Coming to you alive from Cold Lake Alberta. NO SNOW. We are searching for snow and think we have found it…more to come on that later.
Our day started well, after breakfast at DG’s restuarant in Big River SK (thankyou staff for coming in at 7am instead of the normal 10am for feeding us for our day on the trail) we were on the trail by 8:10am. Barry from TimberLand Motel guided us through the local trails and took us to his local club’s clubhouse. Thank you Barry for the gracious welcoming you and your club gave us, as well as the brief history of the area.
After Barry sent us on our way the group was brought into high spirits when snow started falling. These were the largest snow flakes I had ever seen, it was like kleenex tissues falling from the sky. Another hour of this, we thought, and we would have 3-4 inches of fresh snow…that we needed. After about 1/2 an hour that snow falling was gone, and we were still on thinly snow covered trails…bummer.
We stopped in Meadow Lake for lunch. Tom “TomCat” Hughes ran into the groomer for the area, Calvin (sorry I never got your last name, Calvin) at the local Arctic Cat Dealer. Calvin generously offered to lead our Group to Cold Lake AB on trails that had some snow, and we eagerly accepted. We rode the next 80 miles along M-55 ditchways to Cold Lake. While this path was MUCH better than we would have had, had we followed the trail, there was still many areas that were lacking snow. Hard to believe it was 42 degrees F and sunny today! Matter of fact, when we came into Cold Lake, there was NO snow. We even had to have Andy “Doc” Hughes (thanks Andy) trailer Calvin and his sled back to Meadow Lake due to the or posnow/trail conditions. With another warm day forcast for tomorrow…?
After today we are looking at trailering our sleds 700 miles to get to snow to unload them again for the ride to Alaska. It is difficult to continue abusing your sled through no snow areas, rocks exposed doing damage, and the wear and tear these conditons do to your sled. Our group suffered three failures due to the lack of snow conditions…A slider for the heat exchanger slid forward on Craig Willour’s Yamaha, causing his sled to be loaded (he was able to continue the ride on a borrowed Arctic Cat from Andy “Doc” Hughes); Jim Olender’s Ski-Doo had a completely destroyed carbide on the right side, and John Topping had an issue with his 4 stroke Arctic Cat requiring him and his sled to be picked up by Andy “Doc” Hughes and his support team.
Signing off from Cold Lake AB,
“Stick”
It is so awesome all the people you guys are meeting!! Next time you are by a country store buy a little note pad and have everyone you meet the cooks, motel workers..etc.. put their names and where their from…even an email or address incase you so this again they can keep in touch with you guys!! Or they can just sign and date it for a scrapbook!! I am bummed about no snow
We are doing a snow dance here in Flint for ya!! Shout out to Rod…love from the Valentine’s Keep it safe!!
the name is calvin groot and it was a pleasher rideing with you guys ,, untill the snow went from slim to ,, oh my god ,, ware did it go ,, thanks for the ride back to my farm so i dident have to ride the dirt again and hopefully i can ride you guys through meadow lake next year again