After 9 months of anticipation, I couldn't wait to go riding today. I left my house at around 8:30 and found about a foot of untouched powder on top of trails that just got groomed yesterday. Nobody was in the Heartwellville parking lot, and the trail was untouched. I rode toward woodford and didn't come across another snowmobile track until the George Aiken forrest road. I was gliding above the fresh powder on a ride that felt like I was on a cloud. I stopped in at Twinbrooks by 9:00 to see if any of the HCS gang was going to be there, but I was the only one there. I soldiered onward, going up to Airport road. Just like before, I was the only one on the trail, in untouched powder. There was one truck parked at Airport road, and I just caught the tail edge of a Ski Doo Rev in the distance to the left at the Glaustenbury intersection at Airport rd. Rather than catch up to them, I decided to continue up the untouched route of airport rd. I drove all the way up to Kelly Stand road, still in completely untouched powder. What an absolutely amazing experience to have all this fresh powder entirely to myself! I rode over toward Somerset to where the Weenie Wagon used to be, then turned around and headed back down Kelly Stand toward Arlington. Down near the end of that route I saw my first sledders. I turned around shortly after, and met up with them at the top of airport road, and decided to ride with them for a while. They were a good group of guys, including one guy who goes by "Attack" on HCS. After lunch at Twinbrooks, we rode a bit more and then parted ways. Before heading back home, I wanted to take a quick ride up to the Harriman Reservoir. After resting at the reservoir, I turned around in the field where the groomer turns around, and my sled bogged badly, and was making a funny whining sound, even at idle. I shut it down, looked it over, then fired it back up. It ran well and I continued on. About a mile later, same thing. It did it about 4 or 5 more times. One time I managed to go a few miles before it did it, but most of the time it was only a half mile or so. I wound up going by the log cabin that's right alongside the trail, made it up the hill, then it died again. I waited a few minutes, and when I pulled the cord, the cord came unattached from the handle and wound itself right up into the housing.

I was stuck, miles from home, on a day with virtually no snowmobilers at about 1:30 in the afternoon. I grabbed my spare pair of gloves and my "oh sh*t" kit, along with my helmet, and started walking out. About a mile toward home is a u-turn with a gate across a fire access road. I had never seen this area plowed before in my life, but on my way through earlier, there was a truck in there plowing it. I figured it would be a much faster walk out than the remaining number of miles back up the mountain then down the other side to VT Route 8. I walked down this plowed road for a couple miles until I finally saw a house up on the right. It looked a bit "creepy" and I didn't see power lines yet, so I decided to keep going. About 5 minutes later, this plowed road ended just as rapidly as it started. Apparently somebody just plows this for the fun of it. I headed back up to the house, and up the driveway. The house was more of a shanty, and didn't exactly look inviting. I yelled "hello" a few times, but didn't find a shoveled walkway to anything that looked like a front door, so I just kept walking. Fortunately, on the other side of this guy's yard continued a plowed road. I went down a little farther and began to recognize where I was. I was only about a half mile from my own house. I got back home at about 3:30, and called a buddy to help me get the sled out.

My buddy and I rode back up to my sled (It's about a 10 mile ride by trail), hooked up to it, and tried to pull it out. Unfortunately, the somewhat loose trail just wouldn't give him any bite and all he did was dig. My sled wouldn't move an inch. I called A-Z Snowmobile in Woodford because they do sled rescues. Of course, a specialty like that certainly does not come cheap! Tomorrow afternoon he's going to go get the sled and I'll be able to pick it up tomorrow night. I didn't wind up getting home until around 7:00 tonight. I'm absolutely exhausted, but very fortunate that I was able to get out of the woods ok. With the sleet and freezing rain up on the mountain all afternoon, it would not have been a pleasant place to spend the night.

A new (as of last spring) sled with under 600 miles on it left me stranded in the woods. I bought this sled because I damaged my old one last season and didn't trust it. That "old" one has 2,500 miles and never once broke down. I guess after I get "old reliable" back together again, that'll still be my sled of choice when I'm out by myself.

Damn, sorry to hear that. That's why I didn't want to go out by myself today...all the fresh powder and being one of the first "rides" for the season.

Hopefully it's nothing too major and you're out riding sooner than later.

How'd the Crossfire do in the powder?

Holy Shit Jim! I'm glad you made it out OK! Shit happens Quick out there. I do a lot of solo riding and stories like yours scares the shit out of me! So how were the trails and what did you get for Snow today?

