part 2 – yampa, aspen, grand junction, drive

Continuing from the last post….

I didn’t get told when I started eating it because obviously they have had people that screw their nose up at trying it, so they just let them have it and realize how wonderful it is!  And it really is worth trying!  I would recommend it to anyone really.  Its taste is similar, yet its much nicer as a whole as a meat!

We had our lunch,  the peanut butter and jelly I liked!  Now jelly is essentially jam without the fruit bits in it, so we could make it home,  and I think we will have to!  Its really nice stuff!  Overall it had so far been a day of firsts!  Elk, Peanut butter and Jelly as well as snow mobiling!  All of which I was a fan of!  After dinner we sat around in the warmth of the cabin and chatted and what not.  I explained the whole Cricket thing, which they liked the concept off, although the whole 5 day test matches or one day one-dayers didn’t really get huge approval,  they seemed to think it was a long game.  I’ve started to get really good at describing the sport now though!  First time took me an hour, now I use paper and a pen and can get it all done in around 5 minutes or so!  The basics this is,  then I get into all the nitty gritty which can take longer and really doesn’t ad much to the game!  Rick and Cindie were asking questions about Australia, and the indigenous people issues (which seem very similar to the US…  and Canada really,  just happened everywhere).  But before long we had to head on back again.  ON the trip back I drove and Megan was hanging off the back.  Not a bad thing, as there some some lovely shots of the s

unset which Megan managed to capture.  Kudos the camera operator.  I wasn’t helping much, as I was letting a gap form behind Cindie before giving the yacht a push to catch up again!

I helped Trav get the snow mobiles back on the trailer and then it was off for home again.  Trav I should mention drives a HUGE Dodge pick up truck!  It’s an awesome machine.  Megan and I both had some issues getting up into it this thing is so far from the ground, and once your up there, you look out over everything else with utter distain!  But the coolest part of it is the motor.  It runs a Cummins Turbo 5.9Litre six cylinder diesel. It red lines at around 3,100rpm and could literally move a house at idle.  Phenomenal amounts of grunt this thing had off the line!  It was really quite funky.  And it sounded like we were up in a Kenworth truck.  Funky stuff.   We got back to the Ranch and had some supper, Megan and I did some changes to Cindies computer which was giving her some trouble and Rick was watching the playoffs.  The day was over all to soon.

Megan and I said our goodbyes and headed on home, sure that we were going to be VERY tired and very stiff the next day!  We got back to the cabin, which had a fresh supply of wood there (the day before we had gone through the entire stack of wood trying to stay warm!  Kinda felt a little bad for whoever had to cut it all) and made ourselves a fire.  Cindie had given us some fire sticks while at the ranch, which we were told would solve all our troubles in getting the things going.  We got one going and then left to sit in the Jacuzzi to try and loosen up our muscles.  Bed came soon after as did a night again filled with “its to hot…  its to cold” comments from both of us as the fire messed with out VERY stiff and tired bodies!

