A ride the 3rd weekend of September…get out of here!
Naturally, Friday night I found myself in a mad scramble to get my sled pre-seasoned for the morning ride. The excitement was uncontainable as we loaded the sled in the truck around midnight. Sure enough, too much midnight oil used, meant difficulty waking up. I would have been ok if I had not underestimated my travel time. Luckily the group I was going with was pretty understanding, they decided they would grab a bite to eat while they were waiting. We met up, got done eating and were on our way to the Monte Cristo Area.
Once there, we unloaded at what could be the top of the group of mountains known as Monte Cristo (only generally speaking, probably not actually the “top”). I was riding with four other riding enthusiasts. Three of them belonged to the Wadman clan [Grant; dad, Robert and Scott; sons] and the fourth [Brody] was a good friend of the Wadman family. The Wadmans were on Arctic Cat King Cat 900s, sporting the ‘Titanium’ package with a 162 track (2 were Camoplast and the other, Attack 20). Brody, the friend of the family, was riding his 2005 Polaris 800 RMK Vertical Edge with the Attack 20 162 x 15 x 2.25 track. As for myself, I was riding the 2005 Polaris 900 RMK 159. We started the ride with the temp around 46 degrees and it only got hotter, or though it seemed because when we got back to the truck it was the same temperature.
We spent the day moseying around the hills looking for snow; of course our hopes weren’t too high. We were just happy to be on our sleds, for any reason. As we continued our search we found a few northern facing hillsides that had more snow on it than one would expect. We eventually came along one hillside more commonly known as Monte Cristo (not referring to the group of mountains in the region). After making a few practice runs up and down the hill we were able to get the competitive spirits going.
The competition was between the 900 RMK (Aaron), 800 RMK (Brody) and the 900 King Cat (Robert). Robert used two sleds in the “competition”, his KC with a few mods and the stock KC his brother was riding. Unfortunately it was a poor showing for the 900 RMK. On the bright side, I found the areas in which I need improvement. I was being beat off the line (my reaction time wasn’t helping the matter), in the mid-range I was staying right there or just slightly gaining and in the top end I was being pulled. This was true against the King Cat and 800 RMK; needless to say it was just disappointing. For whatever reason I couldn’t get her on top of her rpms, she wouldn’t get up and scream. Both the 800 RMK and 900 King Cat were exceptional sleds. Both riders had them tuned, locked and ready to rock. They did just that. Watching/hearing them take off was a good experience…skis come up and the track squats as the high pitch two stroke bangs off the pipes just screaming up the hill.
After a few runs and taking some constructive criticism we decided to head back to the truck. 3½ hours and 14.6 miles later we were back at the truck. On our way out we experienced a lot of sheep…I mean a lot. Some ranchers had an accident while hauling some sheep out and lost almost a full load of sheep, so sad.
It was a privilege of mine to go riding with Grant, Robert, Scott and Brody. I look forward to being with them again, pushing the edge and riding hard.
