damage caused during a week at salmon la sac

well, this is it. after a week of vacation in salmon la sac the damage to the collection of Benjamins was the easy part! Take a couple views of these blunders, I cant quite describe how it is that seans sled was righted after this mess but it started up first pull after some serious work in a running stream.

Vince has the new red hood and at this pace he might want to get another extra. double click the picture and then look for the icon in the bottom right, click that to see the close up of the despair on poor vinces mug.


I got this sweet bruise on my arm after I tried to do a triple back flip.( I think I can nail it next time!)

Muk got his ski-doo buried trying to follow me too close in the DEEP stuff.
Josh here got stuck after him Brent and I tried to head up to Gallagher and with the conditions so warm a bridge had melted away. We had to turn around on the spot. We tried a new path down but josh dumped it in the river.




This mess above hopefully speaks for itself. This hellraiser is Mr. Andersen. I cant understand how this happened to him. Brent and I were at the trailhead and he was right behind.Then next thing we cant find him ? WE turn off our sleds and we don't hear his motor? We yell out and after a few tense moments we heard his voice from down in a ditch fifteen feet below the trail. miracousley the 700 cat dove nose first into a drainage ditch that was a torrent of rushing water! A couple love birds came riding up and lent us a rope and Brent performed a sled pull digging a trench big enough to walk in! To my utter amazement we solved this problem in less than an hour.please note Brent got stuck a number of times but I did not photograph this due the fact he cracked a rib!

christmas at cooper!

this was quite the trip, the 20th we had good weather, great snow and muck and explored french cabin creek.Josh came out day two and we were turned back by the mountain at 5500 feet by deep snow, freezing rain and heavy winds! we got stuck at a washed out snow bridge that surely would have collapsed.

there were blue skies and fresh powder wednsday in stave creek and this was a special treat.
sean and i couldnt resist showing off in the parking lot!
this big gully hillclimb was fresh when i hit it and at the top it got so steep the track dug right into dirt and shot me over the top


josh was here with the new f-150! talk about a short bed and a long track!

muchow was at full energy and rode hard. there was even some jumping . thats me in the green helmet,black sled.

wow, brent and i stayed the whole week before christmas at cooper this year and were joined by the likes of muchow,vince,sean,josh and others! we stayed at the motel and went sledding every day and drank illegal amounts of alcohol at night!

DECEMBER 1ST holy cow! powder special.

this is it! the road into cooper was fresh powder. lucky for me Sean and Brent raced most of the way leaving all the fluffy stuff for me to float in on at warp speed!
we rode a long day right into some night riding up in the bear creek loop. we stopped at the entrance to the sasse mtn. trail. it was very tempting but we ran out of daylight and due the fact that we are all alcoholics we needed to head in for a drink by the fire!



we all met up in the morning to ride at cooper and continue the trail breaking that I had started the day before. it was Brent,josh,rich,Sean and myself zach d.




after we got joshes sled going ( once again rich comes with the tools) we went up and broke the trail up to the Honolulu bowels!

deep powder and trail breaking,november 30th

SUPER deep snow,these m fives with garrett and ryan are on what would later be a groomed trail!



went up with ryan m. and garrett on the night of the 29th. I had to chain up the heavy chevy due to the fact that it was snowing heavy and at 1:00 a.m. when we drove up and i basicly broke trail from 1-90 all the way to last resort!!
As you see the powder is DEEP!. we showed up at cooper to find ourselves the first ones there after at least two feet of fresh snow.Cooper road was a pillow and the three 500cc sleds we had were barely up to the task.turning off the trail at Stave creek it became a will of muscle and nimbleness as the switchbacks got steep.The ski-doo was at full throtle,pushing snow over the hood and movig at 5 miles per hour! I even had to wave ryan ahead of me to break a path for me ! the m5 was at serious loss of power but its flotation at least gave it some mobility. NOTE THAT AT THE END OF THE DAY WE WERE EXPLORING THE MORGAN CREEK DEVOLOPMENT AND MEY SLED GOT A ROCK STUCK IN THE TRACK AND HAD TO BE TOWED IN.

French creek and Honolulu do connect!

1. using aerial photography and mapping software in combination with my gps and stardust analyzer I came up with this revelation. if you go up through the Honolulu bowels and into the kachese ridge trail (#usfs4572) you continue along the very crest of the mountain for approximately four and a half miles of high elevation until dropping down to Thorpe lake and connecting with our hillclimbs at french creek!!!
   

way point number 81 is the area we jumped for the camera at the end of the day on the 12th. the purple line goes north along the ridge and into waypoint 79 , the playfield at the top of cooper. WE MUST TRY THIS ASAP!

december 9th , vince and 1st timer ryan are treated to school with the pro!

this hillclimb was fresh powder, steep and as you can see my skis are off the snow!!! This m6 gave me confidince to explore every nook and cranny of the mountain without having to worry about keeping my speed up. Ryan rode this 550 fan summit and it was very impressive, the new for 04 rev summit chassis with a fan cooled sled means light weight!(no coolant or heat exchangers) . ryan rode great for a nube and only got stuck a couple times, notice the great shots of the weather and the hills, when on break it is complete silence! until vince gets a phone call from some dork on a highlander. i mean c'mon what part of him wants to have a five minute conversation on top of the mountain about a car deal?

on the account that my sled was crippled with a rock i chose to rent this black m6 with a 153" track and a slp pipe.this turned out to be a very bad idea because after riding it i knew right then and there i would never ride my sled again.

WOW, i keep getting up to cooper to find blue skies and perfect snow. A couple final notes, we saw a group of about ten wild turkys! they were on the road along lake cle elum and looked quite healthy. while with a trailer attached to my truck vince plowed into me and severly damaged my hitch and bumper. Im a big boy and i understand accidents happen but the ironic part is that as we departed the lot just minutes before this happened i told him to stay way behind me because my truck is a two wheel drive and could end up in a ditch!!!! and just minutes later as i stop in the road he slams his girlfriends hyundai into me! nice job vince