Snowmobile adventures

[House of Wax]

For me there's nothing more fun than snowmobiling. Everything from planning trips, to getting geared up and blasting down trails, stopping to enjoy nature, exploring places you don't get to see by car, the camaraderie of the snowmobile community, meeting the wonderful people in the small communities you go through.....it's just awesome.

The last couple years I've been making an attempt to document our trips more to re-live them in the offseason and share them with other people. I actually picked up a GoPro last year to make videos.

I'm curious to see if we have any other sled heads here on Autopia....In any case I thought I'd share some of our trips.


This first one was from last year when we went to Tomahawk, WI.

My current ride is a 2012 Ski Doo Renegade 800 X package. Pretty much stock except for the picks the previous owner added. I don't really have any plans for the sled as I absolutely love it how it sits. I may do a sled wrap next season:

A few pics from the trail:

Gotta support the local establishments:

And finally the end of the day where all the world's problems are solved. This place was pretty awesome. The cabin we stayed in belonged to the cousin of one of the guys we rode with. Beautiful piece of property with a huge pole barn and a good sized A frame home with a finished basement. His wife's parents passed and they inherited a few bucks....decided they wanted a place on the lake so they built a new home literally across the street on lake front property. Kept the original place and rents it out to people he knows. This is actually the "garage" of his new place....ended up turning it into basically a bar lol:

 

[House of Wax]

Here's the video I made from the trip. First GoPro video I've ever put together....thought it turned out ok. Was pretty disappointed with how it performs on Youtube. It plays perfectly smooth and looks beautiful on my computer, but is jittery and doesn't look nearly as good on Youtube....oh well

 

[RaysWay]

I'm jealous! That looks awesome. It sounds a lot like the motorcycle community except there's less chances of someone running a stop sign and stopping in the middle of an intersection. I've always wanted to go to Alaska or Colorado. Maybe I'll check out any snowmobile tours or rentals for the trip. Getting to spend some quality time with nature sounds great with a thermos of hot coffee

p.s. the only portion of the video that looks jittery are the riding parts. I would guess maybe how the video was encoded or uploaded had something to do with that since the GoPro's should be able to handle those framerates. I'm not too familiar with GoPro's so I can't help much.

 

[House of Wax]

I'll have much more later. My wife and I actually took our honeymoon 8 years ago to Houghton, MI and spent a week exploring the trails and spent the next few years riding together every winter until we had kids (she enjoys it almost as much as I do). The first winter after having our daughter we didn't go at all so we decided to unload our 2 sleds and enclosed trailer. Fast forward to 2 years ago I started going on trips again with my father in law and a couple of his buddies from work and used one of his backup sleds.

I decided (and got permission from the boss lol) that if I was going to keep going with him I needed my own sled, so I picked up my sled at the end of that season. Talk about torture buying a sled and having to wait until the next season to ride lol. Last weekend was the first weekend my wife has ridden in a few years and the bug has bitten her hard again. We'll be looking in the next year or two to pick up another sled for her and start taking some family trips with the kiddos.....can't wait. My son is going to lose his mind haha.

 

[House of Wax]

I'm jealous! That looks awesome. It sounds a lot like the motorcycle community except there's less chances of someone running a stop sign and stopping in the middle of an intersection. I've always wanted to go to Alaska or Colorado. Maybe I'll check out any snowmobile tours or rentals for the trip. Getting to spend some quality time with nature sounds great with a thermos of hot coffee

It really is amazing. I highly suggest everyone needs to do it at least once in their lifetime. There's still some danger on the trails due to stupid people (some think it's their personal snocross track and some idiots later at night think it's ok to get loaded and then ride), but fortunately we haven't really had any close calls that I can remember.

There's tons of places that rent sleds and gear in Northern Wisconsin and Michigan (I assume Minnesota as well....i just have never ridden there)

 

[Ronkh]

Very cool !!!!

Looks like a great time.

 

[House of Wax]

I knew I had some more pics from that trip.....just found a few more

My father in law and I loaded up and ready to head north

 

[House of Wax]

Here's where it all started. We took our honeymoon to Houghton, MI in January of 08 and spent a week snowmobiling and skiing. We stayed at a place that had 4 log cabins and was run by the nicest people you could imagine. We had mentioned it being our honeymoon and when we got there they had a big basket of goodies waiting for us in the cabin....very cool. Our digs for the week:

Here are the rides we started out with. Picked up a package deal of 2 sleds and a trailer at the end of the previous winter.

Everything worked fine for the first few days. About mid way through the week I had some idle issues. Ended up stopping into the local dealer that was along the trail and walked away with a brand new sled lol. It was a holdover from the previous year and the price was right.

I can't remember if we didn't take that many pictures or I've lost them somehow, but here's a few of the area:

 

[RaysWay]

Looks very peaceful. How's the wildlife there? Anything you have to watch out for like moose, bears, or bigfoot?

