We DOO Need A Chase Vehicle
Well…. it is now Friday night, the 2nd of February, 6:20 pm and I’m awaiting the dinner hour of 7pm. We are in Saint Pamphile, Quebec, at the Cap Martin hotel. We were off the grid yesterday, in Edmunston at the Moose Valley Sporting Lodge, and had many issues on Wednesday the 31st of January trying to get into Danny’s Inn in Bathurst, New Brunswick. I have A LOT to catch you up on, if anybody is still trying to follow this blog. If your still hanging in there, pop some popcorn, get a cold soda, put on your readers, and settle in… it’s a doozy.
Last night, Monday night the 30th of January, we arrived into Carlton Sur at the Hostellerie Baie Bleue, around 5:30pm. We were here last year, as well as in 2012, and we had our same wing of drive up rooms as we had last year. As we were unloading our gear, “Gaf”, Bill Gaffney, and his gang of 4 from New York, who we met a few years ago on the trail, and still maintain communication with, came over to let us know they, also, were in, and we would meet and chat at dinner.
When I entered the lobby of the Baie Bleue, I noticed Dylan and Connecticut Jim sitting in a couple of traditional wing back chairs near the entrance to the restaurant/bar. They both have been battling a cough and bad cold symptoms, Dylan since day 1 and Connecticut acquired it a few days later. I, jokingly, asked if they were keeping their distance to prevent spreading their virus? They filled me in that Dylan’s insulin had frozen had some point on the trail, and was now useless. The receptionist said she knew the local pharmacist, and that she would contact him to see if he could help out with the situation. It worked. I don’t know the details, but they hooked up shortly thereafter, and Dylan had a fresh supply of the needed insulin! We always get fortunate on the trail and meet the right person at the right time.
After dinner, a couple of our gang hung with Gaf and Ed from the New York Gang, and they were politely asked to leave at the closing hour of 11pm. It was great catching up with you guys, if your following along, and hopefully next year we will be able to hook up for more than just one night ( we were supposed to have the same accommodations as them for a few nights, but that was altered when we had mechanical issues and had to reroute our trip).
Tuesday January 31, 2018.
The trail started at 9am. Everything is off to a smooth start. Trails are in good condition, and pretty fast in most spots. Which is good, as we are going to cross into New Brunswick around the noon hour, hopefully, and we need to make some time. The crossing is via a bridge, and we will need to call a service on the New Brunswick side to come pick us up with a flat bed to get us across. We are trying to get there before noon, because the service takes a lunch break at noon for 45 minutes, and we still have a lot of miles to make to get in tonight. We got to our designated parking lot, in the back of a restaurant/plaza around 12:30, no big deal, close enough. The flat bed operator was there 20 minutes later. He informed us he could only carry 4 sleds at a time as he was the only driver that day, and that it was a 20 minute round trip process. So we crossed the bridge 4 at a time, and it ate up a good hour and a half of our day, in the same order as ride the trail, i.e. the first 4 in line loaded and crossed, the 2nd four, and finally the last 4 of the group.
The flat bed truck had a crew cab, so 3 riders rode in the bench back seat and 1 shotgun. In full gear. The truck dropped us of at the service facility that was their home base, and the trail picked up right in their side yard. Each group of 4 riders went to the gas station directly across the road from the drop zone, and most grabbed a quick sandwich or piece of pizza from their hot gas station display case. Yummy. Not. The final four unloaded, went and fueled up, grabbed a quick bite, and everything goes to hell from here.
About 35 miles down the trail, coming out of a turn, I felt a stutter in my Ski-Doo, and then saw Joe Snowmobile Jamie waving his hand to come astride. Joe said his machine was bogging down. I told him nothing we can do right now, we need to catch the group at the next trail head and let the leaders know. Now my machine began to act up even more. Just another couple turns and the rest of our riders were waiting for us. I rode to the front and informed Action Dan and Fearless Leader Craig that we were having issues, and that I suspected we may have gotten some bad gas at the last stop. We decided to keep going best we could, and as the group was pulling out, I flagged down Vinnie the Truck Driver and Ron Nicks, as we have been fueling as a foursome to speed up our gas stops, to inquire if they were having any issues like Joe & I… Nope.
But that wouldn’t last long.
As we motored down the trail, spitting and sputtering, Jaimie’s sled was performing much worse than mine. Confusing to us, as I fueled first, then Jamie, then Vinnie and Ron. And Vinnie & Ron were not having issues…yet.
