13.   I think this years Annual Winter Cabin Trip officially takes the cake as being the shortest one on record, as well as a month late. On Wednesday directly before our trip, our winter's snow drought was finally broken with a 20cm storm burying the city in white fluffy greatness!

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10.   Excitement ran high, as I wanted to try out my new sled Project Powertek REV,

9.   Maffer wanted to get out for his first ride of the year on his '06 REV 500ss,

8.   and Sooley wanted to test out the quality of his S-module repair after hitting a rock last month  on his '09 REVxp Renegade.

Unfortunately, warm weather and heavy rain prevailed Thursday night and into Friday (the first day of our trip). We left town with the expectation that surely not all of the fresh snow could be gone already, and arrived at the cabin in disbelief that indeed there was no snow left! Not only that, but the ice on the pond (although thick enough to safely ride on) was as slick as a dick. It was perfectly smooth, the rain providing the perfect mix of lubrication so you could hardly walk, let alone ride up the pond. We didn't do much the first day other then mill about the cabin & garage, walking the length of the pond testing with the ice auger and taking a run to Whitbourne.

7.   That night we had an awesome BBW for supper followed by a bon fire in the new fire pit, you know its a good fire when the RCMP show up to see if the cabin is on fire! They were good natured and wished us a good night. High winds prevailed overnight which did a lot of damage to the ice. A lot of cracks & holes opened up and the already thin ice got thinner.

6.   We did have a dusting of snow, so we did manage to do a very small amount of riding after checking the ice with an auger.

5.   Unfortunately, Sooley's pond was the only one barely fit to ride on, all the gullies were completely opened up!

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3.   We managed to do some water skimming and made a stupid and delicate run up the pole line finding patches of snow here and there to get across on.

2.   When we got back to Sooley's Pond, Maffer somehow managed to recreate a crash dating back to the old Scandic days when he flipped his REV doing donuts on the ice! Luckily nothing was seriously damaged, and Maffer was no worse for wear.

1.   I have to say the new sled works very well. Its so much more comfortable then my old sled, and the power is awesome. Skimming water on this sled is a dream, I can literally stop on the edge of the ice and start out building up speed, even lifting the skis all the way across the water!

At the end of the day, I did manage to pop the motor in my sled. I expected it, as it has 6500km on it and had a noise when I bought it, which was reflected in the purchase price. I plan to have Drive Line in the Goulds rebuild it with premium parts, so next year I will have a reliable awesome sled to ride.

With my machine broken, and the weather getting worse, we decided to have a BBQ and head home Saturday evening rather then stay up the rest of the weekend. It was a short trip, but still a great trip!

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith