Tales from the Trails

gary_in_neenah

Super Moderator
Staff member
Never Regret a Day on the Snowmobile

Good Days bring Happiness
Bad Days Give Us Experience
Worst Days Provide Lessons
&
The Best Days are Lifetime Memories
Here's a place to post your experiences on a snowmobile, the good, the bad, and the unfortunate. If you've ridden any amount of time on a sled, you've encountered some of each. Some are humorous, others that tested your patience. Let's hear what you have to say....
 

gary_in_neenah

Super Moderator
Staff member
Guess I'll go first to break the ice, no pun intended. It's Christmas Eve and Dad has a new Arctic Cat delivered. My brother and I rode that Panther around the buildings, in a circle, with the family dog chasing us at every turn, barking his head off. Expecting a "Silent Night" the neighbors were not amused....
 

heckler56

Active member
I believe it was the winter of 79/80. Lived between Marquette and Munising on M28 on Lake Superior (about a mile from Lakenenland). What is now trail 417 was still abandoned rails then. Hopped between the rails and took off towards Marquette until I ran into an abandoned switch. Fortunately only the spindles bent.

The photos are my driveway back then. This drift appeared overnight. That happened all the time back then. Local guy would clear us out with his front end loader for a case of Strohs.
 

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lofsfire

Well-known member
When I was married, my ex was on a trip with two friends and myself. Basically, we rode from Rockland to Sidnaw, here is exactly what I wrote back in Feb of 2009:

So when we arrived in Sidnaw my wife was not pleased with the only restaurant in town. I don't know why either, but she insisted we go somewhere else. So about an hour later, we came to a sign that said Chuck Wagon Hot Food 1 Mile and 20 miles to food the other way. My wife said she was starving and she wanted to go to "Chuck's Wagon Restaurant" I did not argue just asked if she was sure she could not wait. She said NO! Well At the corner of South Laird and South Laird Roads, we found "Chuck's Wagon Restaurant" Not quite a Restaurant but I wish I had a picture of my wife when we made the turn and saw this
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AP1GczOmf5ap8ze4grtCw23342G44RJXehla51JvmiDQzh13YFg5YONYIZihdyJiEDpsnOpfPStCdo9JYw027-l10q8DrfbsULMkNMVf6y9dimJGyJpvoPRXBsqkwV0c7YKBvzynjJOZTVj6ZupouC0mMcF3Tw=w2543-h1907-s-no-gm

I knew exactly the "type" of "Restaurant" we were going to and so did the other guys. I think it took us a good 20 min to stop laughing. My wife was not amused.




The very first trip I ever went on, I had a rental and I was the guy in the back trying to catch up... We were in Cadillac and my buddy (my best friend since 2nd Grade) leading knew his way around a city really well, but I found out not to let him lead in the woods. LOL
We came up to one intersection that according to the map we should go straight for a bit then take a left. Well we went straight and then you tell the trail was slowly turning more and my right. we came back to a few more intersections... He convinced us we were not as far as we had thought and we had a ways to go to get to that intersection and it would be coming up shortly... We ride for a bit more... The sun has set at this point but as we come up to another intersection I'm thinking to myself, man it feels like we have been here before... Then the next intersection comes up and I'm like there is no way these two intersections both feel like I've been here before and there are this many intersections that are similar... We stopped for a break and I said, I'm low on fuel I just going to sit right here a wait for you to come back around for a third time. Because you are going in circles... That went over like a lead balloon... As they pulled away I thought my choice if I was actually wrong.

I decide to grab two big branches and make an X in the middle of the trail. then caught up to the group... We got to the intersection and my buddy leading stopped and walked back to me and said, see I know where I'm going we have not passed one intersection that had tree branches lying across it. I said, you are right, I put the branches there! The left-hand turn ended up being about 30 feet from the intersection where the sign had fallen down. Once you made that left the two trails ran parallel to each other with a creek dividing them. then about and 1/8 down the trail took a hard left. So when looking at it on a map it was a bit confusing plus with the sign down it was the perfect problem waiting to happen.

It was a great trip and made me buy a sled for the next year!
 
I have a friend that calls those Trip Defining Moments....as, you will always remember the bad stuff that happens, and rarely remember the good times.
 

euphoric1

Well-known member
not a tale from the trail... a tale from my parents back yard that the reminder is still there, Don't remember how old I was but had my 1974 Polaris 440 Electra was tooling around in my parents back yard, thought I was cool, thought I could go faster got a little too close to cyclone fence and whamo hit one of the posts, put a really good bend in post and my fancy chrome bumper LOL. the Electra is long gone but the post is still there... bent as a reminder and a good laugh LOL
 
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