Blake Koch from Snow Hunnys and Blake McCoy from Premontition films contacted me earlier about getting in a film date, they called and had originally wanted to go to Mt. Baker. I didn’t feel super comfy going someplace I hadnt been before without some peeps I knew really well. So I got em talked into taking the trek to Halfway. And as many of you know Halfway is my back yard and is pretty darn special to me. So I was stoked.
Tuesday was rough for the boys I showed up and met them at Stockmans and they had got into town at around 4 am, crappy road conditions and crazy gorge winds (which blew all the way to Baker) kept them on the road for a lot longer than expected… So we were pretty slow getting the ball rolling that morning. We set out to find a foot of new snow un plowed to the sno-park. (I was having visions of the LR 2 years ago trying to get B up there with her enclosed) at any rate we get on the trail and it is foggy and snowing, really????? really?????? foggy and snowy in halfway…… Who would have thought…. just kidding (its rarely sunny there) We rolled up the trail and I took off through the trees just kept going and going, they boys following, well we got to a stopping point down in a little hole. The sun just teased and it was a misty sunny mix, so they set up and took a couple of shots. So we decided to move on…. however it was not so easy to get out of there…. after countless Marmot manuvers and building them a freeway we got out of there. I have to say these guys no matter how many times they got stuck never had a bad attitude and we just had fun… I laughed so hard. By that point it was getting dark so we headed home.
Wednesday my best good little buddy Haley came to play with us… It was foggy in town so we didn’t have high hopes for a sunny shred day. We get almost to Fish Lake and voila the skys parted and we had sunshine and freshies all to our selves. We tore up meadows, hillsides, lakes, little tree areas and just had fun, just skipping around to our final spot sunset on sugarloaf. We had to say good bye to Haley that night, busy little real estate agent had meetings early Thursday Morning…. Did I mention Blake and Blake are freaking halarious, with these two around it is never a dull moment.
So Thursday, the boys decided one more day… so away we went and this time it was sunny from town, we had our excited faces on and went bee boppin up the trail…. and right off the trail I spotted it the most amazing line ever up thru the trees glistenie in the sun and powdery… I finagled my way through the trees to the oposite end of the line and carved up toward the boys… at first I though hummmm that was prolly silly, upon play back nope it is my most favorite clip ever. I could die happy just knowing that one clip happened, it just summed up my hole entire outlook on snowmobiling in 15 short seconds…. Others might think it is silly but to me it was perfect… Ok I’ll stop getting misty…. So we hit some more areas and went on to Sugar Loaf and started hitting the big powdery areas on the South Face there. So I’m just going all out freaking all over the place stella’s tounge is hanging out she is panting…… on a wide open throttle side hill… I hear tink……. tink.. tinktinktinktinktink and my stomach and heart just drop… I knew instantly it was NO BUENO…. And yep I was right it was NO BUENO…. Welp I called every one I knew getting a good diagnoses really summing up the fact it wasn’t something that could be swapped out on the hill. And no was the answer to that.
Well we started the tow… cept the problem here was that we were down, and we had an M6 and an old Polaris (which was having some sort of clutch issue) to tow miss piggy stella back UP…. Ok so after many comical attempts, we decided it was best to leave ( yes I said leave) my poor stella to sleep on the side of a cold snowy mountain top with the sasquatches for the night, until we could get a tow sled with some horsey power.
The boys headed back for Portland that eav, I had alot of fun with those guys, laid back and fun to be around I can’t wait to see their final product this fall! So I got Mike and his Brother to come up and get Stells outta there. We got her out (she is out of warranty) so Mike said he would tear into her for me…. And this is what he found….
-1 broken connecting rod…. and when it broke it took hostages, the case was mangled and the crank was toast, no bearings to be found just a pile of metal in the bottom. Luckily no metal made its way up, and my cylindars were in good shape. Called up Michelle at Oregon Trail Sports and low and behold she had a short block and pistons in stock (it was time for new pistons anyhow) So by friday she should be back up and running with a totally new motor, realigned clutches, and a major tune up….
Well sorry for the lengthy novel I just kept typing… LOL
Picts to follow
