As you guys know I am a picture whore. But hey they are free right? Well besides my photobucket pro account I purchased to do motorcycle/snowmobile ride reports last year.
Anyways, I decided to head out and learn more about my area here up on the hill. I drove up to the top of one hill. Wasn't too hard to get to, and snapped this picture
Remember that picture.. because towards the end of this report I will be miles away from this spot taking a picture and you see where I am at here. I will circle it in red.
Kept going for about 1 mile to the other side of the hill and took this
Found my way to about 4 miles away. GPS says I am tooling around at 1900 feet. Thats very high around here. Again another beautiful view miles from any houses
I did a little paint work to the sled today, figured I would take a beauty shot to show it off.
I take some seasonal road down the hill to???
Nice area
I take some side seasonal roads and paths thru woods and yadda yadda and I end up in some state land
Don't look down (much steeper in person)
I follow that for 5 miles or so and take some other seasonal road for 4? miles. I take a left over a snow bank and see these guys
Exchange waves and I head up into the woods. I come to a stop at this
When I stop I look down and notice my temp light and battery light has turned on. A ZRT doesn't have a battery. The only reason I have seen these come on before is low coolant. I pop the hood and see this
Uh OH! Turns out a nut that holds one of the cylinders down has come off. I never rechecked torque after rebuild (150 miles ago). Lesson learned. I turn around and find the nearest road. I figure out where I am at and head home via the side of the road. I had a nut at home and put it in (20 ft lbs fyi) and refilled with coolant.
I head up the seasonal road here and start up some paths in the woods. I end up at a pond.. nice
I decide to make my own trail thru the woods. I am guessing this is going to be 1.5 miles thru the woods to get me to my old trail I made where the antifreeze problem began. (pictures coming on the way back of the new renegade trail)
I continue for miles and go over crap like this in the middle of nowhere
I think I went over 20 of those.
Much to my amazement.. after awhile I come out on a snowmobile trail! WOOT! I just figured out a way to get from my place to the sled trail without taking the road for 4 miles! This is huge!
So I take it.. I think its called 23a for you locals
Now I think C2B
About here is where I see alot of cross country skiers. I exchange waves with a couple and go nice and slow and they wave back. 1 mile later I get way off the trail at 5 mph for 2 guys and I wave and they scowl at me. Alot of skiers hate snowmobiles because they think we wreck their ski paths (so a xcountry skier at work told me). So I hit the gas and get out of there, purposly ripping up his tracks. I paid the highest sled registration in the country to ride that trail, he didn't, so he can scowl all he wants... prick.
I come down into a nice view
I come into a corn field and look to my right. Here is where I told you to remember that first picture in this report. I circled where I was in that picture
Hard to believe that was like 20 miles ago.
Ahhhh.. and here where I decided to turn around. Lack of snow now that I am not at 1900 feet.
Back up the hill I take this cool picture
heading back home
Back on my renegade trail miles back to the house
Got a little tricky at times (thats my track, I came back for a picture)
Remember when in doubt, throttle out!
And now back at the house. 65 miles and 60 of them were not a trail. Little hard to do on a heavy old sled. Its sorta like playing russian roulette. Your many miles from home, alone, no cell service, on an 11-12 year old snowmobile you built/put together.
I don't know. I like it. I don't know why I bothered to do a report on it but I like to share and get sick of reading "where should I put my monster sticker". I guess its just my way of helping bring the forum back to what it was many years ago.
I got to go get ready for a little SF get together 2 hours north of here at 6 a.m.
Hope you enjoyed! These are alot of work.
