Welcome back riders.
We had a good 2 nights in Chibougamau, and it’s the farthest northern point the marked trails have taken us. We currently are at Auberge Du KM 31 outside Chicoutimi, QC, mostly all here, and mostly all accounted for.
But let’s get back to where we left off. At breakfast this morning, we had the sparse continental breakfast, again. Cold cereal, toast, and your choice of yogurt. And clean up after yourself when you’re done. Knowing that we have about 150 miles before our first gas stop, or food stop, or warming stop, Dylan & Stick took advantage of the open continental breakfast bar, and borrowed an extra couple slices of bread, some peanut butter and jelly, and made a couple of PB&J sandwiches for a snack at one the very few breaks will take, along the trail.
Speaking of Dylan, I would like to thank him for stepping in and taking over the Frost Bytes Day 6 Edition for me. I think he did a fine job as a guest writer, and I am looking forward to handing the keyboard over to him again, occasionaly, on the trail. The break was much appeciated. Especially since there is a virus bug traveling thru the group, that hit me on Wednesday. Pretty much a bad head cold, with a slight throat tickle, and a very light chill. Nothing DayQuil/ and NIghtQuil can’t help us get thru. So far it’s made its way thru Hedgie, Dylan, Stick, Yamaha Rob, and I think Craig is beginning to feel infected. We will persevere, we have no choice. As I write this on Friday evening, I think Wing Man Rob will say it’s infecting him too, but I really think his ailment is more brown bottle flu related.
The day was pretty much drama free. Until it wasn’t . We knocked down the 150 miles to the gas station we were last at 2 days ago by about 2 pm A couple of the Ski Doo’s did run out of fuel on the trail, just short of the fueling station. I think they were a little more aggressive on the return trip, after feeling confident they made it without stopping on the way north!
At the fuel station in La Dore, we quickly fueled, and headed inside the station for the heated restroom, and continued to warm ourselves in the snack isles. Somewhere in here, Chip Nasty made the spoken error you never say out loud…” We’ve only got 17 miles to go? Looks like we will be in early!”. You can think these thoughts, but never, never, ever, say it out loud.
Things got Nasty about 3 or 4 miles out from the fueling station. A sharp right hand turn was missed by Rimel, and he shot straight down an ungroomed trail instead of risking a rollover making the turn. The Ontario guys behind him, stopped on the trail, to the right, to await Rimel’s return. Chip, blinded in the snow dust, didn’t see the stopped sleds, and side swiped NFG Kelly’s brother Chris on the right. Chris and his Yamaha Sidewinder were flipped in the trail, and Nasty went ass over tea kettle off the trail. All I saw from 4 sleds back was a Sidewinder track in the air, and alot more snow dust. We all quickly jumped into action and fortunately, other than a little pride, nobody was seriously hurt.
The Sidewinder was draining it’s engine oil due to the sight tube being knocked off, and the trail was littered with Ski Doo plastic parts every where. Once we were sure all riders involved were going to be ok, we quickly began the process of clean up and getting in motion removing the damaged sleds and towing them back to the gas station for retrieval.
A couple of tow trucks were called, and each sled was delivered to it’s respective dealership, and the riders delivered to the overnight accommodations. Unfortunate circumstances, very fortunate over all outcome,however the most important thing is all riders are safe and uninjured.
After the involved riders were set up with tow vehicles, Ski Doo Matt, Old Man Ron,, Action Dan, Stick, and NFG Kelly’s cousin BIll (The rest of the group advanced to the Hotel Du Jardin to get our rooms ready for when we all got in) we left them at the gas station and took a local trail on in to Saint-Feicien. We still got in pretty early, see, I can say that now after the fact, around 4:30pm. We were greeted in hallway of the 2nd floor with the rest of the group having a hallway party, with their rolling chairs all pulled out into the hall way and a couple cases of cold blue mountains not getting a chance to go warm.
Dinner was around 7:30 pm, and a tasty meal was had of steaks, chicken and such, and most of the group retired relatively early, to the best of my knowledge, as I was doping up with Nyquil by 9pm, trying to be trail worthy by morning. But, there was a couple of riders that just couldn’t resist the tempation. I understand Hedgie hung with the boys in the bar with some locals until, I’ll just say past midnight, while Dyan and Wingman may have been a bit later. I’m not really sure of their quiting time, as when I got up at 12:30 Wingman’s life support machine (CPAP) was hooked up but he was MIA. This morning I awoke to him snoring, no life support connection, and texted video from Dylan time stamped at 3:30am of Wingman snoring away in one of the room chairs, but in the hallway, at the end of the hall, where the hall party had been about 8 hours ago. I think Dylan spent the night next to him, in another chair.
Departure time is 9am on Friday. Most of us will leave on time, some won’t. We also will have to make a couple stops at the respective dealers where the shrapnel sleds are being evaluated for repairs. We supposedly only have about 160 miles to go for the day, so the extra stops shouldn’t affect us too much.
Disclaimer: Just so everybody at home is aware, while we have a lot of fun in the evenings, nobody consumes alcohol on the trail with this group, our belief is the beer will be colder when we get in, and there was absolutely no alcohol involved in the unfortunate mishap that occured today. It’s a good reminder for all of us to use care and be diligent in our riding, and as my father used to day, “Son, don’t let that string that is attached from your brain to your thumb to snap”.
We shall see,
Bye for now,
Stick