The next morning came,  we had to get to Aspen to see Lloyd as well as get down to Grand Junction for the night.  We backed up and loaded the car and started out on the drive.  Should be around 2.5 hours to Aspen we were thinking,  maybe less with a shortcut that Rick had told us about that would have us on a dirt road for an hour or so that avoided the big back track that we were going to have to go otherwise.  First stop was for coffee and fuel.  The fuel cap decided this day wasn’t going to be its, and it refused to open.  WE tried water, then hot water, then prying then banging, but for no love of money was this thing EVER going to let us open it.  Megan wanted to just drive to aspen and worry about it there, I didn’t want to get to somewhere we didn’t know anyone and try and deal with it!  At least here we could ask Rick for some help if require!   We went inside, got boiling water form the coffee machine, tried that… still nothing.  I read the manual and find there is meant to be a safety release in the boot.  So we unload the boot of all its stuff, and I search around for a non existent release cord.  Neither of us are laughing anymore…   in the end we give up, stick a key under the lid and I pulled HARD.  POP, the thing opened.  And when I looked at it,  its spring loaded!  So in emergency you DO just pry the stupid bloody thing open and it will spring load over the catch…  stupid… really stupid.  We fill up, and get coffee which turned out to only have milk and vanilla in it… the machine poured no coffee…   now we have no coffee and we are 45 minutes late.   We couldn’t find the shortcut road as the sign wasn’t posted anymore, so we missed it, drove back and found the sign for the other direction!  We get on the road, which I might ad was a beautiful drive!  The road follows the Colorado river along and ghets back on the I-70 at Dot zero, right before Glenwood Canyon.  Glenwood Canyon I might also ad is HUGE,  it’s the best proof ever that Noahs Ark was real.  At the top of these 12,000 foot peaks there are fish fossils…  its an EXTRAORDINARY drive.  But so was our drive on the shortcut.  It was ½ dirt ½ paved, and went through some beautiful country.  So much nicer then a giant highway that’s for sure!  Enjoyed the drive much more.  We also had some issues finding Lloyds place in Aspen, but got there soon enough.  The whole drive in from the i-70 to Aspen we were having patchy snow, so we decided that if it got to bad we would have to cut lunch short and make tracks early.  We found Lloyds place, which is pretty decent!  Then again I guess it is Aspen so your not going to have many bad places.  The airport had around 50 private Lear jets all parked at its side, so it wasn’t exactly cheapville.  We went into town to get some lunch and chew the fat,  see how each off our trips had been respectively and in general catch up.  It was fun!  Good to see Lloyd again after such a break.  He was doing well, struggling to save but that happens when your in a foreign town.  Lunch was at a mexicaqn place in town.  Aspen btw is a really cute little town!  There were ice sculptures around the place and most of the chops all looked pretty funky in general.  All in the ski resort mould!  The food was good, until all of a sudden, someone behind me at another table screamed.  Megan was watching them unsure of what they hell was their problem and commented “looks like they saw a mouse!”  in a semi joking manner.  Not a couple of minutes after that comment a couple of the staff come wandering around looking under tables with serving dishes (the metal bowel type ones) in their hands going “there may be a mouse under your table”…..   mmmhmmm…  this was what I was expecting at lunch as well!  Lloyd was looking rather amused at the whole event and continued to eat watching the two staff members pay more attention to our feet then someone with a foot fetish.  Megan and I decided we didn’t really want to eat anymore.  Lloyd did try and convince us that it happens everywhere, and that they keep the food sealed, but it was more the whole MOUSE in the restaurant thing, and the fact they were using serving dishes to catch the bloody thing!  All three of us were sending each other looks, which really spoke volumes for the majority of the experience. The only time we really spoke about it was when I looked down and SAW the bastard wandering over to our table to see what was going on.  I casually mention to Megan “darl, you may want to move your feet”.  Lloyd noticed that neither of us were eating and aptly commented “are we done now?!”  to which replied  “well..  at least I am, although our friend down there looks like he could do with some more food”.  I guess the stress of having Argentinean waiters try and slam a stainless steel dish on your head could impact on your waist line…  stress is very debilitative!  So is eating in a place with a mouse to!  Pretty much everyone at he restaurant around us decided this was the best time to leave their meals and go.  Which really wasn’t that hard a decision to make was it?!  I was pretty much there..  it was all I could take not to say anything rude.  We all did well though.  Lloyd wasn’t that fazed, Megan and I were,  so we asked for the bill,  the lady came back with it and is still looking around for this rodent to catch it, and comments to us “I don’t like walking around where there are mice”.  My ability not to say anything snippy was totally eroded now, so it was all I could do not to say anything more then “could be worse you know – try EATING WITH THEM”.   We don’t think she got it, and Lloyd and Megan had a good laugh.  On the way out she still looked a little uncomfortable and I casually mentioned  “you know I’m sure he could just scamper up your jeans legs there, you might want to tuck in your shirt!”…  I was over the whole experience and her issue with WORKING around them really seemed trivial to me.

