One of your memorable moments

M

Magnumb

Member
One would be taking off from Land O’ Lakes Gateway Lodge and knowing we were going to get hammered with snow that day. We decided to head east along the railroad grade on trail 2, and it was grey, dark and started dumping, could hear the flakes hitting our shields as we’re in a tunnel of snow. Was hard to see and slow going, but plan was to make it to George Young Rec Complex in Crystal Falls. We stopped along the way at Kermits in Iron River as it was taking too long and needed a break…on the way back out we brushed off about 4-5’ inches of snow and then made our way to George Young….on the way back it was floating on the railroad grade and breaking trail the entire way. Nobody was out that day really and the machines were loving it!
This upcoming snow storm got me thinking of what could happen:)
 
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euphoric1

Well-known member
Got lost on Gogebic once with the wife, was snowing and sleeting so heavy, helmet shields were icing up, had to have shields up and shield eyes best we could with hands, couldn't go more than 10 mph, couldn't see the flashing lights on shore line & hugging shore too dangerous especially on east side, no reference of direction. I was pooping bricks!!!! was the longest ride we ever took on Gogebic thought the night would never end, got on in Bergland had to get to Root Cellar, was a LONG MEMORABLE RIDE, that I will NEVER forget, turned around a couple times and turns out, just wasn't going far enough. can laugh at it now but wasn't funny then. should have just taken the trail down but nooooooo....this way would be faster.... NOT!!!! next morning...taking snow over the hood LOL
 
indy_500

indy_500

Well-known member
Most ridiculous snow I’ve ever ridden in January 16 2016. Absolutely PUKED all day, there was a foot or less on the ground before this day. The breeze and his buds were staying in Twin Lakes, where it was snowing good but nothing crazy. He rode up trail 3 to meet me and my bud in Toivola to go ride the bush, and had a brutal ride up the grade. As we got thru Twin Lakes in the truck, a few miles up M26 it started snowing so hard we had to go about 10 mph and still couldn’t see or find the road. After snowing all day, they accumulated nearly 3 feet in 24 hrs at higher elevations in some locations, primarily Donken, Toivola, and Painesdale. Have never experienced anything like it in my life, and likely won’t ever again. Only downfall, temps were hovering around 0 that day. Last pic is College Ave downtown Houghton the morning after IMG_6714.jpeg IMG_6697.jpeg IMG_6716.jpeg IMG_6717.jpeg
 
lofsfire

lofsfire

Active member
Had one trip that sticks out like yours Euphoric1. It was snowing hard we were heading back to Gaylord and had to cross Otsego Lake A friend was leading and as soon as we hit the lake and got were you could not see anything I could feel we were vering right hard! I was also able to watch the vear on my GPS. I waited till we got back to shore pulled up next to him and said, Where are going? He thought I was crazy and said no way he just made a loop. After showing him I end up leading the group back only being able to see about 10' in front of the sled and following the GPS track from when we left that morning. This was an area both of us had rode 100's of times. The other guys in the group never even realized what happened until we were all talking back at the cabin.

The other ride I will never forget was Feb 19, 2017. it was a hot day! The temp got up to the low 50's. We left Bergland in the morning looped to Rockland and over to Ontonagon to Lake of the Clouds then back. The stretch from Lake of the Clouds back I was getting very hot. I end up taking off my jacket and riding back to Bergland in a t-shirt.

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R

rv245

Member
It was either 2007 or 2008. I just bought a sled package which consisted of 7 sleds and parts from a guy who lived in the northwest upper corner of Iowa. My son and I planned when we could go get them. I live in Michigan in the thumb. We left our place with brown grass showing on the ground. Looping around though Chicago there was still brown grass showing. We got into Wisconsin a ways and it start to severely rain with the radio stations saying chances to tornado's. We decided to stop for awhile and catch a few hours of sleep in the truck. Once we got into MN on 90 we encounter blizzard conditions. The road was solid ice with vehicles in the ditches. After I had the trailer break loose and start to slide that was it. We heard that they were closing 90 down so we looked for the next exit that we could take to get us to Stewartville. There was a white out and we was lucky if we could go 10mph on the road that we exited off of. We found a motel open in a town and stopped for the night. Th next day we headed to Stewartville to drop off a 73 Rupp Magnum rolling chassis to someone. We shot the shitttt for a while them headed to our next stop. When we got there we didn't think we could get all the stuff in trailer. The sleds we got were 3 RV 245's, 76 RV 340, 73 Blizzard 440, 77 RV 340 and a 78 Sno Pro 340 and parts. We loaded up and headed back home doing a more southern route to get back.
 
