the crappy weather and lack of 'good' snow wasn't about to deter our quest for fun. so, this past sunday we packed up and rallied to the snowpark where we geared up the two sleds with all of the stuff that you need to spend the night in a cabin that doesn't have running water or electricity. from the parking lot to the cabin was about 7 miles in with around 2000' of elevation gain. the cabin itself is situated around 6000'. these elevations may not sound too impressive to you, but please remember that we live at sea level and 6000' is higher than the top of any western washington ski hill (exept for crystal maybe?).
i've been around sleds for a few years now but i do not consider myself very good on 'em. the other 3 in our group were about as green as they come. about 1/4 mile in we encountered our first hiccup. due to the icy conditions on the road the track melted/welded to the hyfax. the operators of this sled were not aware and toasted a clutch belt trying to get the darn thing moving. acceptable losses. after freeing the track we made our way to the cabin with a few stops here and there to avoid overheating the sleds. around 1pm we made it to the cabin and started to unpack. success!?
at this point neil couldn't wait to get loose on the firechicken. he took it out to burn some gas and get a better feel for how snowmobiles handle. the rest of us cracked beers and enjoyed the nice sunny day. after a while we realized that we hadn't heard the 'brap brap' of the sled and wondered how neil was doing. soon enough we saw someone in an orange jacket approaching the cabin on foot. crap. it turned out that the compromised clutch belt from our earlier mishap went to fully-blown belt. to make things even more effed up, somehow the speedometer cable managed to wrap itself around the clutch wheel about 4 or 5 times. dead in the water. some good samaritan sledders helped us get things running again, but after two mechanical problems in one day i was getting pretty stressed about whether or not the sleds would stay operational long enough for us to get back to the truck.
ok, that's been a lot of typing for me. time to hurry this up so we can get to some pictures.
the rest of sunday we spent on the bunny hills, aka easy zones to sled and snowboard. there was so little coverage that it'd be pretty stupid to try and get too rad on this trip. i'd say the highlight of the day was getting to the one spot where we got cell reception and all of the PACKERS ARE IN THE SUPER BOWL texts and voicemails came in. SHADRAPP was played in the team/states honor.
DAY 1 PICS!!
friendly snowmachiners from PA that helped us unravel the speedometer cable from the clutch. thx!
one of the best winter views i've seen in washington.
home
TINDY!
special lady on the new mo-chine.
silly bros.
cabin fashion! by reading the cabin journals we learned of the pooperini (aka the pooperpine) "if you're in the outhouse and feel a little brush on your bottom, that's the pooperini" -jackylyn, age 7.
a fair share of wine, beer, and whiskey were enjoyed at night. jams were bumped from the ipod and some entertaining stories were told by the brothers. every time i went out to pee i'd look up at the stars and would get a little overwhelmed. i'm not sure if it was the booze, the amazing stars, the icy porch, or the shitty footing that my slippers offered but i damn near fell on my ass every time i left the cabin.
the next day had a mellow start. the bros. were pretty enthusiastic and built a trash can jib next to the cabin. special lady and i went exploring and she got her first chance to rally one of the sleds solo. we had a little bit of snow and rain this day but we stayed stoked. the snow was much better for snowboarding today, a pretty good slush. we also found a great low-grade area for the rookie sledders to mess around on without too much fear of the tree magnets.
this photo was taken a little early, nose grab/tail bonk. area destroyed. thx for the rope mike!
special lady ain't skuurd of the firechicken!
