner theater sometimes on Friday and Saturday, so you might want to reserve just in case. During the week, the place is empty. Trust me on this one, it is the best place I have ever stayed at while snowmobiling.
Bud, Roger and Hickey had to leave after riding on friday, so just the 7 of us stayed at the Quaaout. We stayed in the area for a couple more days, and then headed north to McBride.
McBRIDE
Riding at McBride would be a first for everybody. Bud, Roger and Hickey had already gone home, and now we were down to 7. We all checked in at the North Country Lodge, a brand new motel right on the highway. Snowmobilers are welcome here, as in most establishments in town. If you want to ride in McBride, it would be a good idea to make reservations before you leave home. McBride is a small town, but they frequently hold hockey tournaments, curling bonspiels, and other similar winter events, and the whole town gets booked up. The number for North Country Lodge is (250) 569-0001. For dinner, I always went to the Old Powerhouse Pub, and I have no complaints.
We gassed up at the Chevron station and asked the attendant where the best place to ride was. Mount Renshaw was one of the local riding areas, and it appealed to me because it was the highest mountain (about 9400 feet). I noticed a sign on the wall advising snowmobilers to carry a radio while traveling up the access road. The reason for this is because you must travel on the logging road to get to the drop off spot, and it is important to be in communication with the truckers. The attendant told me not to worry about it though because they had shut down operations due to the mild temperatures. Heavy trucking and muddy roads don't mix. The staging area for snowmobiling was 24 km up the logging road, and this is where we decided to ride tomorrow.
Richard & Darren with the dirty but new F350 in McBride
The day started with bright and sunny conditions, and Richard and I led the way in his new Ford F350 4x4, with his 2-up trailer in tow. Richard got a little misty eyed as he was explaining to me how he used to be a logger, driving the big rigs, and he was rolling along at a pretty fair clip, considering the conditions. He had installed 35" mudder tires on his truck, and the large diameter made the bumps and ruts seem smaller than they really were, at least as far as the truck was concerned. Too bad I can't say the same for his trailer. About 3 kilometers from the parking lot, he snapped a leaf spring on the trailer. By the time everybody caught up with us, we had unloaded the machines from the trailer and had crawled underneath to assess the damage. One of the leaf springs was broken, and Richard decided to head back to McBride to see if he could find another. "If not, I'll get the old one welded." "Don't bother," I told him. "It'll break again. You can't weld springs without extensive post weld heat treatment." I knew by the look on his face that he thought I was an idiot.
Darren, Me & Trent discuss Richards trailer, which we flipped over onto the snowbank for the upcoming repairs.
I rode my machine the last few kilometers to the staging area. There was a lot more snow up here, and the road was no longer ice/mud. Once everyone had unloaded and started their machines, we headed out on an unmarked trail by simply following the existing tracks. It didn't take long, and we didn't go very far until we reached the riding area, but that trail was the roughest thing I had ever seen. It wasn't wide enough to be groomed, somebody who knew their way around merely picked their way through the trees. The snow was so deep here that the moguls were about 2 - 3 feet deep, and in some sections they were continous for sixty or seventy feet. Nonetheless, we did arrive in one piece and as you can see in the following pictures, were overwhelmed at the size of the hills we saw. We saw mountain peaks in every direction. Here's a funny thing: A couple of miles back at the parking lot, the temperature was warm, probably +5C. Up here, it was around -9C. That's a big change for a couple of miles, we obviously passed through a thermocline during our ascent.
I wanted to climb this hill, but they all pleaded with me not to, fearing I would meet certain death on the exposed rocks. I could have made it, you know.
We poked around a bit, but we never did see anybody else and we were afraid of getting lost on the backside of a mountain or something. There was no shortage of hills to try climbing, and this is what we spent most of the day doing. The jetting in our machines was set up for 7000 feet, but according to the maps we got in town, we were over 9000 on some peaks. This change in altitude did not go unnoticed by our motors. Nobody rejetted, so it couldn't have been too bad, but you could tell. In keeping with tradition, I took a run up one hill which was really a ridge that tapered down to the elevation we were at. It was no wider than 10 feet at best, but I had a good head of steam and thought I would make it, even though I had no idea what was on the backside. As we later found out, there really wasn't a backside to this one. I'm not saying it was a sheer dropoff, it was more like 75 degrees. None of this really came into play anyways. As I was about 70% of the way up (somewhere around 180 vertical feet), I came upon a huge hole in the snow where someone else had powered out and gotten stuck. There wasn't any room to go around, so naturally I dropped into it at speed and then it all got ugly after that. There was a steep dropoff on both sides of me, seeing as how I was driving up on the spine of this ridge. The hill on my right was steepest, and that was the side I fell to when I became seperated from the machine. I was wearing a small backpack and when I first hit the snow, I tried every contortion I could think of to stop me from going off the end of the earth. While I was doing this, my MXZ had suddenly stopped all forward motion and was in the early stages of initiating a barrel roll. I'm not 100% sure what happened next, but as near as I can recall, I was thrashing in the snow right beside my machine, and as the handlebars came around for the first revolution, they snagged the shoulder straps of my backpack. I was now one again with the ski-doo, but this time around, it appeared that the MXZ was going to ride me. At this point, my head and shoulders became wedged between the cowling and the snow. Then everything stopped. Somehow, my body acted like a giant wheel chock and stopped the doo from rolling any further. I couldn't believe my luck! I had cheated death yet again!
All I had to do was free my self from my machine. I was pinned down sort of face first, in deep snow, with the shoulder straps of my backpack wrapped around the handlebars. Did I mention that we were on an incline, and that I would have to roll my machine uphill in the event that I could somehow get out from underneath it? My torso and head seemed to be on some kind of flat section, but my legs were definetly hanging out in free air, unsupported, and I couldn't see anything because my head was pinned down under the ski-doo. This really wasn't much better. I figured that if I was going to go over, I should at least get a good look, for one last thrill. In a sudden fit of sheer panic, I wiggled and rolled until I tore the straps off my backpack, and managed to extract myself. I could now see what saved me. Whoever got stuck here before had used their shovel to dig out a flat spot immediately down hill from their machine. This is what you do when you are stuck on a very steep incline, otherwise the machine could take off without you as you are pulling it around. Even though this bomb crater caused my problem and prevented me from reaching the summit and certain praise and adoration from my peers, most of the hard work was already done for the next phase, getting unstuck. John and Darren were now coming up the same path I had chosen, but they had to stop about 100 feet lower and climb the rest of the way up, otherwise they may have fallen upon the sme fate as I. We got the MXZ upright, and it even started quickly. I only had one option, straight down the steep face of the hill. Now, the steepness didn't really bother me, but it looked like there were some big moguls way down there near the bottom, I really couldn't tell. I thanked the lads for their assistance and nudged the doo over the edge of the lip and started my roller coaster ride down. I was picking up some pretty good speed, but as I got closer to the bottom I could clearly see the size of the moguls, and they were big. I knew that I couldn't stop or even slow down, so I gassed it when I hit the first few, and the suspension did the rest. I would be lying if I said I didn't take a bit of a beating, but I did manage to go through straight and with the ski tips pointed up. Once I hit the flats and slowed down, I looked back over my shoulder at the size of the hill, not to mention the moguls at the bottom, and realized that I had gotten away lucky. When you sit down and think about it, it is moments like these that make life really worth living! This was the highlite of the day, everything else was pretty mild after this.
Nice view from the top of the world.
When we arrived back at the trailer, we were about 20 minutes ahead of Richard. He couldn't find a replacement spring in McBride, so he found somebody to weld his leafspring. I could tell that we were not going to get home early tonight.
The spring was bolted back in place and we flipped the trailer back onto its wheels. Richard already had a two up deck mounted in the bed of his truck, so we put 2 machines up there and one in the back of Trents truck. His and Debs were on a trailer. Now I'm not sure, but I think we managed to get about 500 meters down the road before the weld failed and the spring broke again. I have to admit, it lasted longer than I thought it would. The tire was rubbing against the bottom of the deck, but the real problem now was that we were worried about the axle rotating 90 degrees, seeing as how it was no longer secured very well to the frame. Darren got underneath and tried to use some tiedowns to secure the axle. By this time, the road was in complete thaw mode and he was lying in mud as he did this. We had 24 kilometers to go, and the axle needed adjusting every so often, and it was always Darren who got underneath every time. He was a little bit muddy. We couldn't go very fast, so we crawled along at a snails pace, and the rest of the crew went ahead. I would say that Darren got underneath that filthy trailer about six times, until all of a sudden we heard a loud bang. We jumped out and saw that the tire had rubbed a hole through the deck until it could take no more, and it blew out. It was now dark, we had been fooling around with this thing for 2-3 hours, and Darren had had enough.
"That's it" he snapped. "Leave this peice of shit here and lets go home", as a piece of dried mud dropped out of his hair.
Of course, Richard placed a much higher value on the trailer than we did, so he argued a bit, but we were on a really wide spot on the road, and we didn't really have too many options. We left the great wounded beast in the bush and went home.
I had already made plans to leave the next day with Trent & Deb. I had only stayed 10 days, but I was a little bit beat up and tired. Besides, Trent had to be back at work on Thursday, and here was a ride home for me. The boys didn't really need me, and Richard was probably going to weld the spring again, so I felt it would be in my best interest to get as far away from this fiasco as I could.
Next year the plan is to take two weeks again, but I think that it would be best to take them one week at a time.
In case you are wondering, Richard did get his trailer fixed properly the next day. No, he didn't weld the spring.