Snowmobiling 2/14/04 Pix

This weekend started off as any other and the plan was to spend Friday thru Monday at Atkisson Sno-Park.  As you will soon see this weekend turned into one filled with a little more adventure than we had bargained for.  I think everyone had a good time!

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This was Jeremy's first time snowmobiling and he wasn't prepared to waste any time, he was ready!

Todd gave Jeremy and King Kong a ride around the parking lot to pacify them both.

Big brother Christopher giving Jeremy a ride around the parking lot with his Kitty Kat.

We all took off Saturday afternoon for a "short" ride to Lone Butte Sno-Park which was about 26 miles away.  Here we were taking a lunch break at a scenic overlook to Mt. Adams.

Aaron and Jake down over the bank with their large snowball they had created.

Jeremy trying to figure out why we are wasting all this time when we could be snowmobiling!

Todd may have made a slight error in judgment when deciding to ride over this outhouse, oops!

About 5 miles from Lone Butte Sno-Park Christopher fell off Brian's machine after hitting a large bump.  His arm had gotten caught in the track and was badly hurt so we rushed him to the warming hut at the sno-park where help was on its way.

The ambulance couldn't make it all the way up to the sno-park due to the icy roads so the Sheriff had to haul both Christopher and Brian down to meet the ambulance.  With one less driver now, I had to tow one of the sleds back the full 26 miles to our camp in the dark and with the snow dumping all the way.  So much for that "short" ride.  Later in the evening Todd and I went to pick up Christopher and Brian at the White Salmon Hospital, we got back about midnight.  What a long day!

Luckily it turned out Christopher's arm wasn't broken, just badly traumatized with abrasions and swelling.  The doctors told him to keep it elevated which he did for at least 10 minutes the next day!  He was sliding down the snow hills and wondering why we wouldn't let him ride his Kitty Kat the next day!

It snowed quite a bit throughout the weekend but Sunday night it decided to really let go.  This pic is of Aaron playing on a snow bank and gives you an idea of how it was coming down.

The adventure keeps going!  It was Monday and time to go, however they never plowed the parking lot the entire weekend and it was a good 10-12" deep by now.  Mark and I struggled a bit with our 4x4's and travel trailers but got out.  Brian wasn't so lucky and broke a chain right off the get go.  We repaired it and tried again.

The second attempt broke the chain on the other side only this time it took out the valve stem on one of the tires so we had a flat tire also.  We tried changing it but the 500 ft-lbs. of torque on each lug nut had us just bending the breaker bar.  We worked on it until dark and realized we were going to have to spend another night and seek help in the morning.

We went to the Ranger Station and requested they plow the park which they did finally.  Meanwhile we had no luck finding anyone in town with mobile equipment to deal with the tire so we headed back to the sno-park.

We asked the plow drivers if they had any tools to change a flat tire and they didn't.  He did however offer to pull the motor home out with the loader once the sno-park was plowed.  Since only one of the dual tires in the rear had air we decided to drop the trailer to lighten the load and I would move it with my truck.

Now this is something you don't see everyday!  Once Brian was out he decided to try and drive it down to the Chevron station with the one flat tire where they would have the required air tools to change and repair it.

At this point I had to haul Brian's trailer down to the Chevron station, then come back up after mine.  What an ordeal!  We finally got home early Tuesday evening and were very tired to say the least.

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