snomoman

snomoman

Active member
I enjoy reading these stories, it brings back a lot of memories, I have so much snowmobile Lore packed in this brain I should get it out before I forget it…ha ha
I used to have an 89 Yamaha XLV540 fan cooled, you could only go 75 miles with it and that was it…it ran out of gas… I ran out of gas not once, not twice, not three times but four freaking times with this damn thing.. such young foolishness back then… each time I ran out of gas was an Adventure all in its own
 
T

Tim in Indiana

Active member
A friend and I were on our way back to PI after a run up to Houghton. It was late, around 11 pm, 15-20 below and snowing and blowing hard. We had stopped at the Hoop to warm up then headed south on Gogebic. We tried to keep shore lights insight but eventually the blowing snow had us riding blind. I just knew we would see the strobe at the Lodge and planned on jumping on the trail there.

We were riding really slow so it was hard to judge distances traveled but I thought we had to be getting close to the Lodge when I saw the flashing light on my right, just in front of us. But it was the wrong color light. We were at the Root Cellar, not the Lodge.

We had been drifting left and had circled around the bottom of the lake and back up the east side.

We got off there and jumped on 13 for the trip back to 2. A little out the way but at least we knew we were going the right way.
 
indy_500

indy_500

Well-known member
One more for good measure. January 25 2021 our first day of riding for a 4 day trip to the snowy mountain range. We were staying in Laramie and planned to trailer up the pass every day to ride. The snowies had been hit with a massive storm the week before. Perfect timing right! Yeah, well, except everybody and their brother was out there tearing it up. After 2 days riding, the snow wasnt disappointing, but even though this was my 4th time out there and I thought I knew plenty of good spots to ride, we couldn’t find much for untracked snow. Having ridden the Sierra Madres one time prior, which is a tiny tiny mountain range west of the snowies, we figured hey let’s wake up the 3rd day, and drive all the way around the snowies, and go see what’s up in the madres. We found a rental in Encampment for the next 2 nights and went on our way. After a few hour drive we unload. The madres isn’t a well known riding area, has little to no trail system other than the highway that’s shut down in the winter. There was maybe 1 other truck in the lot compared to the 50-100 trucks lined up in the greenrock lot in the snowies on any given weekend. We take off down the closed off highway and head up the pass to get to the good stuff. We get a few miles in, we take a turn in the road into a section lined with pine trees, but OH MY GOD. It’s like a light switch, there was 2 feet of fresh snow at elevation in the madres! Wasn’t in the forecast whatsoever, with no one else but ourselves to tear it up. Quite easily the best snow I had ever ridden out west!! IMG_6723.jpeg
 
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garageguy

Well-known member
I was caught on Gogebic lake in a heavy snow storm went from fishtail to Root Celler luckily I had an old school compass mounted on the dash, I followed that in a straight line and ended up within site of our destination.
 
goofy600

goofy600

Well-known member
I would think anyone that has ridden the Gogebic area probably has a story or 2 about that lake. Wife and I dropped on lake at far south end by the bridge sunshine by Gogebic lodge snowing wanted to eventually get off at Bergland bay but by time we were 3/4 way up on west side snowing so hard barely could see shoreline. Bailed at the hoop and hit the trail to get where we were going. Amazing how much of a difference from one end of the lake to the other.
 
heckler56

heckler56

Active member
Sometime after 2001 while I was riding solo out of Marquette (technically Harvey MI). The last day of my trip on a Friday the snow guns off Lake Superior began overnight. I decided to go to Big Bay and left at 7am. Once past M41 it was deep and kept getting deeper all the while it just kept coming down. After the first crossing of 510 the snow was above the hood of the sled and I was breaking trail! Countless times I had to stop to clean off my helmet and the sled let alone get my bearings. Numerous times I lost the trail but kept it moving to swing around to re-find the trail. On one particularly long off trail on my way back a sled was coming at me, we stopped. After a brief conversation we decided we better ride together.
We took turns leading and made frequent stops to clean off our sleds and helmets. We finally reached BB at 2:30 in the afternoon with little fuel left in either sled. Getting to know my fellow sledder at Thunder Bay Inn it turns out he was also staying at the same hotel in Harvey! As we talked, more and more people started showing up saying they were following our tracks to get here (even the off trail excursions). We rode back together to the hotel and parted ways (his wife was waiting and a little pissed).
 
