Six of us made the trek to Whistlin’ Jack Lodge (WJL) this year.  We met at 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning and left the sno-park right on time.  The trails were groomed but icy. Because the trails and snow were hard there were times at the lower elevations when the liquid cooled sleds had cooling issues. But most of the time we just cruised along getting off the trails at different play areas to do some side hilling, or speed across open areas. 

As to be expected there were some mechanical issues.  The John Deere had an issue with the recoil.  The bolts vibrated out.  We found them and installed the one that we could get too with the tools we had.  To help eliminate the vibration we braced the recoil as best as we could.  It worked, and got us all the way to WJL in record time.  After relaxing in the lounge, had one of their great dinners, we lingered in the restaurant swapping sledding stories before going back to our cabin for the night.

What a difference on day can make in the weather and conditions.  Overnight a storm came through bringing snow.  After breakfast we left the lodge with 3" inches of new soft powdery snow on the trail.  As we rode into the higher elevations there was up to 6" towards the top.  The soft powder blew over our snowmobile hoods while breaking trail.  We did not see any other sleds all the way back to the sno-park.  While the new snow eliminated the cooling issues the JD did gave us more problems.  While we were going around a felled tree when it lost spark.  Unfortunately this time we could not get it running so it had to be towed back.  Also, Dustin's sled broke its throttle cable but that only slowed him down.  Stephen rigged a hand throttle so he could ride it the rest of the way back to the trailer.

It was a great trip, one that we look forward to each year.  For pictures click the picture for a link to the club's Google Photos site: