Maggot snowmobile thread

[LHutz Esq]

Can't afford the child support- can't afford the sledding. Seems like a good plan.

[Eldo]

Yah. DougW and me parked at end of road up Blae Valley. Unloaded and rode sleds 100m back to Redburn FSR.

Later we come down and CO waiting there to bust us. We were the only two vehicles in the lot, so he really had a boner to catch someone.

We both got a warning ticket for riding on a plowed road for 15 secs, so next time it's a $1 billion dollar fine, or something like that.

I got a $58 ticket for no sticker. I told the the CO that everyone I knew don't have their sleds registered. So he says "If they told you you could smuggle cocaine across the border, would you do it?"

Just as I was about to lose, er, loose, my shit, I looked over at Doug and he kinda shakes his head, like, "Don't answer that."

[sal the salmon]

I know this is a bit off topic.... but its rad and has good karma i bet.

http://spokane.craigslist.org/snw/4736454019.html

[pano-dude]

Season started today braaaaap!

[Shadam]

wow !!! so that CO is looking for a coke dealer in town ???

[Mannix]

geez, Canada gets up in arms about some stuff, huh? Weird. I've heard stories of people getting harassed about sleds on decks not being tied down right or not enough lights, cops in Pemberton or something being real hardasses about things, difficulty bringing sleds across the border, etc.

What's a CO? C***** Officer? Cock?

[pano-dude]

A Co is a conservation officer. Had a run in with one last year, coming home from a day of sledding with the family, sleds on trailer hit a check stop. Rcmp says hi have a good day? I say yup, co comes up from looking at my trailer, asks if sleds are registered, i say one is the other i brought home from alberta have not got around to it. He lectures me about how I'm trying to not pay tax bla bla.....rcmp shakes head and walks away, co then writes me a ticket.

[BCMtnHound]

CO = Conservation Officer. And yes, they are in full attack mode. Standard SOP when your funding is directly related to the number of calls you action, or tickets you write. The budget for the Env ministry, and the CO Service in particular, is extremely tight. In some districts, the CO's don't have sufficient budget to fuel their vehicles. In addition, there is competition with the Natural Resources ministry twig pigs as they are also mandated to action some of the same legs/regs, so don't be surprised to see them waiting at some of the staging areas as well. Kinda stupid with the roll-out, even the govt fleet is scrambling to get their vehicles in compliance.

Compound that with the RCMP using any excuse to pull over a vehicle that 'appears' to represent a segment of the population that drinks light beer by the flat while recreating, so that they can conduct a sniff test. Appearance of an unsecured load, new reg/legs that catch people up, etc, just gives them the opportunity to fish for a contravention/indictable offence. It's a game, just got to play it smarter than the other team.

[Mannix]

thanks! There have been issues down here, I'm sure, but for the most part, law enforcement - normal or forest - leave me alone. Certainly never been talked to at a gas station.

Interesting.

Sled-ski on-topic, tried to ski yesterday & did not quite work out, but it is close. Kinda bony, but there were 4 or 5 legitimately good turns amidst a whole bunch of bushes and rocks.


Iain

[kidwoo]

A Co is a conservation officer. Had a run in with one last year, coming home from a day of sledding with the family, sleds on trailer hit a check stop. Rcmp says hi have a good day? I say yup, co comes up from looking at my trailer, asks if sleds are registered, i say one is the other i brought home from alberta have not got around to it. He lectures me about how I'm trying to not pay tax bla bla.....rcmp shakes head and walks away, co then writes me a ticket.

It's the same here.

[pano-dude]

More pics from yesterday

[powder11]

Just got my new ride registered. The new registration process is a blatant cash grab. Went from $10 last year for the sticker to $48 this year for the plate! Obviously new sleds pay tax at purchase, but they're trying to get revenue from all the unregistered used sleds that changed hands since original purchase. A lot of people will be in for a rude awakening as the ICBC lady said they will be out in full force this year checking for registrations. You dont need to have the plate mounted on new sled, but have regi slip on person. Older sleds will still use the sticker on the sled until June 15th. Hopefully the snowmobile clubs lobby to get rid of plates. Who the fuck wants to drill their tunnel for a license plate!?

