We started off on the Laird derby. We got off the derby route
and headed to
Shellbrook for
lunch.
We
went past Fort Carlton and crossed the
North Branch up on the Green Lake
trail
Green Lake trail
which leads across the countryside.
The Old Carlton Crossing
Just off the Green Lake trail
their are lots of property line snow catching banks to jump and
play in.
We are riding the
High banks that
are just off the Trail to Green Lake.
After the
cross country ride up to Shellbrook
for lunch, I must add that for the last 10 miles To Shellbrook I
cut in and out of some pretty awesome ditch riding powder soft
Blowthru's
while the rest of the group all sitting "On Empty" had to ride
the shoulder of the road in "Economy Mode!" In this series
of snaps we get back onto the North Branch at the
Steep Creek crossing.
Yours truly and the Ski-doo SL 500 in our group jumped off the river's
edge and landed safely.
Third here goes the summit. The
forth
sled to go spun badly and landed skis first pretty hard, buddy
getting a good forehead scrape from the top edge of his
windscreen!
You notice the rest of the group tipped their sleds off the
embank on the ice more carefully!
From here we head up river back
to the Wingard Ferry crossing. At the Crossing we come across a
local from Dalmeny SK who was waiting rescue. An extensive
(apparently) top end run from Prince Albert to the Wingard
crossing has forced his Mach1 to "Thro a belt" which was jammed
under his clutches! Read...
BONNEVILLE!
Fun the snow Bill?!
On our own "W.O.T." trip back up the North Branch... occurred one
of those moments... never to be forgotten! The 440LC Polaris that I
was riding was flat out in one 5 mile stretch closing in on the
Wingard crossing it was outpacing the 50HP 500cc fan cooled Ski-Doo SL in
our group but was being paced side by side with the 135HP
Ski-Doo Formula III 600 triple. I was flat out "The Speedo"
registering a consistent 85 MPH at 7800 RPM. After a few miles
like this I had the highly difficult urge, (believe me
letting off the throttle like this is difficult) to pull back on the throttle!
By pulling back slightly the inefficient awkwardly designed OEM
round side Mikunis fell back slightly in their bores, and
dropped the needles slightly for a little leaner mixture and a
little more HP!
The result was immediate,
suddenly the tack needle swung up to the 8200 RPM mark and the
tone of the engine changed and seemed to sound off at the pipe!
It took a few more seconds then just as the tack had jumped up
400 RPM, the speedometer now also started to move... it sat on
92MPH! The owner on the Formula III was caught off guard and
with plenty of power to spare, and really not any contest
implied, he started looking back and forth and up and down at
his speedometer with a gesture to say "What the H...? Where did
that 7 MPH come from!"
Nothing like having a good setup,
with clean sensitive good shifting clutches!!
SIGHTSEEING is one
thing, but are you fit enough to
participate in a cross country snowmobile ride?