You might be inclined to think I’m referring to the little gay guy selling sunglasses at the SLC airport, but I’m actually referring to me catching my friend’s snowmobile on fire. Other than one time when we had to ride some snowmobiles for work I’ve never been on a snowmobile. The time for work almost doesn’t even count. We rode them in a pretty flat spot, up a road that just had a tad too much snow for cars and trucks to make it. It was maybe a ½ mile or more to the radio towers we were going to be working on, and then we rode them right back. In actuality this wasn’t a good impression or experience as the sleds were god-knows-how-many years old and wouldn’t hardly start, or run.
Yesterday, however, was a completely different scenario. My friend, Scott is a hard-core sled-head. We had pretty much finished up work for the week and since there was a snow dump in the Wyoming Range about 35 miles west of Pinedale, WY he decided to take off and hit the powder. He invited me along and fortunately for me, my boss gave me a thumbs up to take a day off and have some fun.
We took off about 7:00am and were unloading the sleds by about 9:30am. I had my snowboard gear, and he let me borrow a peeps, helmet and balaclava. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was pretty stoked. My only prior experience didn’t do much for me, but I knew there was more to it than that.
Scott went over the sled with me and showed me all the basics before we ever even got going. I knew he really wanted to get out there and play, but he was very patient with me. I was riding a Ski-Doo Summit 800cc two-stoke with a 159 track. He was riding a slightly larger sled with a longer track. It was quickly evident that these were NOT the same kinds of sleds I rode to get my work done.
We took off down the trail and I could easily tell that the sleds had a lot more horse power than what I had previously been on. It was really pretty riding down the trail and I could quickly see why people would do trail riding. However, Scott is not a trail rider and the trail was only a means to get to the powder fields.
A little more than ½ way in, he took me into a small clearing with a hill and some trees. He taught me how to work the sled by transferring my weight, standing in different places, etc. I can’t say that I really got the hang of it right away and felt that I was often fighting the sled. It wanted to go left, I wanted to go right and no matter how much I turned the bars it would go left. He had me mimic his lines and body language and that helped a lot though I was still struggling a bit. One thing he did compliment me on was that while I might be fighting the sled a bit, when it was evident that I couldn’t get it to do what I wanted to I would give in and pick a new line to avoid trees and stuff. I probably get some of that from snowboard – sometimes you are at the mercy of mother nature and have to go with it.
We got back on the trail and headed further into the backcountry. When it split he told me that the “big-boys” go off in a particular direction. We, however, took the other fork in the road. The trail got a little more technical and Scott started playing by running up fairly sizeable hills and jumping off the other side. I wasn’t ready for this and kept to the trail knowing he’d come out on the other side. And finally, we were in a huge powder field. The trail kept going off in a different direction, but it was clearly time to play and learn.
While Scott was playing, I was learning. Don’t get me wrong. I was having a blast but it was quickly evident that I didn’t quite have it down. The powder was really sweet. Scott wanted it to be deeper, but we both agreed that it was probably just about perfect for someone to learn in. There was anywhere from 5” to 12” of good fluffy stuff on top of a harder base. At one spot everything funneled into a group of trees. Rather than hit the trees I stopped and had Scott get the sled back to a safer position. I was getting a little frustrated because I still felt that no matter how much weight I had on one side of the sled I still was unable to get it do what I wanted it to. Again, Scott was really patient with me and kept giving me pointers. I stuck the sled once in some powder, but we didn’t have to dig it out or anything. Scott is just better than I am and knows what to do in those situations.
At this point I was just amazed at how hard I was working. If you’ve never been, and never gotten off a trail you might not realize that you never sit down. Ever. For anything. You are always standing up and there is always force being applied to your legs. Then you absorb all the bumps and jump from side to side over the seat to shift your weight around. When you accelerate you have to hang on. Decelerate suddenly and you are doing a “push-up” to keep from slamming into the bars. Your core is also working constantly to keep everything together. Imagine going to the gym and doing pushups, dumbbell curls, squats, dips, and aerobics all at the same time….without much rest.
After we climbed a few hills and played for a while he took me to another spot. I could tell I was starting to become fatigued but was still going for it. And finally, it really started to click. I followed Scott into a field and through some troughs…shift left, shift right, balance the sled on one ski on the side of this hill, then throw everything over and balance it on one ski on the other side for the next hill. I was getting it and I wasn’t fighting the sled. Climb a hill, do a u-turn on a steep embankment, fly down the next hill, side-ways across the next, etc.