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wiharley02

wiharley02

Member
Late January 2019. Thursday through Sunday stay at some cabins on Lake Namakagan Wisconsin. Pretty cold weather that weekend. Around -35 at night, daytime not sure if it got above 0. The cabins we were staying in had either electric or water baseboard heat, log style construction. They were not warm or efficient. So night we got a big fire going in the big fireplace, thought, that'll warm us up. Not. We watched the thermostat display in the cabin keep on dropping, it got down into the low 50's in the cabin. Every gap/door/window we were pulling in cold air from outside and up the chimney it went, we had frost everywhere. In hindsight we probably needed to adjust the flue. Also poking around the cabin, "why isn't it getting warm in here?", I went into the utility closet and found the water heater, the exhaust pipe on the natural vent water heater was completely displaced sideways and the water heater exhaust/carbon monoxide was going right into the closet. Wrong decision in hindsight but I slammed the door and figured "F it......we are pulling enough fresh air into the cabin through all the nooks and crannies!" That Sunday morning firing up the vehicles, still at least 30 below, the HVAC malfunctioned on my truck. Blower motor running wide open, and climate control display seemed dead. Didn't risk touching it and losing heat all together. Tacked a trip onto the end of this trip with another group, so drove from Namakagan to Mass City with my windows open, below zero and blowing lake effect from Iron Belt all the way to Mass.

Then basing out of Mass (Adventure Motel) planning to stay until Wednesday, great riding, Tuesday we headed down to Sidnaw/Kenton and stopped at Hoppys, gosh I miss Jane and her snarky mouth, she asked where we were headed and we said Bergland to get some BBQ, and in her classic way basically chewed us out and said we were nuts, haven't we seen the storm warnings (more heavy blowing LES)? We figured AHH, we are sledders, we can handle it! So we headed west. Busted powder from Ewen to Bergland, got to JW's for some lunch. Sitting in JW's at times couldn't see the houses on the other side of M28. We were planning to go to Lake of the Clouds that day then back to Mass. Finally got smart and decided to cut Lake of the Clouds, and take the most direct route back to Mass, this was getting bad. Took 13 to Rockland. OK when we were in the woods, but got on top of some of the higher ground open highline areas and around victoria dam road, couldn't see 10-15 feet, everything was white. Practically had to feel my way along the edge of the groom from marker to marker, very slow going, bumper to bumper to stay together. Made it back to Mass/Adventure, only to see the sheriff in the parking lot, this was the day that Don (adventure motel co-proprietor) passed. It was early afternoon Tuesday, and I figured I had time to load up and get home to Oshkosh before the conditions got even worse for the drive home the next morning. Oddly enough the first 1-2 hours were the best conditions driving, decent roads and LES tapering further I got south. Then from Eagle River all the way home the roads were terrible, all hard pack snow/ice from the storm that blew through central/north wisconsin a couple days prior during the beginning of my trip and made the roads a mess with the very cold weather. I think it took almost 6 hours to get home, again, windows open heat blowing on high (normally 4 hr trip).

A mix of good and bad memories on this one.....Adventure hasn't been the same since, man do I miss Nancy's breakfasts and hospitality. Though it was a bit of a blessing in disguise for her, finally being able to sell after that and move back down state to be by her family. That old Don was stubborn, but fun to sit with in the cafe and catch up with.

Turns out the blower motor controller failed on my truck HVAC and defaulted to wide open, glad the engineers did that one right. I was afraid to change any HVAC settings once it failed risking no heat. Blower even ran on high when I shut the truck off, had to pull the fuse every time I stopped somewhere.
 
M

Magnumb

Member
wiharley02 said:
Late January 2019. Thursday through Sunday stay at some cabins on Lake Namakagan Wisconsin. Pretty cold weather that weekend. Around -35 at night, daytime not sure if it got above 0. The cabins we were staying in had either electric or water baseboard heat, log style construction. They were not warm or efficient. So night we got a big fire going in the big fireplace, thought, that'll warm us up. Not. We watched the thermostat display in the cabin keep on dropping, it got down into the low 50's in the cabin. Every gap/door/window we were pulling in cold air from outside and up the chimney it went, we had frost everywhere. In hindsight we probably needed to adjust the flue. Also poking around the cabin, "why isn't it getting warm in here?", I went into the utility closet and found the water heater, the exhaust pipe on the natural vent water heater was completely displaced sideways and the water heater exhaust/carbon monoxide was going right into the closet. Wrong decision in hindsight but I slammed the door and figured "F it......we are pulling enough fresh air into the cabin through all the nooks and crannies!" That Sunday morning firing up the vehicles, still at least 30 below, the HVAC malfunctioned on my truck. Blower motor running wide open, and climate control display seemed dead. Didn't risk touching it and losing heat all together. Tacked a trip onto the end of this trip with another group, so drove from Namakagan to Mass City with my windows open, below zero and blowing lake effect from Iron Belt all the way to Mass.

