A Few Riding Recollections

Most of my favorite riding memories haven’t happened yet. There are certainly favored recollections from past seasons, but I count on each new snowmobile season to bring more and newer memorable experiences. Isn’t that why we ride?

Of course, in my many years of snowmobiling there have been some memorable rides that still cause me to pause and chuckle a bit. As a young rider of some then new, but now very vintage, sleds, there was a time when New Hampshire’s Kancamagus Highway, a 30-plus mile long drive through the White Mountain National Forest was closed for the winter. That made this scenic area in northern New Hampshire a popular weekend rendezvous for early “ski-dooers.” Keep in mind that sleds of the 1960s were not fast, reliable and definitely marginal on comfort. Being able to traverse a 15-mile portion of the route on a Sunday afternoon without blowing a drive belt, requiring a spark plug change or needing a tug up an icy slope was considered a good day’s ride.

All snowmobiling is not created equally, that’s why we have personal favorite areas such as this lake vista in upstate New York.

As now the snowmobile season didn’t last long and was totally dependent on weather. In the central New Hampshire of my youth, if you could get riding before Christmas it might be a good season. It didn’t help when New Year’s Day came around and the temperatures were so warm that young men walked around in t-shirts and melted snow ran off roofs and flowed freely down the gutters. But, then cold returned and open fields got tricky with an inch of hard crust ready to bust open to catch a sled’s ski and run it into “sugary” snow that seemed to have no bottom. Those winter weeks from December to the end of February counted as a season in central New Hampshire. If you could ride through to mid-March, it was a big deal for a young rider from down state. But you had to go north.

Mountain snowmobiling creates memories of sheer mountain sides overlooking long lakes.

North we went; me and a grizzled old semi-retired character who lived to snowmobile. We packed our Ski-Doo Olympiques and drove to a cleared campground off the Kancamagus where the snow had stacked so high it turned picnic tables into covered snow mounds and hid undercutting rivulets of melting snow under the snow banks. This was mid-March and it would be my last ride for a long time as I was headed off for a three-year hitch in the military a couple of weeks later. Ah, but the fun we had making tracks into the snow-closed roadway. The scenery was and remains spectacular in the White Mountains. It was a week day and we were alone, puttering along at nearly 30 miles per hour, but feeling like we were much faster. Coming down hillsides running in the hardened tracks of previous riders, we could build up speed that got lost as soon as we pulled into unbroken snow or headed up hill. My goodness, this was glorious freedom.

When we returned to the parking area and got ready to head back, I took a run up a sidehill, bouncing off a high mogul and then running full speed back down to the flat parking area. It was so much fun getting the sled airborne and then running back down. Fun had its limits. My last run over that mound of snow caught me by surprise. A stream of water from melting snow undermined that mound and gave way as my sled’s skis hit it on my final run. The sled impacted hard and I landed on my back with my head neatly between the skis. The engine kept putt-putting as those early Rotax singles tended to do. And I was humbled. Physically okay, but ego humbled. It was a great day of riding and a memory that brings a chuckle and reminds me to keep the ego in check.

Wide open mountain meadows invite full throttle runs.

From that time on I knew I wanted to have a job that included snowmobiling. Fortunately, things fell into place that allowed me to travel the snow world and ride sleds on someone else’s dime. Austria, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Alaska, New England, New York, the Black Hills, Quebec, Ontario, Northwest Territories, the Yukon, the mountains of Colorado, California, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia have provided date lines for adventures I’ve enjoyed.

Canadian wilderness riding proved truly unique as I reported on a cross country race outside Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. This capital city with its population of fewer than 20,000 people sits a few hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle on the north shore of Great Slave Lake. The race course was literally cut out of the wild and attracted riders from all over the area. One of the top competitors hired a bush plane to get his sled to the event. When he was done, he flew back home.

Adventures can be found crossing narrow, undulating wooden bridges like this one not too far from Montreal in Quebec.

These racers didn’t carry manufacturers’ support nor did they have names known outside of their local areas, but they were rugged competitors tackling an unforgiving course. Prior to the event, I had the opportunity to run a lap over its marked but ungroomed distance. This was pure old days racing where the course demanded a reliable and durable sled – and rider. There was nothing subtle about this event, you didn’t get a participation trophy for simply showing up. You earned whatever you got.

A snowmobiler’s view of a well-used trail suggests a memorable day of riding.

Riding in the Yukon outside White Horse held a special allure for me. Probably suffering from a fantasy of old Sergeant Preston television reruns, this trip provided unique riding in surprisingly open wilderness and through stands of trees that were way older than you’d think. It is an area reminiscent of the Old West with its heritage of gold miners, steam trains and riverboat gambling. And, yes, there is the presence of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Unlike Sergeant Preston the modern RCMP use SUVs, airplanes and the occasional snowmobile to do their work.

Whether it’s stopping along the mountain passes of the Rockies in Colorado or British Columbia, snowmobilers appreciate the lasting spectacle of nature.

As for modern recollections, there will be some less adventurous rides, perhaps, but just as valued. Nowadays there is the short jaunt from the office to Hinckley, Minn. to unload for a day’s destination ride along the Munger trail and up to the Soo Line and over to the Red Top Loop. With Minnesota’s interconnected trail network of 22,000 miles of snowmobile trails it’s easier to have an adventure than it was “back in the day” along the Kancamagus Highway. The sleds are better, the trails groomed and pit stops abound for warmth and camaraderie.