[DougW]

Yah. DougW and me parked at end of road up Blae Valley. Unloaded and rode sleds 100m back to Redburn FSR.

Later we come down and CO waiting there to bust us. We were the only two vehicles in the lot, so he really had a boner to catch someone.

We both got a warning ticket for riding on a plowed road for 15 secs, so next time it's a $1 billion dollar fine, or something like that.

I got a $58 ticket for no sticker. I told the the CO that everyone I knew don't have their sleds registered. So he says "If they told you you could smuggle cocaine across the border, would you do it?"

Just as I was about to lose, er, loose, my shit, I looked over at Doug and he kinda shakes his head, like, "Don't answer that."

You missed the part where we had to sit on our sleds for 10-15 minutes while he checked that we weren't supper villains wanted around the world, so that he could be the supper here wantabe cop and make the collar. The CO before him seemed to be a good guy , this guy has a rep for being a douche.

[powder11]

so how many of you BC interior folks are heading out sledding this weekend? Revelstoke zone has a decent base and looking at a meter by Friday and then bluebird... seriously considering hopping in my truck and driving out that way if any of you good people want to show a coastie refugee around!

[Mannix]

Not in BC, but I rode sleds today with the intention of skiing. Colorado got hammered the past two weeks; probably 60-70" of snow (like two meters, eh) on top of nothing.

Went to one of our normal skiing areas, not all the roads are in yet. Figured we could take 3 sleds down into one of our main shots, make the turnaround, and be able to get out. So freaking wrong. Over the hood deep on the way down, broke the trail with the Skandic, XM and my old ZX followed. Could not get the Skandic back up the road - was still too soft. Tried to get the XM up it; flat light = could not really get after it (a better rider could have done it). Hrmph. Contingency for that shot is following the creekbed down - kinda knew that not getting back out was a possibility, only tried it because I figured there was enough snow in the creek to do it.

UNBELIEVABLY deep. I was on the verge of getting stuck going downhill through the creekbed on the Skandic. The XM was getting stuck on the road I'd just made. Just absurd.

11 hours door to door. 1.5 hour drive each way, unload/load, and a whopping 12 miles of riding. The vast majority of the trailbreaking was downhill, too. Absolutely absurd.

The good news is that there's a road there now and it should be usable by Saturday. Bad news, did not get to ski & nuked a belt, had the skandic buried enough that it burned the belt as though it was stuck on a log. Not stuck, just buried. Should be able to ski Saturday, that's the good news, but damn, it was a long day - albeit really fun, in a holy balls this is deep way.


Iain

[pano-dude]

Hell ya, days like that are one in a million.

[kidwoo]

Hell ya, days like that are one in a million.

Not when you try to break trail with a scandic

[Eldo]

Reading the Revy conditions thread on Snow & Mud the last few days and guys getting overnighted after stucks in shallow depressions. Bottomless after going from almost no snow to eight feet in a week.

Including a guy who walked out to the Boulder cabin after his turboed 174 floundered.

Makes me rethink the survival gear I carry.

[powder11]

Reading the Revy conditions thread on Snow & Mud the last few days and guys getting overnighted after stucks in shallow depressions. Bottomless after going from almost no snow to eight feet in a week.

Including a guy who walked out to the Boulder cabin after his turboed 174 floundered.

Makes me rethink the survival gear I carry.

Wow. Makes me rethink wanting to head out to Revy this weekend! Having been overnighted last season in similar conditions, I'm ok not driving 8hrs and missing a deep day or two if its just going to be a big miserable stuckfest... I had most everything you would want aside from cell coverage or a spot locator with text to let everyone know I was ok. Extra layers, dry gloves/hat, hand saw, head lamp, lots of jerky and nalgene bottle. I was lucky to be able to melt snow in a nalgene off the sled engine compartment, but I think Im going to pack a proper camp pot to boil snow in the event the sled is no longer running. Plenty of fuel from the sled, but I do like that tampon idea that someone mentioned earlier. I had a dry bic lighter, but thinking one of those spendy turbo jobbies my buddy uses to light joints in the wind on the chairlift might be better.

[Mannix]

Not when you try to break trail with a scandic

har! I did not take pics or video, but the Skandic is the ONLY tool for that sort of thing - the XM was getting stuck everywhere (163"). The Skandic is great for making roads through willowy creekbeds, because you CAN do it slowly - no fear of ripping a-arms off.

