Very little that happened on the slopes this weekend will be remembered at all. This year’s CDPC christmas party eclipsed everything else; unfortunately I’m unable to discuss most of the finer points as they would be very, very bad for business. I will however mention that the food was excellent, our bartender made the type of drinks that should be illegal, and that the party reinforced my belief that I will dearly miss all my co-workers when I quit in a weeks time. If I receive any pictures of the madness they’ll be posted here, but until then I’ll stick to elaborating on our search for alpine amusements as is usual.
Friday I began repairing my snowmachine. Max had broken the springs in my skid while riding to Crosswinds Lake, and with an old but identical skid from Max’s totaled ’99 Powder Special Mikey and I decided to combine the best parts from both it and my current skid. Keeping track of the various bolts, nuts, washers, bushings and random bullshit as I was taking it out gave me a horrible headache (as usual with tedious mechanical work) and put a premature end to my evenings activities. Saturday, faced with rain, a company Christmas party, and a disassembled snowmachine I opted to stay home, watch both the Arsenal – Wigan and Barcelona – Valencia matches, visit AK Sled Salvage, and get started putting my sled back together. The christmas party took up the rest of my day.
I was woken up, face down on my bad that Captain Cook, by an 830 phone call from Max informing me that Mikey was on his way to pick me up and that we were getting an early start to the day. I’d slept for less then 3 hours, my head hurt horribly, but after a flat Saturday I decided it’d be better to get up, returned home to Max and Jessie reassembling my sled and soon found myself driving south along the Seward Highway beneath thick clouds hovering 100 feet above the water. At Johnson Pass we found sun and scattered clouds and decided to stop. The parking lot was filled with 3 families of unwelcoming backcountry guru types who greeted us with the looks of disgust you expect when towing snowmachines or flying a confederate flag while shooting guns out the windows. They seemed upset that the noise of our snowmachines would interrupt the sanctity of the forest and their pleasant family ski tour which (despite having chosen one of only two small areas in the entire Chugach National Forest currently opened to motorized use) they felt entitled them to give us condescending looks and finger to the mouth “shush” gestures.
A little deforestation to celebrate the holiday
My sled didn’t start right away because my air-box had become waterlogged on the drive down, so I spent quite a bit of time tinkering with the sled on the trailer. Before I was able to get my sled running one of the families returned with a freshly cut christmas tree. Luckily I was occupied with my sled or I would of been forced to aggressively confront these people. It’s insane that these people act self righteous and talk down to snowmachines, but feel there is nothing wrong with frivolously chopping down trees to celebrate a holiday. But apparently this practice is legal. Destruction of vegetation is frequently sited as a reason to ban snowmachines, so I will be looking forward to Turnagain Pass being closed to skiers between Thanksgiving and Christmas to save precious trees. It wasn’t a chance siting either, I saw four separate families return with trees. I usually laugh about the “this is Alaska, everything is infinite”mentality, but shit like this was going to far. I imagine it would be far more efficent to just allow these people to cut down trees from local Anchorage parks (where a couple bums could be employed to replace them at minimal expense) rather then force them to drive south for an hour and clear cut an area skiers hold dear. I’m not surprised though, the state of Alaska is a case study in resource mismanagement, add forests to the list which off the top of my head includes, fisheries (in every conceivable fashion), belugas, Medicaid funds, Oil revenues and now Christmas trees. Feel free to comment on the many I’m forgetting the State of Alaska is staffed with idiots and this is a common theme.
Jesse stuck in the alders, my constant fear
The snowmachining was good, although with the warm weather wasn’t to kind to the snow. I’m still stressed driving my snowmachine mostly due to a lack of confidence and experience. I’m constantly expecting to tumble into trees or get stuck at any moment, which becomes self fulfilling as I actually hit two trees and got stuck countless times, but my biggest fear, tumbling off the trail and getting the sled permanently stuck in a narrow ravine, never happened, despite countless opportunities to do just that. For my part, despite the crappy snow the day was a success, I gained a little confidence side-hilling on narrow trails, and exploring my various mechanical issues gave me a more intimate knowledge of my sleds inner workings. I’d rather break down on the trailer with the expertise of Mikey and Max around to learn from, rather then find myself with Seany B on some glacier experiencing problems for the first time and without a clue as to how to deal with them.
Dongshow Productions 
December 30, 2008 at 10:41 am
Just for the record, I’m not anti snowmobile (I own one), anti gun (I technically own about ten, although I’m not in possession of them) and not anti heliskiing (I’ve done it about ten times). Snowmobiles, guns and helicopters are powerful machines/weapons that can be easily misused, which is where my beef is. Instead of adding more regulations and enforcers, I think the best way to deal with this issue is for the user groups to deal with their own wayward miscreants. For instance, if a snowmbiler poaches a wilderness area and cuts down a tree, the snowmobiling community should come down hard on him instead of chuckling and looking the other way. The solution is not to post “No Trespassing” and “No Tree Cutting” signs over every inch of the world, or to hire even more people to ride around on machines with guns enforcing the few idiots who ruin it for everyone.
December 30, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I agree, thanks for the comment Andrew. It’s a constant headache as both groups really value the snow and mountains but in really different ways, and enforcing anything in a wilderness environment is a bit confusing. Thanks again for commenting.