 

[House of Wax]

It is very peaceful. Almost too peaceful......We were told we had to go to The xxx Bar in xxx, MI. We set off from one of our stops to head there and the route kept getting deep and deeper. At one point I glanced off to the side and I was looking at the top of a trail sign down below my snowmobile. My wife ended up getting stuck so I decided the best thing to do was turn around. I have no idea how we did because when I hopped off my sled I sunk in the snow up to my groin and still couldn't feel solid ground below my boots. Not ideal for a couple of old short track sleds. God bless my wife, but she isn't exactly any kind of help in a situation like that.

We shut the sleds off for a minute to sit and catch my breath and remember thinking "holy crap it's dark out here" lol. I didn't say anything to her at the time, but after a while of working on muscleing the sleds around I started to get a bit nervous myself that we were going to be spending the night out there. I somehow managed to get them turned around and told her before she got on "once you start moving, do not stop for anything". She nodded her head, I gave her a shove, and she was off. So now she's nervous as hell because she's taking off leaving me behind and I'm just hoping I can get mine going and don't lose her. Thankfully it all worked out, but that was certainly our most adventurous night of the week.


The only wildlife I've personally come across is deer. Oddly enough way up north I've only seen em once or twice, but it seems like every time we're riding at my in laws place in central wisconsin we come across some. I've seen some videos recently of some moose encounters in other areas......those buggers are aggressive

 

[House of Wax]

This next trip was to Lake Gogebic in Michigan with a couple friends of ours back in 2010. Lake Gogebic is the largest natural lake of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (over 13k acres) and is located within the one million acre Ottawa National Forest. We stayed in a nice little cabin right on the lake and had a great time blasting across the lake and through the national forest.

A few pics from an incredible overlook:

Me and my partner in crime:

The ladies did a great job keepin up:

The new machine from the Honeymoon trip. I'll have some more pics and details in my next post:

Doing a little navigating. I had picked up a handheld Garmin gps unit and was able to download the snowmobile trails in the area and overlay them on top of a topographic map. Super helpful

 

[House of Wax]

Was screwin around tonight and made a little "trailer" for the video i'm putting together for our guys trip last year to Munising. Been slackin...guys I went with have been chompin at the bit B)

 

[4u2nvinmtl]

I definitely want to try out snowmobiling this winter after seeing that video. I grew up riding ATV's back in AZ and haven't really gotten back into it since I moved to Montreal (Canada). As I'm in a metropolis I haven't had a chance to go snowmobiling but it looks way more fun than skating/skiing/snowboarding.

... Looking up placed to rent snowmobiles right now!

Thanks for sharing.

 

[House of Wax]

Oh man, living in Canada you're in the mecca of snowmobiling haha. I rode ATV'S for a few years and while they're a ton of fun, they pale in comparison to sledding (imo)

 

[House of Wax]

This is on my bucket list:

The Snow Train Snowmobile Trek | BlueRibbon Coalition

Agawa Canyon's Tour Of The Line Snowmobile Excursions

 

[House of Wax]

Heading up to Munising, MI for what is probably going to be the last ride of the season. This winter was garbage for temps/snowfall (screw you El Nino). We were originally supposed to go to Tomahawk, WI, but mother nature decided to take a big steaming dump on us last weekend (random February warmup plus rain killed the trails) , so we have to go farther north to chase the snow. Should still be fun

Pretty cool....passed by some ships being built for the Navy in Menominee, WI

 

[House of Wax]

The one bad part about riding with an older group of guys......got in at 11:30....still jacked up and ready to tear the trails up

 

[House of Wax]

Some pics from today:

 

[House of Wax]

Next trip up was to Iron River, WI. Just me and the wifey this time.

Good old Wisconsin:

Always gotta have a few sled shots:

This is the 07 Ski Doo Renegade 600sdi that I picked up brand new on our honeymoon. Served me well for several thousand trouble free miles. First sled that I ever bought brand new...absolutely loved it:

This was the wife's ride. A 98 Arctic Cat ZL500. This was a good running sled from the get go. Before the second season we had it I pulled the skid and replaced all of the shocks, springs, and bearings.....she absolutely loved it. I'm a lucky guy in that she could whip that thing around and I didn't have to go at a snail's pace for her to be able to keep up:

Some random pics from the trail:

Ray asked about the wildlife earlier......

There's a couple of big perks of riding during playoff football. 1) Everybody is in the bars watching the games so the trails are empty. 2) They always have tons of food people bring in and set up on tables.....everyone is so darn nice they always tell ya to grab a plate on your way in.

My favorite riding partner.....

My people......

 

[House of Wax]

Epic video. I'm gonna have to really step my GoPro game up on our next trip:

Levi LaVallee Urban Snowmobiling Video in Saint Paul