There are certainly things my beloved utility sled won't do, but if I need to make a trail in deep snow, I'll take the skandic each and every time - the only place the XM wins is if it is steep enough to require significant momentum.

I love my pig of a utility sled. It is crazy; the sled has to weigh 800#, vs 550# for the XM. 250ish pounds heavier, but the extra width of the track, skis and bellypan results in ground pressure that leaves a road which the XM sinks into pretty far. Science y0.

[powder11]

XM is off road. Call me crazy, but Id rather schralp fresh pow than build roads! You get paid by the local club to do that sort of thing?

[Mannix]

XM is off road. Call me crazy, but Id rather schralp fresh pow than build roads! You get paid by the local club to do that sort of thing?

nope, I just want to ski! I like snowmobiles, but they're really tools for me. Our INTENTION was to ski. I really thought we'd have been able to drive back out of that bowl after 3 sleds came down. We've got a lot of snow, but it all came at once - good problem to have, right? Yeah....skiing and/or sledding is still kinda spooky from a landmine perspective. The place we wanted to ski looks pretty well filled in. I dicked around in one of the meadows on the way back to the truck on the XM, it LOOKED fine, but halfway through a long carve, thud, rock on track, center shock bottomed out, I did not fall off, then the damned thing tips over and sinks. The snow looked uniform, but I'd plowed a rock then slid it down the backside of a pile of dirt or something - the ten feet of trench behind the stuck sled was all dirt and twigs.

I'm pretty sure I'd break something if I just went out and rode sleds. Hoping to not break anything on skis. I hope some people find the road we made - the difficult part can't be more than 2 miles - and beat it in today. I'm sure half the world is there right now.

First world problems. No complaints, was fun.

[shirk]

Just got my new ride registered. The new registration process is a blatant cash grab. Went from $10 last year for the sticker to $48 this year for the plate! Obviously new sleds pay tax at purchase, but they're trying to get revenue from all the unregistered used sleds that changed hands since original purchase. A lot of people will be in for a rude awakening as the ICBC lady said they will be out in full force this year checking for registrations. You dont need to have the plate mounted on new sled, but have regi slip on person. Older sleds will still use the sticker on the sled until June 15th. Hopefully the snowmobile clubs lobby to get rid of plates. Who the fuck wants to drill their tunnel for a license plate!?

Welcome to Ontario 20+ years ago. It's always been PST charged on used sleds, every time it gets sold and resold. You would pay at the point of transferring it into your name. The gig was to get the hand written bill of sale done up for less than what you actually paid. Write in some fake damage or blown motor so that they could not just look up the book rate for the particular sled.

I recall the yearly registration sticker being about $75 and this was back in the mid 1990's, I'll have to ask my brother what it cost now.

For the plate numbers you could get stickers made up or guys would get them painted on. The plate number would transfer with the sled so stickers applied once. There are some rules on size and location, but you could usually do something that would match the sled and not look too bad. Better than riveting a plate on.

[pano-dude]

Deep day today...

[powder11]

Welcome to Ontario 20+ years ago. It's always been PST charged on used sleds, every time it gets sold and resold. You would pay at the point of transferring it into your name. The gig was to get the hand written bill of sale done up for less than what you actually paid. Write in some fake damage or blown motor so that they could not just look up the book rate for the particular sled.

I recall the yearly registration sticker being about $75 and this was back in the mid 1990's, I'll have to ask my brother what it cost now.

For the plate numbers you could get stickers made up or guys would get them painted on. The plate number would transfer with the sled so stickers applied once. There are some rules on size and location, but you could usually do something that would match the sled and not look too bad. Better than riveting a plate on.

Thats whats happening here in BC, but the plate is same as a car, it stays with the person, not the sled. Before the sticker stayed with the sled so it was easier for someone down the ownership line to say they thought the sled was registered. I know a few people trying to trade in old sleds for new are running into problems because they never filled out the proper transfer/registration paperwork to avoid taxes and now have to locate the prior owner before they can make a dealer trade in as all the paper work has to be in order. One guy in particular has no idea where the previous owner is and kind of stuck with what hes got unless someone else wants to do an under the table deal.