Then basing out of Mass (Adventure Motel) planning to stay until Wednesday, great riding, Tuesday we headed down to Sidnaw/Kenton and stopped at Hoppys, gosh I miss Jane and her snarky mouth, she asked where we were headed and we said Bergland to get some BBQ, and in her classic way basically chewed us out and said we were nuts, haven't we seen the storm warnings (more heavy blowing LES)? We figured AHH, we are sledders, we can handle it! So we headed west. Busted powder from Ewen to Bergland, got to JW's for some lunch. Sitting in JW's at times couldn't see the houses on the other side of M28. We were planning to go to Lake of the Clouds that day then back to Mass. Finally got smart and decided to cut Lake of the Clouds, and take the most direct route back to Mass, this was getting bad. Took 13 to Rockland. OK when we were in the woods, but got on top of some of the higher ground open highline areas and around victoria dam road, couldn't see 10-15 feet, everything was white. Practically had to feel my way along the edge of the groom from marker to marker, very slow going, bumper to bumper to stay together. Made it back to Mass/Adventure, only to see the sheriff in the parking lot, this was the day that Don (adventure motel co-proprietor) passed. It was early afternoon Tuesday, and I figured I had time to load up and get home to Oshkosh before the conditions got even worse for the drive home the next morning. Oddly enough the first 1-2 hours were the best conditions driving, decent roads and LES tapering further I got south. Then from Eagle River all the way home the roads were terrible, all hard pack snow/ice from the storm that blew through central/north wisconsin a couple days prior during the beginning of my trip and made the roads a mess with the very cold weather. I think it took almost 6 hours to get home, again, windows open heat blowing on high (normally 4 hr trip).

A mix of good and bad memories on this one.....Adventure hasn't been the same since, man do I miss Nancy's breakfasts and hospitality. Though it was a bit of a blessing in disguise for her, finally being able to sell after that and move back down state to be by her family. That old Don was stubborn, but fun to sit with in the cafe and catch up with.

Turns out the blower motor controller failed on my truck HVAC and defaulted to wide open, glad the engineers did that one right. I was afraid to change any HVAC settings once it failed risking no heat. Blower even ran on high when I shut the truck off, had to pull the fuse every time I stopped somewhere.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a heck of an adventure.
 
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snomoman

snomoman

Active member
In 1998 me and a buddy decided to do a 700 mile five night tour, little did I know it would be the trifecta of breakdowns, the first day went reasonably well we started in Rhinelander Wisconsin and we are going to head up to Silver city for the first night, when we got off Lake Gogebic my throttle cable broke, that was number 1, not by choice we spent the night in bergland, through the help of friendly snowmobilers the next morning they trailered me to the local Polaris dealer in Bergland where he replaced it, off we go, we headed up towards Copper Harbor stopping at Houghton overnight, then off to the Brockway inn in copper harbor, it snowed 8 inches overnight, we got loaded up and jumped on our snowmobile‘s for a great start we thought but here comes number two, unbeknownst to me my float valves stuck and my engine crankcase completely flooded with gasoline, so we both got towed on a trailer by a local person down to Larium, (great stories from him on the way) where they emptied it out and sent us on our way, now the next stop was to Silver city, remembering to shut the gas off, everything went fine at night, our next leg was to head back down to Rhinelander, about 17 miles north of Eagle River here comes number three, the water pump went out, my friend towed me with his sled 17 miles to Eagle River, where I jumped in a taxi took that down to Rhinelander picked up the vehicle and trailer and came back to load them up and that was that, we were done for that trip
 
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mezz

mezz

Well-known member
indy_500 said:
Most ridiculous snow I’ve ever ridden in January 16 2016. Absolutely PUKED all day, there was a foot or less on the ground before this day. The breeze and his buds were staying in Twin Lakes, where it was snowing good but nothing crazy. He rode up trail 3 to meet me and my bud in Toivola to go ride the bush, and had a brutal ride up the grade. As we got thru Twin Lakes in the truck, a few miles up M26 it started snowing so hard we had to go about 10 mph and still couldn’t see or find the road. After snowing all day, they accumulated nearly 3 feet in 24 hrs at higher elevations in some locations, primarily Donken, Toivola, and Painesdale. Have never experienced anything like it in my life, and likely won’t ever again. Only downfall, temps were hovering around 0 that day. Last pic is College Ave downtown Houghton the morning after View attachment 69387 View attachment 69388 View attachment 69389 View attachment 69390
Click to expand...
I am going to pull a Nash on you here. ;) Your last picture is actually Sheldon Ave. College Ave ends as you leave campus & enter downtown by the Citco gas station. BTW, nice pics. Looks like you had a good time.
 