So we left, and it was snowing pretty hard now,  so we apologized to Lloyd for having to leave so quickly and started to leave town and make a dash for i-70 in the hope we could avoid most of the snow.  It would seem that further up the road it had been snowing pretty hard, there were a good few inches of snow on the road and everyone –being the 10 cars or so around us – realized all at the same time it was pretty icy, when they started sliding all over the place at one particular curve in the road.  Yay for ABS breaks and a smart snow driver called Megan.  So we all slowed down then!  As you do…  We got back on the highway,  it was icy and a little interesting… it was keeping us on our toes and thanking ourselves for not taking the Bimmer which as rear wheel drive would have been fish tailing over the 4 lanes the whole afternoon.  We could have ended up looking as peked as our skinny mouse from lunch.  Stress kills people!   We got in Grand junction, stayed at the Hampton inn, which it took us FOREVER to find!  I thought we had to take one exit, we took another and headed in the direction of the exit, which just took us back to where we started from by another rtoad.  It was a little frustrating, we were getting annoyed.  But the Hampton was nice,  $99 a night with breakfast included, it’s a cheaper Hilton by another name.  We stayed in trying to get some rest before heading out for Pizza at Nancy’s Pizzeria.  Boy of BOY was it snowing then!  The place was blanketed, and the only reason we still went out was cause we just drove at 5 miles an hour down the road by ourselves.. it was 7pm and it was deserted such was the weather.  We had fun, slipping and sliding a little.  Its all pretty harmless at 5mph and we went around 4 blocks before finding our dinner spot!  Dinner was a shared bbq chicken ½ with another ½ of spicy buffalo chicken wing pizza.  We both preferred the former, but it was still nice.  They stayed open just for us, were all nice and chatty to us, and once we walked out the door they locked up and turned of the lights!  We went home, watched pretty women and called it a night.

Today, we started slow!  We didn’t feel like rushing it.  So it was up at 8,  downstairs by 9ish to have a slow breakfast.  Breakfast was nice!  Scrambled eggs, bagels, fruit and yogurt!  After a slow breaky we were back on the road!  Off to Vegas again!  Vegas for the night, then to Sedona via the Hoover dam and the grand canyon!  580 miles have been accomplished today!  This whole blog has been written over two laptops,  lunch was at Chillis in St. George and now we just went over a hill and there is Vegas in all its Glory looking at us on the horizon.  So that there people was the day!  We stopped in the mountains in Utah and read about how they were all oceans and coral reefs around 150 million years ago,  just some awesome country!  My favorite mountain though is at grand junction, facing Denver, I’ll post pictures,  the flat tops over Yampa were amazing true, but this one.. something about it,  its just there, a whole line of them in the middle of no where indicating you have reached the started of the Colorado Rockies…   VERY imposing!  Have to look at the top of them through the sunroof!  I love them.. and in the morning when leaving, they had snow all over them that wasn’t there the night before when we were going in!

Today – the drive,  the same road as last time,  lots of beautiful mountains, although nothing like Glenwood canyon in Colorado.  Chiles in St. George Megan had a Chicken Pita that was Huge and I had a bacon burger!  Which was ALSO huge!  We wanted to eat outside of Vegas and the high prices, as well as not each rubbish…  this was a passable meal!

Yampa, Aspen, Grand Junction, drive to vegas part 1

Yampa, Aspen, Grand Junction, drive to vegas.

Saturday was the day we were having with Megan’s relations – Aunt, Uncle, Cousin – Rick, Cindie and Travis.  They have a cattle ranch just outside of yampa’s “business district” which really is just 2 pubs, 2 restaurants and a local store.  The plan for the day was pretty simple, we head to their ranch, have breakfast then we were going to snow mobile to “Grampa’s Ranch” which is Cindie’s Grandfathers ranch.  And I think if I remember the story correctly, its been in the family many generations further back then that as well, its over 100 years old that I know.  Great, Great Grandfather had the land first, and he leased it from the Ute Indians of the area.  So this was before the government had any of the land pretty much.  He pretty much had the whole entire valley.  As in we snow mobiled for around an hour to get to the ranch from where the they stoped clearing the roads and all of that land was what he owned.  Now they still have the ranch which is situated by a lake with a couple of other small cabins.  One was the original family home that is over 100 years old and had all 13 of the family bought up in it.  It still has the original wood fired oven in it that was bought in on horse and cart all that time ago. Then there is the old school, the teachers cabin and then the other cabin which was the one that they use now.  They are all built on the edge of a huge lake, which you can picture under the snow but only really grasp in a summer picture of the place – it’s a big lake, great trout fishing to apparently!  They don’t have electricity or running water, there is a spring which they get water from and the outhouses are out the back!  More on it later!  I’m getting ahead of myself!

The plan was to meet at around 9am at the ranch to have breakfast after Rick had finished feeding the cattle.  We had the option of getting there around 7.30 and help with the feeding, but we decided against that.  It was a sleep thing, as well as the fact that there is snow everywhere and it was ten below.  In the morning there was the whole better reason in that we didn’t get anywhere near as much sleep as we were thinking we would have!  And it wasn’t for lack of trying!  It was that it was DAM cold outside and the fire would run out of wood around 2 hours after you went to sleep! so in around 2.5 hours you were freezing half to death, and one or the other of us was commenting on the fact that it was dam cold and that the fire needed to be replenished.  It was like having a baby!  We ended up taking turns in trying to get the thing going again and warming the place up.  Only in a desire to get it warm you over supply it in the wood department, so in around 30 minutes the thing is going like there is no tomorrow and your as hot as hell all of a sudden.  Plus there was some issues with pillow comfort that was stopping me from sleeping as well!  SO all in all we didn’t quite sleep as planned!  But the fire thing is still fun and novel!  Its nice watching it and listening to it!

So, we were up a little early for the 9am breakfast… around 6am!  The first had gone out again, and this time I was just totally sick of it,  so I got it going with 3 logs, and it was crackling away happily, but I got into bed and well bugger me if the thing was only warming a 30cm surround of the fire, so I was just totally over it and thus got up, stuck another three logs in there and some kidderling to get them firing quickly.  And well after that we didn’t have any issue about being cold!  We had ourselves a little oven thing happening!  And it sounded like there was a gas leak nearby that thing was hissing away so much.  So we were up.  9am comes up on your quicker then you think though and we were off to the ranch for breakfast.  I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned in the Colorado blog about the drive and just how beautiful the country is up around this area.  You are north of the I-70 highway, up in the mountains, some of the largest mountains around there full stop.  As in a mountains not far from where we were is known for being a look out during the war, as you can see four states from the top of it.  Pretty good strategic hold!   So we had to head up the main street and then down another road that ran off it up into the hills for around 15 minutes to get to their ranch.  15 minutes sounds a fair way, but all the roads of the main highways are not ploughed, so the traffic on them just keeps on compacting snow down forming ice.  You can’t really drive quick as you would just slide straight off the road at the firs gust of wind or corner.  We got the ranch and had to wade the snow from the drive to the house, which was even deeper then the roads.  The tyre tracks from the 4×4’s we could use, but the problem is that the 4×4’s that they have all have A LOT of ground clearance – a beetle does not!  So we were wading our way through.  We didn’t get stuck though!  Kudos to the driver!  We had the wait around inside for a couple of minutes until Cindie and Rick were finished the morning jobs lest they be there waiting for them when we got back, and then we had breakfast!  And what a breakfast it was!  We had peaches and blueberries, waffles, bacon, eggs – the works!  Trav was with us as well, so we all had a chat, caught up on things etc etc,  and then got to the nitty gritty of whether Megan and I had the appropriate gear for the trip! Snow mobiling can be cold stuff!  Snow getting sprayed around the place, the wind chill, and then the general ambient temperature issue!  Before leaving Colorado though we had been kitted out well with all the required gear by Charles, so that was handy!  Only a couple of items needed to be borrow!   After all this, Rick and Trav got the snow mobiles prepared and the trailers hooked up to the 4×4’s.  We stayed in the warmth of the house with Cindie with the duty of preparing the food that we were taking up for lunch at the ranch.  This was when somehow Cindie came to the realisation I’d never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!  This nearly had us looking for a hospital it took her by so much surprise!  “it’s a staple!  How can you not have had a pb&j?!?!”  she was in shock!  So much so that she decided I simply had to try one that day!  So the muffins had to be removed form the food bag to make room for some peanut butter so that it could be made up at gramps ranch.  Cowboy pudding it is!  Peanut butter I mean…  everything has to have a  nickname up there I was told,  its just what they do,  peanut butter is known as cowboy pudding.  So if I say I had some cowboy pudding and jello, you know what I’m talking about! J To start the snow mobiling we had to get to he road that we start on which was around 30 minutes drive away (again, slow things down because of the fact hat its all ice and you a have  trailer).  You essentially snow mobile on back roads that don’t get cleared in the winter by the snow ploughs.  That and of course no one has fences up there on the massive grazing lands, or you just go through the gates on the massive stretches that are fenced.  So you pretty much start at a street where a sign says “end of road maintenance” and there is a 6foot wall of snow right at your face!  Pretty hard to believe, but they have had A LOT of snow up there!  Trav and Rick think that in the last month or so they have had around 13 feet of snow fall, of which there is varing amounts still about.  Depending where you are you can still get a good 5-10 feet of standing snow.  In Steamboat Springs which is around 30 miles north, they have had around 18-30feet of snow fall, and its still falling.  They have had earth morving equipment up there clearing the roads and piling snow into literal mountains on the road.  Around 2 stories or so of snow are piled either side of the road.  Trav was snow mobiling up there around a week before we got there and his snow mobile got stuck in the snow and promply ended up lying vertical in the snow.  This snow mobile is around 8 feet long, so I mean, its pretty deep!  He and his friend start the long process of trying to dig the  thing out  (which pretty much is getting it at an angle that you can just squeeze the throttle right down, get some weight on the belt and force it) then the realised that there was something underneath the bottom of it.  Once they got it out, they noticed that it was a tree.  A tree was buried in around 8 foot of snow on TOP of it!  So we are talking massive amounts of snow!  They haven’t had it like this is years!   We had four mobiles with us, the tandem is affectionately known as the “yacht” or the “caddy” as it’s a HUGE beast!  Two people carried comfortably on it!  It’s a big heavy sucker though!  Megan and I were on this one, and Rick, Cindie and Travis edge had their own.  So we were off!  Megan was driving, I was holding on behind her!  Man oh Man do those things fly!  The speedo on the yacht even went up to 100mph, and we were doing 50mph or so at one stage and Trav was still pulling away from us!  Before long though Cindie jumped in front of us and curbed the speeds we were doing!  Didn’t want us getting to carried away I think!  Hahaha, perhaps not that bad a thing!  It wouldn’t be the last time that we road them though, so we would wind them out a little later on!  Megan agreed, thinking that Cindie was trying to remind us that it was a sight seeing trip that we were on – not a trip where we played “who can stay On the snow mobile for as long as possible”.  We were back down to around 25-30 miles an hour with Cindie in lead!  Smart job Cindie though, as then I started looking around and seeing more instead of watching in front to see what was happening to know which way to lean to keep the thing up right and from digging a ski in!  The ride was B E A utiful!  Just so hard to understand!  Gorgeous gorgeous country back there!  Your surrounded by meadows and mountains covered in snow, with a ranch every 10 minutes or so, and nothing else to interrupt the views.  The mountains are come of the largest in Colorado, which also has some of the largest in the world, so we are talking HUGE mountains!  (there are 108 peaks in the world that are over 14 ,000 feet, and Colorado has 55 of them!  HUGE areas!)  Everywhere you looked was covered in champagne powder!  Champagne powder is pretty much fresh, ultra light powder that is as soft as it gets.  It doesn’t stick together at all, so it’s the type of stuff you just fall into.  Post Holing that is called!  Perfect for skiing but Megan things ‘really shitty’ for snow mobiles.  All I know was that I was having the time of my life!  We stopped a couple of places along the way to take photos of some of the most exceptional views.  Really though you could have just taken hundreds of photos, no where you looked was there a bad shot.  Massive mountains and equally huge meadows were as far as the eye could see.  After around … I have no idea, I’m thinking 40-60 minutes we were at grampas ranch.  It just appears as you come over a rise and look into a meadow.  Surrounded by mountains, its just gorgeous.  Rick and Cindie have pretty much been in all the country side around there.  One of Ricks first jobs up there was running cattle on a 250,000acre area that was at the foot of some mountains that you looked out to in the distance.  They pretty much know the area like the back of their hand.  And why you wouldn’t want to I have no idea, its just SO beautiful!  No noise anyway, just perfect quite from all the snow pretty much.  There are the 5 cabins, all have stoves, but only one has an actual kitchen kitchen,  none have running water, there is an outhouse behind the oldest cabin.  They are really cute.  In the hunting season they are leased out for hunting (6 weeks long, $1000 bucks each) and also for candies relaxation time.  On our arrival, cindie got to work making a fire in the stove so she could prepare our ‘picnic’  Rick and I went around the back to find the spring, so that we could fill some old metal buckets with water to cook with.  We were pretty much walking through the snow when all of a sudden Rick stepped and went in waist hight.  This he knew was happening, as its where the pipe form the spring is.  There’s a shovel that was standing in the snow he dug out and moved the snow from the pipe so we could get some water.  We were pretty much right by the lake, which I didn’t notice until I looked and you see the snow is allot more even there.  Inside we came to the conclusion that it was probably a little to early to sit down and eat seeing we had only recently finished breakfast, so Rick and Trav decided it would be a good time to take Megan and I for a snow mobile trip to a spot on the side of Dome mountain.  I ended up taking Cindie’s snow mobile, which I had to do a test drive on around the ranch to appease her concern that I hadn’t been on one before.  Trav and Rick pretty much just figured I’d get the hang of it on the way!  They are SO awesome!  They have twin cylinder two stroke motors that can run at phenomenal powers!  Travs mobile has a dry weight was around 500pounts, and has a 160Hp motor.  Yeah – more then what my Corolla has!  They run cyntriphical gearboxes, which means the more you rev, the more they grab and off you go!  To get going they take around 3,000rpm and only really start jumping around 6,000.  at 7,000 the clutch really grabs and they go flying off!  Two skis on the front and a 15inch wide belt that drives you on the back.  To put it simply, they are AWESOME to ride!  Just have Huge amounts of get up and go!  When you wind them out you really just float along on top of the snow!  They are very motorbike like in that you have to leave in the corners to get the weight onto the right ski to be able to steer.  Rick was in the lead, Meg was in the yacht behind him, then myself, then Trav at the back making sure neither of us came off or got stuck without anyone realising for 10 minutes!  The trip up to the dome was pretty eventless, I was slowing down to get away from meg and then letting it go a little just to get a feel of the things, and they are just so fun!  They shoot across the snow!  Awesome awesome machines!    The view form the top of the mountain was gorgeous,  Rick pointed out the mountains of Aspen below as that we were going to see Lloyd the day after, The Chair, W mountain, all the really nice ones.  You can see the canyons that the I-70 goes through,  we were very high up!  Gramps ranch was 9000feet and we were riding for a good 15 minutes just going up and up to get to where we were.  Doing a good 30mpg average, so we were as about as high as you get in that area!  Rick decided that it would be nice to try and find another way back, deciding to see if we could join up with another mobile track that he and trav knew of that took as around the side of Dome mountains through the valley back to the ranch.  SO, off we went.

This part of the story really has to be told by both of us, seeing we were both on different snow mobiles.

Megan:

So we are flying along there, weaving in and out of Aspen trees, nearly hitting them, having to jump from one side to another on the sleds to that we didn’t slide into a tree, and just keep ourselves upright in general.  We go a little ways and we started climbing a hill.  I reached the top of the hill where Rick started heading to the left to go along the ridge of the before heading down a more gradually sloping side.  I on the other hand started sliding down the hill, despite turning the skis completely left, as far as they would go and jumping onto the left side (up slope side) of the sled to try and keep it on the same track as Rick.  So there I went!  My sledge barrelling down the side of the mountain, going in the wrong direction, not one i wanted to be going in, getting in deeper and deeper powder.  Eventually I just gave up, deciding that I was going to come to a less then graceful end no matter what, and jumped off the sled backwards piling into the snow, which really was quite soft!  So then I tried to sit up by my legs sank in up to my waist!  I look around and realise that Luke and trav aren’t coming, Rick is now down the other side of the mountains and hadn’t realised that I’m not behind him, so I just sat and chilled in the snow.  Rick turned around, I waved, he headed back up the hill.  Turned around again, and came down close to where I was and to help me get my sled out.  Shortly thereafter, two other knights on shining snow mobiles turned up to rescue me.

Luke:

Megan there mentions that when she looked back, Luke and trav were not behind her as planned.  She was under the assumption that we would be right behind her as we had always been watching her lean off the side of her snow mobile flying off in totally the wrong direction.  We though never made it that far!  Megan was saved form being the first person to get her sled stuck!  (Whooooo  from Megan!)   We had just come out of the Aspen groves when the track made a quick left to head up a slope away from a creek bed.  The last of the weaves through the Aspen groves had me running a little of the track, so I gave the snow mobile some throttle to push it through.  This it did with utmost grace!  UNTIL I backed off the throttle before looking to see where the track led after the left left through two Aspen trees.  He headed even tighter left!  So slowed down for the first, came out of the shallow powder in the groves into the deeper powder, and without enough spread drove into the snow, instead of over it!  Thus I didn’t really need to get off my sled, I was already sitting at snow height.  Of course I was at a heavy rightward angle, as it sorta burrowed itself in.  Trav was a jem.  He stopped, I got off my sled and fell into slow waist deep.  I was no longingly looking up at the slow mobile feeling pretty dam stupid!  It all happened so quick I didn’t realise what was happening!  Really, Megan stayed on longer then me!  I mean, I know she has done it a million times, but there was that old guy thing, its got a motor, you should be able to do it better!  Well let it be known, I was the first off, feeling like that seen in the old bugs bunny movie, when he runs out of the plane, and before he realises is standing in thin air outside the plane.  He then looks at the plane, the ground, then the camera, and his little bunny body flashes from being a bunny, to an ass.  That was me!  Trav came up to my sled and swapped spots so that I was in front and he was on it.  I dug out the front left ski and on the count of three began pulling on it as he reves the crap out of the sled.  It pretty much drove itself out after 3 or 4 goes.  So I was back on, and Trav was telling me next time it happens, just stand up, lean of an edge and floor it,  you’ll run wide but you’ll stay up and drive yourself out of it. So off went trying to find Megan and Rick.  I gave the sled a healthy dose of gas to try and catch up, no standing pretty much all the time to try and stay in the tracks to the letter.  Over the rise in the hill, and well hello hello hello, what have we ‘ere?!?!  Its Megan next to a buried Yacht, or at least half of her, and Rick with his hands up to stop me!  At least some of my self esteem was regained when it clear that it wasn’t me, it was just really shitty snow to be in!  We spent some time there trying to figure out what to do about the buried Yacht.  Megan was loosing her enthusiasm for the day it fairly decent portions quickly.  This could have been the fact that she was half buried in snow, as was he snow mobile, and Trav and Rick were not the most 100% confidence inspiring when they were looking at the yachts trying to figure how in the hell we were going to get it out! It’s a country people thing, they just don’t worry like city folk to!  I had seen what it was like getting mine out, so I wasn’t to worried.  Trav decided to head of fin front of us and make some tracks to try and get the yacht out, only half way through it his ride started coughing and lost momentum and got stuck itself.  He hoped off his, and fell even in even deeper.  Things were looking good!  Rick, Megan and I watched as almost all of Megan’s remaining enthusiasm heading off back to the ranch where there was a nice fire and cosy couch.  Rick and I started approaching the sunken vessel,  post holing ourselves through waist high snow as Trav tried to get his ride going again.  He did, he did a loop, we waited for him to come in front of the yacht, but instead yells out to us  “I’m going home!!!!!”  as his snow mobile coughed its way along sounding like it was not a happy camper.  Speaking of people not being happy campers, there was Megan, watching one of he knights in shining snow mobiles say what must sounded like (judging by the look on her face) I’m just going to let you lot freeze to dead!  Toodles.    The three of us stood in the snow watching him ride off in silence,  once he was out of site I came up with a truly stunning peace of wisdom for us all…. “well I think he was serious”.  Rick in his ever unfazed manner commented “yeeeaaaahhhhh,  that  sled sure doesn’t sound to good!”.  It took as a while, but with Megan and I pulling on the front sleds and Rick revving the yacht like  there was no tomorrow we got it out!  Only slowed at one stage when it slid itself onto my leg, which wasn’t that fun, but not much of a bother.  Rick got off and dug some snow from around my leg and we got it out!  Rick once he had the snow mobile going, dig a big lazy loop and bought it around back to the top of the mountain where we would start the trip from, back to the original path.  It was pretty much a given that we didn’t want to keep going and trying to find this other track.

Rick started post holing his way back to us, and offered Megan that she could hop on the back of his sled and ride with his to do the loop to get his back up the top again.  Megan pretty much figured that heading FURTHER down was just going to mean that she was going to have to walk further when it inevitably sunk into the snow as well decided to cut her loses and just walk from where she was.  I decided that it would be fun to try and do it myself!  Rick was pretty non-committal about me giving it a shot myself.  I think he planned on doing it himself.  BUT, I couldn’t let up the opportunity, and it all still seemed like fun to me!  I wanted to see what I could do on them!  It seemed like fun! Whole knew experience and all that!  Plus I’m a  guy, it has a motor, it does 50mph, I love it! Megan though was at zero enthusiasm, ready for a deck of cards, warm house, a couch and some lunch. Somewhere that there wasn’t snow falling down her pants.  SO I jump on my sled.  Rick gives me the advice, keep the inside ski in the track and it will help stop you falling off the track and going in deep. I reply “otherwise, just lean on her hard and give it the gas”  “yeah… pretty much” was the response.  So there I am….   It’s a steep-ish slope, I had to drive down it, bank into a right hand turn bring it up the slope while turning and then on the ridge bank left to get to SLIGHTLY less deep snow.  This is all champagne powder, step in it and your up to your waist in an instant.  So I’m easy on the throttle heading down, gravity was doing a good job of increasing speed, I get both legs onto one side of the sled and lean into the corner turning the shits.  Pretty much instantly it stops responding and pushing into the power, so on goes the throttle in a pretty decent squirt.  To much throttle on the corner and I’d run off the tracks that Rick had made with the yacht which would pretty much screw me over and not enough and it would just sink into it!   I got around ok, and then heading up the front skis wanted to keep digging into the snow.  Megan now later tells that Rick didn’t say a word as I was heading down and making the turn, but as soon as I started making the turn he just kept repeating “give it hell, give it hell, give it hell….”   I couldn’t hear him from where I was but I didn’t need telling!  I feathered the throttled just a little and it didn’t do much good, so I just kept squeezing when all of a sudden she felt like she was going to sink,  So I gave it hell!  Literally I just squeeze the throttle right in to the handle, and will a scream of around 8,000rpm she was off and up the hill scrabbling madly.  BUT I got up!  WOOOOO!  Man it was a ride I tell you!  It was seriously some big time fun!  One of the highlights listening to it cream away dragging itself through that snow!     I made it up the top and Rick followed with his sled, leaving meg to try and get back up!  Which was not going well at all!  Post holing takes A LOT of energy from you!  So Rick got on the yacht and reversed down half way to get her – it was as far down as he dared to go again.  He then swapped spots with meg and let her drive up to me as he pretty much just crawled back up the snow!  We started making our trip back,  All three of us using plenty of throttle throwing our bodies around to try and keep ourselves out of the snow.  Megan was the only one of the three to get back without getting stuck again!  Rick and I both had moments.  Ricks was trying to get back to me after my skis came out of the tracks the others were making and buried themselves.  It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the other times.  Neither was Ricks.  I pulled on both skis and he leaned hard and throttled them out.  The rest of the drive back was pretty uneventful, we just kept slogging it out to get ourselves back again!

Back at the Ranch Cindie and Trav were waiting for us to return.  Trav was most apologetic over the fact that he had to desert us, which was pretty understandable seeing what his snow mobile was doing to him!  Cindie it needs to be noted is a great cook!  We had some stew, cow boy pudding and jelly, some celery sticks with crème cheese in them,  all kinds of yummy stuff!  The stew as well had Elk in it!  Yep!  They wanted me to try some local produce.  Its not deer (that’s venison) but elk, and it’s a really lovely meat!  Its very lean, very tender and really has allot of flavour.  Looks allot like regular beef, but allot leaner and more tender.