As Jamie’s sled continued to deteriorate, barely climbing long sloping hills, mine was performing marginally better. I chose to take advantage of the slight edge, passed the group and decided I’d rather run it til it puked further up the trail, and be pulled less miles, if necessary. As I got out in front of the group, Connecticut Jim and Dylan sped away from the group to do some recon and find a clubhouse further down the trail. As I am traveling well in front of the pack now, and, thoughts running thru my mind of what is ailing my trusty steed, I leaned over my handlebars to see if my light was burning bright (I was trying to make sure it wasn’t an electrical issue) I accidently hit my kill button on the handlebars. Shit. I thought my sled died. A quick pull on the kill button, and a push of electric start and she fired right back up! Running strong again. I blasted off, trying to put more miles down. When it began sputtering again, I pulled to the right side of the trail, shut it down, and before I could fire it up I saw Craig and Phil’s headlights in my mirror. I told them that I had discovered that if you kill it, and restart it, it seems to run good for awhile. Phil motored back to fill Jamie in on this discovery, Craig informed me that he was going ahead to the Clubhouse on the trail to see if they had dry gas. It was only a “few” miles up the trail. Perfect.
I continued on, periodically killing it, restarting it. For 15 miles. I finally made the clubhouse. Jim & Dylan were inquiring about dry gas, as was Craig. Chris Boyle was manning the trail head that was before the clubhouse, so nobody in our group would take the turn to Bathurst, as the clubhouse was another couple hundred yards down the trail, unseen due to the hill before it.
Finally, after about 20 minutes, the entire group was gathered at the clubhouse. Jamie said he stopped trail side and put fresh gas from his “gas buddy” gas can that many of us carry on our sleds, and his instantly ran good again. Now Vinnie and Ron were also having issues, albeit not as bad as Jamie or me, but still issues. We topped off our gas tanks at the clubhouse, and we had 40 miles to get down. Everybody seemed to be running good. For the first 20 miles.
After 20 miles, my sled began a slight sputter, and Jamie’s was full on again. We did the kill button, restart trick many times to get in to our destination. Once there, we went to the gas station, topped off our sleds again, added a couple bottles of dry gas to each of the ailing sleds, and checked in.
There was room for a few sleds in a heated garage we found out at check in. Upon finding this knowledge out, I declared that the 4 Ski-doos should park in the heat and allow some thawing for our ailments. We waited a few minutes for Ron to return from the gas station, decided we had better get to the garage before any other sleds took the limited space, and moved in. There was only room for 3 anyway, first come first served at this point.
The sleds were all operating pretty much normal at this point. We were hopeful the dry gas was working, and tomorrow was a new day with new opportunities. And oh how the opportunities find us.
Side bar: I got so wrapped up in summarizing our shit day, that I forgot to mention that Vinnie the Truck Driver still hasn’t passed railroad crossing 101. Less than 20 miles in this morning, Vinnie rolled across another set of tracks. Literally… rolled. Thats twice now for those keeping score at home… & I know who is keeping track LOL.
Thursday February 1, 2018
We have a scheduled departure time of 10am. (We had crossed into the Atlantic Time Zone, 1 hour forward, as we crossed into New Brunswick yesterday). So that would be 9am on our body clocks. We are only supposed to have about 170 miles to run. Our destination is one of our favorite places, The Moose Valley Sporting Lodge near Edmunston, New Brunswick.
Moose Valley is a fun little place in the middle of no where. There is main lodge that functions as the restaurant, bar, gathering area. There are TV’s playing dish network, and classic rock playing over the speakers as a soundtrack. There probably 7-8 cabins that sleep up to 4 people. There is one bedroom, one fold out couch and 2 murphy beds in most of the cabins (Ask Stinky P Phil how he enjoyed his murphy bed experience… I folded his up with him in it when he layed to sleep with his life support machine on (CPAP)). Funny video if I could ever get time to figure out again how to post videos to this blog, but it may be on our Facebook page as I tried loading it there at lunch today.
But enough about Moose Valley, we still have to get there. Our start time was pushed up to 9am local time (8am at home). We were pretty close to on time. Just held up by Joe Snowmobile Jamie. He “
misplaced” his phone at breakfast. After his frantic search for it, wound up Ron had swiped it off the table to play a joke on Jamie. We all laughed… Jamie, no so much.
So, 9:15 we were out. Everything is going well. It seems that dry gas is doing it’s work. Until we get 7 miles down the trail. Jamie’s machine is acting up again. Not as bad as yesterday but still bad enough that we are stopping every 5 miles for a restart. We were back tracking part of the trail we were on yesterday, so we decided to head back to Island Lake clubhouse to see if we could figure more out there.
Upon arrival, it was decided to siphon Jamie’s gas tank out and put in fresh fuel. After a few mouthfuls of petro, Jamie got a good flow going and it was a cloudy water mix coming out. They filled up his empty “gas buddy” with that non petro, and determined they were sucking fuel out now. Lets top it off and give it a whirl. And throw some more dry gas in there to boot.
We waited at the clubhouse while he put a 10 mile round trip test run on it. He returned, gave us a thumbs up, and off we were down the trail again.
For about another 15 miles it ran great. No issues. But it’s never that easy. It started acting up again. We moved him to the front of the pack, and as long as he kept a good constant speed, it ran fine. Him and Action Dan rode together ahead of the pack, while Craig led the others. We would stop every 30 miles or so to catch up with each other, check on each other, quick break, and then repeat.
Ok, we’re going to make it to Moose Valley early in the late afternoon. We’ve got good trails, we can make up lost ground.
Until a catastrophic mechanical failure took a rider off the trail for good.
With all the issues we are having, I have lost track of the mile markers a lot of our problems have occurred at. But at a time when we were making good progress on the trail, Vinnie, now riding directly in front of me, pulled to the side of the trail. I pulled up next to him, thinking he just needed to adjust his gear or something. He states “its overheating”. No reason. We are on good snow, the temps are cold, no reason whatsoever. I tell him to pull off the trail, into the deep snow, get some snow on that heat exchanger. As climbs the sled off the trail and he parks to let it cool some more, I tell him to check out that discolored snow on his track… just I finish saying that, I look at the snow embankment he just climbed and I see a pink puddle trail following him. Catastrophic.
Vinnie looked at the track and found where a center section of track that formally contained 2 studs was missing. Looking at the heat exchanger, he found the 2” gash that had drained his coolant. D-U-N.
While Vinnie was pulling the belt off, getting ready for a tow, Dylan backtracked the trail to find a safe place where we could get a flatbed for the euthanized sled. He found a maple syrup/sugar shack 2 miles back. The owner said we could park it there, it would be safe. We stripped his luggage off, attached it to Craig’s sled, put Vinnie on Action Dan’s 2-UP, and headed for Moose Valley.
Back on the trail, we’ve got about 50 miles to go. But it’s never that easy. Shortly thereafter, Snowmobile Joe Jamie’s sled was spitting and sputtering it’s last breath. He pulled his belt off, got Ron’s sled in position to tie the front ski to Ron’s rear bumper, and hold on. We got to go.
It started off slow as the trail had many woopdi doos. But soon it turned into a wide smooth, fast trail. And Ron carried the mail… and Jamie and his broke down Ski-doo to Moose Valley. We actually made it in before dark…by 10 minutes.
Over dinner, Vinnie was dispatched to find a ride back to Pont Rouge, to retrieve the Darkside Adventures Truck & Trailer. Not many were interested. But the cook, begrudgingly, offered to interrupt his day, and make the 8 hour round trip from Moose Valley to Pont Rouge for the bargain sum of $800… American. That was the plan in place.
The bar/restaurant closed at 8pm. Josie, the manager/server/bartender, gave us a few take orders so we could retire to our cabins. We gathered at Craig and Phil’s cabin, mixed a few, threw back a few and had some good laughs to round out our day.
Jamie’s sled was parked overnight in the heated garage. He has high hopes that another night tucked away in a warm garage is going to solve all his problems. TBD
Friday, February 2, 2018
This morning, breakfast was at 8am. A new plan was developing for the plight of Young Vinnie and his transport to Pont Rouge. Uber is not an option. I began doing google searches, on the limited WIFI available (it took foorrreeevveerrr) for a rental car option in Edmunston. Edmunston was the next major town we were passing, about 50 miles out. No dice. Josie, our faithful bar manager, helped me on the landline phone in the lodge, doing the talking on the phone in French with the questions and answers with the French speaking car rental counter person on the other end of the line. The resolution… Get to Rivere de Loop, there is an Enterprise Car Rental on the trail. For 50$ a day, Vinnie can have a Ford Pickup, drive himself to Pont Rouge, get our rig, meet back up with us for the night, peel out early in the morning, retrieve his dead sled, get a truck & trailer wash, and meet back up with us at Pont Rouge tomorrow evening. New plan in place.
By 9:15 am local time (8:15 our time) we were on the trail. Vinnie on Action Dan’s 2-Up, Jamie already up since 5:30am doing hot laps on the trail and apparently running ok, much to the groups dismay that he is going to tempt fate again, and we are off.
We had 50 miles to our first gas stop just outside Edmunston. No issues. A quick fueling, and quick warm up, as it is COLD today.
After our fueling, we had a nice 70 mile run on a former rail line that has been repurposed as a bike path for summer use, and snowmobile trail for winter use. It was much needed. The group was able to maintain a solid 60mph, making good time. Joe Snowmobile’s sled was running fine, up front with Action Dan, and Action Dan was thankful for the easy trail he had with a passenger he was ferrying. At 118 miles on the odometer, 12:30 on the clock (we crossed back into Quebec just prior to the fuel stop) we were at a local clubhouse where we decided to have a quick last lunch with Vinnie before we dropped him off for his rental, just another 5 miles past the clubhouse.
After lunch, Connecticut Jim punched in the address for the Enterprise Rent A Car, Vinnie loaded onto Actions’ sled, and stick ran tail gun. We were eastbound and down and a short time to get there.
We found the store front, snapped a quick pic of Vinnie in front of the Rental sign, walked him in with a pocket full of cash, a credit card, cell phone and well wishes. Once his reservation was confirmed, we said Adios Vinnie, we got to go.
We were back with the group, who waited for us at the Relaise we had just had lunch. We had 70 miles to run.
It’s 9:50pm, Ive been working on this blog for 3 hours. I am DUN. Tune in tomorrow.
Bye for now
Stick
