Posts tagged #snowmachine

Driving on a Snowmachine trail?

 

Adventure Tuesday

Christmas

    We celebrated this past Christmas in Bozeman. It has become our tradition, well maybe my new tradition. I have spent several Christmases in Bozeman and each year we always do something new. This year W's dad had booked a forest service cabin outside Butte, Montana. We went skiing in the morning and later on drove towards the cabin. When we got closer to the cabin the wind had created some pretty hardcore snow drifts at places, to the point where the snow drifts were becoming a hazard if you didn't have a truck, and even then. W's mom and dad were in a truck and W, his brother and I were in a Subi. It quickly became pretty hard to maneuver the car on these snow drifted roads so we decided that maybe it would be best/safest? if we all got in to the truck instead.

 
 

Snow Adventure

    We all started to unpack the car and moved everything over to the truck. We continued on the road, that now looked very very much snow covered, as in it didn't even really look like a real road anymore. I didn't feel good about this snow covered road but had graciously been given a first row spot for this adventure, the passenger seat. Probably to be sure that I could see the ditches along the side of the road. And, when I say ditches, I mean more of a hill on the side of the road. We got to a point where we decided that we should probably just walk the rest of the way. I had already put the coordinates of the cabin on google maps, but the cabin was not really close to where we were, it seemed to be way off of this road, which was weird because you were suppose to be able to drive right up to the cabin. W's mom and I started walking through the deep snow while the guys were going to turn around the truck, on this narrow road. Something I did not want to watch.

 
 

Cabin Hunt

    No sign of a cabin, and at this point I started to get grumpy. W had started walking towards us too now, with a big cooler in tow. But where was the cabin? All of a sudden W starts calling for us and it appears that they found the cabin. Down the hill on the side of the road, was a cabin. We had walked right pass it, that is how far away from the road it was, and this road we were on was most likely a snowmachine trail...whoops. We trekked back to the truck, got all the stuff back into the truck and again I was left with the passenger seat. You could feel the truck slip and slide to the sides, closer to the edge of the road and I was wearing sunglasses, closing my eyes behind them and hoping that we would not fall down the hill with the truck. Luckily W's dad is an excellent driver and finally we got back to the wrong turn. 

 
 

The Arrival

    We took the correct turn and drove a bit further. But this road was also looking sketchy because of all the snow drifts. W's dad and mom took the truck up to the cabin with all the gear and food, while we hiked instead. The road was passable, and when we got closer to the cabin W's dad had already turned around and was going to drive back and forth to the cabin a few times to make sure he made a good imprint in the snow so that we could get out the next day. He picked up W and his brother for some extra weight and I continued on to the cabin. 

 
 

Fleecer Cabin

    We had a great afternoon and evening at the cabin. It was nice to finally relax from all that adventuring we had been doing (well to me it was because I was a little frightened by the snow driving). The cabin has all amenities you can think of, a kitchen, bedrooms, a wood stove and even a flushing toilet and shower, cold shower of course. We started a fire in the wood stove as soon as we arrived at the cabin and while the fire started going we got all the gear in. We cooked food, read through the guest log, which is always so much fun, and had a beer or glass of wine while we digested the food in front of the wood stove. Later in the evening we had a bonfire outside before we all went to bed.

 
 

Getting Out!   

    The next morning we had planned on going for some hiking/ski adventures. We had breakfast and a pretty slow start to the morning. The wind had picked up during the night and the road was once again snow covered. At this point W's dad got a bit nervous, because we needed to drive quite far on this sketchy road we came in on, that already then was pretty much snow covered. And in a few minutes, we had decided to leave, like immediately. We decided that we were going to pack the truck, and then W's dad drove it out. We skied out, and it was so windy, and cold, but we finally arrived at the car we left the day before and started to drive out. The road was even worse than the day before and we had some sketchy passages but we all got out perfectly fine! The overnight trip had been a success with plenty of adventures, which is what I wanted so I was satisfied.

 
 

    Did you guys go on any adventures this Christmas?

It's Like Alaska or Something

If you listen to Greg Browns live album, the live one, he talks about the UP, and he says

"It's like Alaska or something"

 

before he starts singing the song "the Laughing River". Well as I wrote in an earlier post I went to Wisconsin for Christmas and New Years and we drove up North to Northern Wisconsin and the Western UP of Michigan. The drive further up North from Northern Wisconsin was pretty sketchy, and we drove into a snowstorm. Everyone in Northern Wisconsin and other midwestern states were in emergency mode, because of the weather forecast of -35 to -45...Well coming from Alaska those temperatures aren't really biting on us, right now today it's -33F here in Fairbanks. I do understand that people that aren't prepared for these cold temperatures will run into problems and that it is dangerous and that is why everyone was in emergency mode. So clarifying that part, we on the other hand were pretty calm :) Maybe a little too calm, halfway up north on our adventure to lake Superior we were like:

Hm, maybe we should have brought a shovel, just in case, yeah, maybe we should have brought sleeping bags....

And all of these things that we ALWAYS do in Alaska were completely forgotten about when we started our drive. Nothing happened, but it just shows how you get as a person when you are taken out of your regular zone and into a new world.

The drive was really slow due to the snowstorm, and everyone we saw, that saw us looked at us as if we were crazy driving up north. We were like, huh, maybe they know something we don't know..In Wisconsin they always have all these signs at road intersections and such, with names of all people living down that specific road, or companies etc in that direction. Pretty cool actual and it makes it feel like such a friendly community. And I love the thick forest. AND we finally arrived, at the end of the world as I called it.

We experienced the so called "lake-effect snow" on the road driving along lake Superior. The lake produces evaporation that, when it blows in over land, turns into snow (in cold temperatures of course..) and we also saw a lot of drifting snow blowing in on the road that was just right by the lake. We were wondering how you as a person manage to have a house right by lake Superior and not totally go crazy with all shoveling you presumably would have to do...

The drive back down was filled with snow again of course. And I took some pictures of some pretty buildings along the way.

As we crossed the state border to Wisconsin again, the sun came out and all of the sudden we had clear skies and sun. It must be so beautiful to drive through this part during the fall. This thick forest would surely make some great light shows.

Northern Michigan and Wisconsin was pretty entertaining with snow-machine trails all over the place. The big tourism highlights in Wisconsin, as we understood, is snowmobiling and ice fishing in the wintertime and fishing in the summer time. Not as much hiking or snowshoe hiking, or at least we didn't see any signs of that. We came back to the cabin right on time for the sunset, and making a few snow-angels! just Wonderful.