Ingall's Pass skiing - February 17, 2001
Matt does some tricks with Mt Stuart as a backdrop.
After the previous weekend of car trouble (mini recap: Dave and Phil spend 12 hours driving on Saturday, on a day trip to climb ice in Eastern Washington. This is due to icy roads, lack of a map, and car trouble. On the way home on icy roads near Ephrata, Dave's car gets a flat. Then, near Granite Mtn, the tiny little spare gets a flat. After rolling, slowly, to the truck stop near north bend, no air pumps are operational at 3 gas stations. On to the next exit. Air is available here, but it does no good on the smoking tire. They call for a ride to come and pick them up in North Bend. Next day, Phil takes Emily and Dave back to North Bend. They try the "Flat Fixer" chemical that you inject into your tire. Puddles of the chemical oozing out from around the rim suggest that it will not work. Phil leaves to go skiing. Dave and Emily finally get the main tire replaced at 6pm Sunday.), we were looking forward to a weekend of, uh, no car trouble.
Speeding along the 10 miles to the trailhead, Phil driving The Black Machine. photo by scared skier Dave Burdick.
Things started off badly with an incident on the icy roads leaving Seattle. A poorly placed patch of black ice on the express lane off ramp to I-90, caused some trouble. Phil felt his truck's grip on the road slip a little, but disaster was averted. Wiley (Phil's truck), was NOT going to let himself have an accident while towing a trailer. Greg's truck (don't know what it's name is) had different ideas though, and things didn't look good when Phil and Dave looked back and saw Greg's truck perpendicular to the flow of traffic, and also many other directions to the flow of traffic. They pulled over as soon as was possible, and waited - Dave was pretty sure nothing too bad had happened, and sure enough, a few minutes later, along comes Greg's truck, smashed tail light, but all passengers intact.
However, by North Bend, Greg's truck's oil light was flickering on and off. So, it was left at the Texaco, and everyone got cozy in Phil's truck (Wiley). Pulling into the sno-park on Teanaway River Rd an hour and a half later, we got the prime parking spot.
Matt looked a little weird on this day
Thus began the maiden voyage of Phil's sled (still unnamed - although Greg refer's to it as The Black Machine). After much fiddling with rope systems for towing people, The Black Machine was off. Down the wrong road. This was discovered 0.7 miles later, when all road branches seemed to have signs saying "No motorized travel". The only remaining road branch consisted of deep powder, and The Black Machine, with only 1/2 inch lugs on its track, quickly got stuck and began spewing black smoke. After it was unstuck, the four continued back to the trailhead, where the exhaust from The Black Machine became less and less smokey (phew!), and the correct road was chosen.
Every once in a while, either Dave, Greg or Matt, being towed, would take a spill. Phil would hear the yelling and comotion, and bring the sled to a halt. However, the skiers (those still standing) would inevitably retain their momentum, continue forward pass The Black Machine, and only then, were brought to an abrupt and somewhat humourous halt when the rope came taught. In one instance, Matt pulled along side The Black Machine, and asked Phil to untangled the mess of rope that had weaved its way around various parts of Matt's ski, binding, and boot. It was quite astonishing.
Dave approaching Ingall's Pass
As we got closer and closer to the trailhead (10 miles one way), The Black Machine had a harder and harder time pulling the three skiers. The snow became softer, deeper, and the grade steeper. It was all The Black Machine (hereafter known as TBM) could do to keep a speed of 10-15 MPH. Then, more commotion! Phil, fearing for his friends' lives, brings TBM to a halt (on a steep hill). The commotion? A frozen waterfall, quite large, had been spotted on a hillside. Everyone went back to look at it. When it was time to continue again, TBM could not make any progress. In the end, it took sequential loading of the skiers on the towlines, for TBM to get going.
Dave attempts to relearn parallel skiing
Finally, we arrived. With relief, TBM was stopped and turned off - now it was time to ski in peace (or so we though). We left TBM (carefully concealing the "Snowmobilers For Nader" bumper sticker) and skied up the valley through open forest. On the way up to Ingall's Pass, other snowmobilers were a constant presence. There were a lot. The visibility was good, with hazy skies, becoming more and more sunny all the time.
The exciting grew as we crested Ingalls Pass, and Mt Stuart was revealed for all its winter glory, amidst the buzzing, whining background (sledders do not appear to obey the wilderness boundary). The slope on the other side was nice, moderate, fairly deep (18 inches) powder. Dry, but a little heavy.
Greg submerged
We took two runs through the deep snow (the second of which was unfortunately made less pleasant by a fog which had risen, providing very flat light). By then, it was time to return. At 3:45, we started down the south side, back to the trailhead. The snow here had definitely been sun-affected, and skiing was occasionally tricky, but still pretty fun.
The ride back on TBM was quick, and less eventful than the morning. Thankfully, TBM had been reliable - no problems starting it. The same could not be said for TBM's trailer though. Upon return to Phil's truck (Wiley), it was seen that the trailer had a flat tire. Of course, Phil did not have a spare for the trailer tires. Why would he?
Greg motors through the sun-crusted powder
Somehow, we got out of our situation quite effectively: Matt and Phil asked a pair of other snowmobilers, about to leave, if they had a pump. No, was the answer, but they could loan us their spare, and we could give it back to them in Cle Elum. Unfortunately, their spare was approximately twice as wide as the tires on Phil's trailer (Wiley's trailer?). And the bolts on the trailer tire rim were of a different size than standard car bolts. So the bolt tightener thingy for Wiley wouldn't work. However, the trail tire rim bolts were of the same size as TBM's spark plugs socket wrench, and somehow, the huge tire fit. So we were saved!
Upon arriving in Cle Elum, we thanked the nice snowmobilers and gave them back their tire. We bought a can of this "flat fixer" chemical stuff - I was very dubious of its effectiveness, especially after last weekend - but - it worked!
We arrived back in Seattle by 9:30.
Beer is a necessary part of snowmobiling. Photo by Dave Burdick
