Rolling the Minnesota River Trail for 40 Years / Dog Sitting / Street Hockey with my Grandsons

 CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE!!

Full moon over the prairie, This is an awesome time of the year to be out on the trails riding the fat tire mountain bike. Riding the River Trail along the Minnesota River.

Night riding is my choice... good lights are the key to rolling along.

A bit of tire testing on the fat bikes. 3 inches of fresh snow, getting there early so we are on new snow.

Mixed in a bit of dog sitting for 6 days, Good time out in the fresh snow.

Throw back to the ole street hockey days with the Grandkids... The oldest grandson turns 16 years old this month... man, they are growing up.  

The most recent snow and getting out on more fresh snow. The timing is important to getting the best fat tire bike trail riding. The go to trail, The River Trail is my favorite in the winter. Most of the river was flowing , but on the sharp bend the ice was jammed up and it is a good place to take a break. 

One of the cool things about the river bottoms is the size of the trees and imagining how long they have been standing...at times during flooding, the whole trail can be under water and the trees have been there through it all.

 Check this out... a few memory pictures from the floods in the same area. This is an ever evolving eco system, been riding mountain bikes down here for 34 years. Before that i was riding enduro motorcycles. It has been my favorite haunts for 4 decades...Wow!

I took a break and sat in the trees for about 45 minutes and was treated to this site, Mama doe and her triplets... Pretty cool.

Ride on!!

Sledboarding Colorado Mountains / Nine Year Flashback 2007 / Snowboarding the Backcountry

 CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE!!

Chasing the snow storms was how we rolled 9 years ago. We had been in the sledboard game for 3 years, with 10 years of snowboarding under our belts, we kept pushing the bounderies.

Back in 1999 we started to head to the mountains from the Midwest. By 2002 we had taken an avalanche course in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The backcountry was our drug, best served with storms and driving through blizzards that just added to the adventure. 

 The town that caught our attention early on was Steamboat, Colorado. This was a big resort town, but also the appeal was the main town which still felt like a cowboy town. Nothing beats a good snowstorm in Steamboat.

 The goal 9 years ago was to hit the early season storm as it was dropping fresh powder in the surrounding mountains.

We went all in with the sled part of the backcountry adventure, 2 long track mountain sleds, enclosed trailer and 3/4 ton pick-up. 3 years into this adventure, we had replaced one of the sleds with a new 2008 Polaris RMK with a 155 inch long track. We still had the original 800 Polaris RMK 159" track.

The system was to have both sleds, ride both down the mountain and park 1 sled. Then Weez would sit in front and hold onto the bars while I stand and drive back up the mountain. Unload the boards and the snowboard down the mountain together. arrive at the parked sled, load up and roar back up. Sometimes we would use a waterski rope and I would pull Weez back up the mountain behind the sled.     

 The White Room... look close and you can see Weez in the trees.

 Riding the Polaris Mountain Sleds... awesome terrain and scenery... fresh powder.

 Living the rock and snow life... Our own mountain for the day, nobody else out there... Yee Haa!!

 Backcountry mountain weapon, Polaris 700 RMK 155"/2.4" paddles.

 Took a break from the backcountry 1 day and hit the Steamboat Resort on the boards.

The trip was all part of the big Adventure...East of Omaha heading into Des Moines, Iowa. 

Brapppp On!!

Cooke City, Montana / Backcountry Sledboard 2015 / M8 Cat & RMK Pro 800 / Burton Fish Pow Boards

 CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE!!

Cooke City is a snowmobile town in the winter. Park out front and ride from your hotel to the trail out of town and into the mountains.

 Getting some snowmobile riding in before the boarding. Had a good snowmobile ride yesterday, getting a feel for the sleds and snow conditions. We were up near Daisy Pass, found some good drops for the snowboards, so game on...

 Weez dropping out of the trees and heading for the sled.

 We had to pose for the sledboard pictures after a very good day in the backcountry on the sleds and boards. The other sled was up top waiting for us.

Each run consisted of both of us riding our sleds down to the bottom, leaving one there. Then Weez would climb on the sled, sit down and hold onto the mountain strap on the handle bars, I would stand behind her. It was a wild ride, climbing back up the mountain on the sled. She really must trust me because I'm on the gas all the way. then we would board down and repeat the ride back up.

 The final drop down to the the sled was steep and powder.

 It was a blast to get back on the sleds and ride the mountains. The final day we rented an Arctic Cat M800 / 153 inch track and a Polaris PRO RMK 800 / 155 inch track. The sleds are about 160 horsepower...they rip!

 We finished the trip off with a ride up the trail, not ready to give up the riding and being in the mountains. Mountain cabin with Elk antlers and thick blanket of snow.

Main street Cooke City, Montana

Sledboard on!!

10th Mountain Hut / Colorado Backcountry / Snowboarding Snowshoing and Skiing / Day 2

 CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE!!

Homestake Peak @ 13,200 ft, blanketed with a foot of fresh snow. A good storm with 60-70 mph winds dropped a foot of snow overnight.

 At the cabin, the cabin sits at 11,300ft.

The kitchen is well equipped with pots, pans and dinnerware. We have propane for cooking, water is the snow melted in the pot on the wood burning stove. That is an important task that everybody pitches in to keep filled. With the water we need to use it for drinking, cooking and washing dishes. The pot has a spigot so filling a water bottle is easy enough, at this altitude we are drinking water frequently.

 Great views out the windows in the common room. The outhouse is a short stroll away. During the night of the storm it is a trip out with the shovel to keep the walkway open.

 Blanket of powder made the mountains spectacular. It is a blast to break trail through the fresh snow.

 Crossing some of the slopes requires just one at a time for safety.

 The 3 guys preparing to drop down off the ridge line we were crossing.

A description of how this turned out from Weez..."Beautiful day today 12 inches new snow, ascended a 3 hour hike ridge line, decided to descend. Well let just say ran into a 200 foot cliff band very sketchy situation lots of inprov. Made it back safe ahh..."

The guys ended the desent with a slide down a 30 fott rock face. We tried a route to the north, with some sketchy snowboarding along the top of the cliff band. there was no room for error. We came to a dead-end. So our decision was to backtrack out. It required snowshoing back up some of the rock faces. The snow was sketchy and it took about 45 minutes to cover 20 yards. We were able to gain the top of the ridge and then it was a matter of backtracking our trail from earlier.   

 This was a good experience of keeping together in 2 groups and coming up with a solution to our predicament. Everybody got back to the cabin safe and in one piece...and we had a story to tell. 

 I decided to hike back up the rock face we had snowboarded on the day before to finish the day. Got one last run for the day. Another full day with good scenery and adventure...and good company. It was good to get back to the cabin for our last night. Food, drink and a bit of card playing. We had the cabin to ourselves, the 5 of us...until about 9:00pm when Dan spied a headlamp out in the darkness while looking out the window.

Turned out that a young fellow from the Breckenridge area decided to ski up to the cabin for 2 days. He got off work and drove up to the trailhead where we had parked, about 4.5 miles down the mountain. He was familiar with the trail and made a night approach. Impressive...interesting fellow, Weez and I sat up till the middle of the night chatting with him. This was a good day!

 The 10th Mountain Hut.

 The guys stayed an additional night so they skied out in the morning and climbed the ridge to the north of the cabin.

Yours Truly, just before the snowshoe down off the mountain back to the truck at the trailhead. It was good, with more snow falling. Three days and two nights make an adventure to remember.

Adventure on!!