W

warner

Active member
My Brother, a buddy and I used to do alot of back pack trips across the U.P. This particular trip had to be 10 yrs ago, we started in Gwinn and headed towards Baraga, somewhere outside Baraga, my brothers Arctic cat powder special died on the trail, we could not get it to fire and did determine that there was spark. So we towed it to Baraga across from the best western where the gas station is and at the time there was a auto parts store there to. we tore that sled apart and determined that the fuel pump was not getting power(fuel injected sled) figured out that the stator wires that send power to the fuel pump were shorted out. so we went into the parts store and bought a 12 volt lawn and garden battery, some electrical wire, crimp connectors, toggle switch and some electrical tape..we stuffed that battery under the hood next to the muffler and wedged a 2x4 in between them so's to keep the battery from melting. we wire that battery to a on /off toggle switch then to the fuel pump. Turn on toggle switch and fuel pump starts and runs...jump on the sleds and we are back in business....oh ya we also bought a battery charger at the parts store cuz we knew the battery would die on us after a bit from running the fuel pump. headed to Mass city and stayed at the Adventure motel. plugged the battery charger into a wall outlet outside and charged the battery overnight, all goin good at the time, next morning we wake up and head off for some fun... well somewhere around south range the recoil came apart inside so now we also had to pull start it via the rope around the clutch method..somewhere before houghton, yup you guessed it, the battery went dead..towed him with my crossfire (diamond drive junk) into Houghton. Now my brother is pretty pissed off at that sled so we decided to just try and get back to Baraga and stay at the Best Western for the night. so we hope onto the canal with my crossfire pulling the powder special. Our plan was to head down portage lake to chassel and then keep heading to Baraga, well somewhere south of Chassel where the cranberry bogs are ( i think thats what they were) my diamond drive starts making a horrendous noise and finally i lose all fwd motion, yup stripped the gears outta the damn thing so now we got 2 dead sleds.my buddy decides to pull us one at a time with his skidoo back to Baraga, about 17 miles one way if i remember correct, he takes my brother first and comes back to get me. We get a room at the hotel and come to find out my buddies sister was staying there as well for some hockey tournament in town. she offers to take drive one of us back to Gwinn to pick up our truck and trailer. On the way home the next day we stop at trackside in eagle river and my brother buys a brand new polaris 800 assault...LOL good times.
 
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F

fishcrib

Member
First trip to the UP with my son, snowed every day and night.
This was about 20 years ago, he was riding an old 440 Artic Cat and it started leaking gas.
Drove to the dealer and bought a new ZL600 for him.
They were cheap back then( $3000.00) I put it on a credit card and we went on our way.
 
heckler56

heckler56

Active member
New years eve 78/79. 4am. Only two of us awake and the other guy was really hammered. Came out of the bathroom and saw he had fired up his sled. Suited up quickly to haul his a$$ back inside. He pinned it and was gone. Fired my sled up and chased his tail light across M28 and down the road maybe 1/4 mile. Lost his tail light in the blowing snow and heard a loud bam under my sled, culvert. So much for that sled suspension. Turned out he turned towards the woods and was stuck in the deep.
Photos are from my home that winter on Lake Superior. It is just east of Lakenland on M28 about a mile next to the road side park. The snow in the picture appeared overnight. We had to have a wheel loader remove drifts multiple times that year.
 

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snoden

snoden

Active member
Like most I have many over the hood snow fall stories, but I have a few about riding buddies that are more memorable. A buddy was in his second year of riding on a new 94 Vmax 500. We were eager to hit the trails so a few of us got dropped off in Seney with our destination the Ojibwa Casino in Baraga. Well 44 miles in he blows a corner and center punches a tree, he put the V in Vmax. Sled is totaled, I tow it in to Shingleton. He gets a ride to the Yamaha dealer in Christmas and arranges with them to pick the sled up. Gets another ride to Marquette then rents a car and meets up with the group in Baraga. This is day 1 of a 6-day ride. The next morning, he buys a new sled with more horsepower, thata boy! On our way home we pick up the totaled sled in Christmas and he's still riding today.
 
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