I got up there last night at dark by myself unloaded and rode freshly groomed trails. I ended up leaving early because i didnt want to end up like you did in the dark and a storm coming. There was nobody there.
The new xp is a fast sled and it handles great.

As Jim85IROC said, AWESOME!! Too bad about the recoil. My ATTAK was running on fumes when I loaded it up! Not a bad opening day, 72 miles and endless powder!

hey Jim, its the guy that was on the green crossfire today, lol, Sorry to hear about your recoil, we had a great ride, as well as ATTACK i as well was running on fumes when i pulled my sled onto my truck, hope it all goes well and its an easy fix.....

Sorry to hear that as well. The one good thing I can take from your tale of wo is I ride a 2002 zl 600 efi, so I hope that's a good omen. Best of luck with your sled.

geeze jim, glad you made it out ok, sorry to hear that you had trouble. that's why you NEVER ride alone.
it was good to meet you today. again, great powder to ride on, the icing sucked big time though!
oh yeah, i was on the new apex

we must had been following you around.

we called it a night last night around 2:00 am, so we got a late start this morning.

you guys must had been having lunch when we were a twinbrook.

Jim, Glad you made it home safe and in 1 piece.

ALSO, I know my Doo has a emergency start kit, where you can wrap a rope around the clutch to start it. Cant you do that with your sled ???

did a-z already recover your sled?

if not we could meet up at your sled and try to get it out.

if one sled couldnt get it out two sleds and more people would be able to get it out.

I don't know about Crossfires, but my Firecat had an emergency rope in the tool kit for that purpose. Never needed it thankfully, although I lent it to a guy on a Ski Doo one night.

Riding all that powder might have smoked yer belt.

Glad you got out o.k.

Not good at all Jim. I'll have to hear this one in person to get the full effect. Now I know why you are not at work today.

Pops and I had an interesting ride out first trip out this weekend as well, but fortunately he was able to limp the sled back to the truck and trailer OK.

Good luck.

-Mike

If you have carbs and not EFI then it sounds like carburetor icing considering you were breaking trail all day. Your machine could have been ingesting snow dust through all the deep snow you were riding and then it started to bog. Just a thought.
Did they get it out OK?

Where is Jim?? Any word on his sled??

I'm hoping he comes into work today so I can ask him, I'm curious myself.

Sorry for the slow response. I didn't go to work yesterday because I was getting my sled out.

I had some friends who wound up not working yesterday morning, so rather than forking over the money to have it "recovered", we took a stab at it.

4 of us went up with 3 sleds. My buddy hooked his 01 ZR 500 (he's the one that tried to help me sunday night too), and his brother hooked his crossfire 600 sno pro to me also. My buddy trenched his ZR but the crossfire pulled my sled a few feet. We hooked back up with just the crossfire, and it was able to pull my sled even though my track was frozen. After a couple hundred yards my track freed up and we were on our way. We headed back toward VT Rt 8, but like I feared, we couldn't pull the sled up the steep hills. We did have one more opportunity though. About a mile after the u-turn, there's a small side trail that goes to somebody's camp, then down to Rt 100. It's narrow, but it's all down hill. We were able to pull the sled down that way, and my friend's father brought a trailer to get the sleds home.

I brought the sled to the dealer today and explained the problem with the whining noise and the bogging. They theorized that there may have been a problem with the "smart valve" in the gas tank. They looked inside and discovered that I was almost completely out of gas. They said that when you're real low on gas, the smart valve can make the kind of noise that I heard.

So... it looks like I ran it out of gas and tossed the pull cord. I don't recall my sled coming with any sort of device to start the sled from the primary, but I will certainly come up with something for next time. I'll also remember that when riding in a foot of powder, that your gas milage is nowhere near as good as on groomed trails, so I won't ride 90 miles next time!

As stupid as I feel for running it out of gas, at least it's restored my faith in the sled's reliability, which is important since I'll continue to ride alone.

I'll keep updates as I learn more about the sled, but it sounds like it was just gas and the pull cord.

so? did you bring the sled home with you ?
yeah, funny how those things like to suck up fuel in a foot and a half of powder!
glad it was nothing major anyway

No, the sled is still at the dealer to have the pull cord repaired. It was there anyway, so I figured why not let them deal with getting the cord out instead of doing it myself.

I'm also having them grease the fittings for me. I'm afraid to touch them. I pulled 5 zerks out of my ZL's skid trying to grease it.

Dealer called. My sled is done, i.e. they extracted the pull cord out of the housing and tied it back to the handle.

Guess I'll gas her up and take her for a ride on Saturday if anybody is interested.