But it wasn’t all gravy. I was really struggling to control everything and I was getting more fatigued by the moment. And then just as I thought I was really getting everything down Scott climbed up a hill and waved for me to follow. No problem, I got this. Only…I didn’t. As I went up the hill I started to drift left and was getting off my line. More weight right! More weight right! I was telling myself….so I was on the right leaned way out…and I still went left. Time to bail out! Turned the sled downhill and went for another run at it. I tried about three times, but could never figure out what I was doing wrong. I would watch Scott get on the right of his sled and go straight up the hill. I’d do it and go to the left every time. ARRGGH!!!
So we gave up on that and went to another area called Gun Sight. This was a really beautiful place where a natural split in the mountains looked just like a gun sight. We stopped to rest and get some water. Scott said that while the powder wasn’t deep he’d never seen so much snow cover.
Back on the trail and back through more fields. We came down some really steep spots (well, steep to a noob) and it was a blast! We stopped at a warming hut to eat lunch. I set the parking break and went inside. We didn’t really need to be warmer, I was already drenched in sweat. Thank God for good wicking thermals. As we munched on some food I told Scott that while I hated to sound like a pussy I was really amazed at how fatigued I was getting. He said he wanted to take me to one more spot where we could see the Grand Tetons and then we’d start heading out.
Back on the sleds and about a ½-mile later he tells me to stop while he goes and checks out a hill. While I am watching him climb the hill I start smelling something burning. I look down and there is a little smoke coming from the engine well. I had just turned on the hand warmers and thought it might be related so I switched them off. No help and now I was seeing some flames. For a brief moment I panicked because the flames were right where the huge oil reservoir was. But I quickly contained myself and knew I had to put the fire out. Scott was nowhere to be seen. I jumped off the sled, popped open the engine cover and saw a small fire with 1” to 2” flames. I started throwing snow on it to put the fire out. It took a while and I think I smothered it more than anything. Everything was hot and melted and gooey. Scott finally topped back over the hill and I was waving at him. He thought I was trying to tell him where I was – uh, no. I’m the only man-made thing in the middle of a huge field! But he finally comes back and realizes something was wrong when the engine cover was open and there was snow packed in the compartment.
Well, what had happened was that I put the parking break on when we stopped for lunch. I didn’t take it off when we took off again. Unfortunately, the sled WILL go if you give it enough gas
Upon inspection we realized that it wasn’t that bad, but it was bad enough that when Scott went to start the sled the started handle came off in his hands. We had to manually start the sled back up. Unfortunately, since the oil reservoir was leaking we couldn’t continue on. Scott rode the sled a bit to make sure it was relatively OK and then we switched sleds to head out.
I followed him out and he stopped periodically to make sure there was still some oil in the resivour. Again, these are two-stroke engines and require an oil and gas mixture to run so we couldn’t run it without oil.
We made it out and popped the cover off. It looked like we needed to replace – the oil reservoir, the guide for the pull-cord, a brake line, a water line, a bearing, and some seals. Scott stopped off at the local dealer and I paid for all the parts. I figured it was the least I could do since I set his sled on fire. When we told the dealer what happened he said he heard that quite a few times. I told him he needed to put a “dumb ass” kit together for whenever someone rode off with the parking brake on. Rode off with the break on? You need our dumb-ass kit. It comes with all the parts you need.
I felt horrible, but he laughed it off and said shit happens. He really was very understanding, but he did tell me I had to tell his wife. He invited me over for dinner and we were going to tear all the bad parts off. When I got there, his wife asked me if I had a good time. I told her it was awesome, etc. and then told her I caught her sled on fire. She didn’t believe us at first. She thought we were fucking with her. Then she realized we were serious, but fortunately laughed it off and said shit happens. All in all I felt very fortunate that both of them were so understanding. Scott gave me shit about my “mangina” hurting and perhaps he is right. I’m pretty sore today and my muscles are still very tired.
Scott has some work to do on the sled. I had a great time, and learned a valuable lesson – don’t touch the parking brake on a snowmobile. I also learned that it will really take some time to get good at snowmobiling. I’d like to do it again, but next time I’ll try not to catch someone else’s sled on fire.
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