Wyoming / Wed. / 12-9-10

1 Word > BLIZZARD

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In the trees, that's where we headed today. We woke up to -12 degrees and 60 mph winds. This kind of weather thins the herd, there was only 2 other trucks on the mountain today. One was the Yamaha factory truck, they were just hanging in their trailer out of the wind. We unloaded and headed straight north from the trailhead. It is an area the locals call no-mans land. You make your own trails up there, no groomed trails, but you can stay in the trees and poke out off and on. The snow was really variable with big drifts of powder and underneath would be a crust and underneath the crust would be sugar snow. This was a day of many stuck and tricky situations. GOOD TIMES!! It is like snowboarding in the trees with a 500 pound, 147 horsepower critter, you pick your line through the trees and float or power through untouched powder anywhere from 1 foot deep to 7 feet deep.

One of my stuck times. I rode up a little rise in the woods and ended up above a creek. It was about a 10 foot drop into the creek, so not a good option, so option 2 was to power through 3 big drifts and not roll into the creek. Oh, and not plow into the trees on the other side. Well I made it through 2 1/2 drifts and then buried it. But stayed out of the creek. In the meantime Larry was stuck in another part of the creek. so you pull out your shovel and dig the sled out.

In the woods out of the wind, we were out in some exposed areas in the midday and later in the day we climbed a mountain where it was all wind blown. Rocks and logs exposed. Working our way back late in the day we tryed to work our way back south to the trailhead. We made a long winding climb up through rocks and small scrub pines, got on top and the wind was blowing hard and the snow was drifted and full of rocks. no way to cross over. We had to drag the sleds around and descend back down the climb. we then worked our way back through the creek in the woods and headed back towards the truck.

When we got out of the woods and a few miles to ride, we pulled off and took a short break. One last energy drink to hydrate, We had been at 10 - 11,200 feet all day. It was great to be on our way back to the truck after all day in the mountains. With no trail to follow and as it gets later in the day you have to make sure that there are not mistakes made or incidents. With the temperture at -3 and the winds howling it wouldn't be a great night to camp out.

Packed up and ready to head home.