It’s surprising how much time you have to think about things when you’re accidentally flying through the air on a 500-pound machine.
You ponder things like, “I have the handlebars, but where is the snowmobile?”
And stuff dawns on you like, “I think I’m about to wreck an $8,000 machine that doesn’t belong to me.”
And you mull questions like, “I wonder how many bones I’m going to break when I hit the ground.”
And I wondered what exactly possessed me to get on a machine like that in the first place; then I remembered those guys at the Minnesota Office of Tourism.
In their ever-vigilant effort to bring me out of my shell and help me experience the great Minnesota outdoors, MOT media relations specialist C.J. Johnson and director John Edman had encouraged me to be part of Winter Rendezvous 2004, so here I was. Hurtling wildly through the air, no less.
A two-day event that combined the Minnesota United Snowmobilers Association gathering with the annual Governor’s Ride, the Winter Rendezvous brought together hundreds of enthusiasts, eight media people and one governor to celebrate one of Minnesota’s most popular winter sports.
Representatives from Minnesota-based Arctic Cat and Polaris were on hand to outfit me with everything from snow boots to a selection of the finest sleds available on the market today, and DNR training officer Mike Hammer was on hand to give me a crash course in snowmobiling (no pun intended) and try to make sure I didn’t kill myself. Or someone else. Like the governor.
Although Hammer tried to reassure me, I felt worse after the training course than before. I almost wiped out a couple of signs, got the hand signals mixed up and was terrified going over 25 miles per hour.
Now, I was preparing to drive myself on a 62-mile “Ladies Ride,” and, standing in the lobby of the Northern Lights Casino in Walker, I wondered if I were crazy.
Helpful strangers clucked over me as I grappled with zippers and straps and such, and I stood there feeling like a little kid, wondering if I couldn’t even get myself dressed, how, exactly, was I going to actually drive a snowmobile?
In the bar the night before, Dave Bergman, also from the MOT, hadn’t made my paranoia much better. “Don’t worry,” he said. “If you get lost, just build a fire.” Yuk yuk yuk. “And watch out for those attack trees,” people warned me, “the ones that jump out on the trail in front of you.” More laughs.
Meanwhile, I’m picturing myself sitting alone in the woods eating bark wondering if I’ll ever be found, or, worse yet, wrapping myself and my borrowed snowmobile around a tree.
Fortunately, I’m not the first terrified newcomer Sandy Richardson has taken out on the trails, and she assured me that I would be an old pro by the end of the day. Or at least I probably wouldn’t be dead.
Leader of the Ladies Ride, Richardson placed me directly behind her in the 11-person group so she could keep an eye on me, and we set off on some of the most scenic trails Minnesota has to offer.
At least I hear it was beautiful, but I was too scared to look at the scenery or anything except the trail snaking out in front of me. Running a “leisurely” pace between 10 and 25 miles per hour, I felt like it was everything I could do to not crash the big Polaris 600 Classic on each winding corner.
Mercifully, I don’t think anyone could hear me screaming as we plunged down surprisingly steep slopes or pitched around sharp bends, and I doubt they knew that I was thinking about having a good cry except that it would have fogged my helmet up.
Over lunch 30 miles into the ride, these ladies dispelled every stereotype I had about women on snowmobiles.
While this day was a relaxing trail ride, they said, some of their other excursions are anything but. Grandmas blowing engines, races across lakes and huge women-only rendezvous, the stories these women told made it clear that their passion for snowmobiling runs at least as deep as any man’s.
They even have a little something extra, a secret ritual called The Snow Dance that they perform when they want it to snow. A little chanting, a little dancing around, a little arm waving, half superstition and half weather forecast, whatever it is, they said, it usually snows.
A closely guarded secret, most men have never hear of it, the women agreed, but I know of at least one group who probably wishes they knew it.
Among snowmobilers, the Mud Dogs are considered the most extreme, the most enthusiastic, and possibly the most crazy people on sleds.
They don’t trailer their snowmobiles to the rendezvous each year, they ride them there, no matter where it is and whether there is snow or not. Really.
Mud Dog teams come from all over the state, sometimes spending several days traversing trails and lakes before they pull into the annual rendezvous, co-founder C.J. Ramstad said.
And sometimes, if they didn’t ride in on snow, they don’t ride in on much but the stories they have to tell, he laughed. The best adventure story earns the coveted Fugawe Trophy, a 13-year-old award partly decorated with broken parts off people’s sleds.
Since the Mud Dogs were born, about one-third of the years have had such poor snow conditions that the Mud Dogs were left on grass and frozen mud for much of the trip. But even when there is plenty of snow, Ramstad said, it is still always an adventure trying to get from one part of the state to another, legally, on a snowmobile. According to Ramstad, Minnesota has a maze of trails that make it possible to get anywhere you want to go in Minnesota on a snowmobile. But even with maps, navigating those trails over long distances can be something of a challenge, he said, with teams often utterly lost for portions of the trip.
Even so, Ramstad said, sometimes the location of the rendezvous doesn’t provide enough of a challenge, so organizers make it a night-only ride and call themselves the Moon Dogs instead. Next year, Ramstad added, will be an extra special celebration because it will be the Mud Dogs’ 100th birthday. Huh? “Dog years,” he explained.
After indoctrinating me into snowmobiling with the Ladies Ride Friday, I was scheduled to ride 45 miles in a group behind Governor Pawlenty the following day.
Forty-five miles on the same trails? No problem, I figured. I’m an old pro now.
But little did I know, this was no Ladies Ride.
In the crisp cold of the morning, people bustled around me and sled after sled coughed to life and moved into line.
I thought maybe I’d be riding the same nice, stable Polaris 600 from the day before, but it turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong.
As the sea of people and their sleds parted, I saw it sitting there, waiting for me. The sleek, brilliant red machine looked as mean as its name: Sabercat 700.
Gulp.
“Uh, excuse me,” I said, tugging on the Arctic Cat rep’s arm, “but yesterday was the first time I ever drove a snowmobile. Are you sure I should have this machine?”
“It’s the only one we have left,” he said. “Just try to keep it on the low end of the throttle.”
And with that he turned the key and the Sabercat growled to life.
I stood there, paralyzed, staring at 140 horsepower of pure, unadulterated power. This was a machine that would go zero to almost 100 mph in a quarter mile and still have more to give. I was pretty sure I wouldn't see the top end of that throttle unless the Devil was chasing me.
Off I lurched towards the trail, except this time I was toward the back of the pack surrounded by people who assumed I could ride a snowmobile like they do, which means fast. On trails that twist and split off throughout the woods, I either had to keep sight of the snowmobile in front of me or get myself and all the people behind me lost. This was do or die, or do and die, I wasn't really sure which, and I was really missing Sandy Richardson.
So there I was, careening through the woods on a machine that felt like it actually did have a wild animal inside it, maybe a wild animal that was trying to kill me. I was taking corners at 25 mph and screeching down straight-aways at 40, and I had so many near catastrophes that I stopped counting them.
But over the miles, something interesting started to happen: I got better at taming the beast. I learned to throw my weight for balance and how to goose the throttle through a turn. I got braver, or possibly went crazy, I'm not sure which, and found myself wishing we were going faster when the trail got bogged down by the people ahead.
Then the moment came when I knew I had rounded the bend, that I had survived trial by fire and that I was A Snowmobiler: Doing 35 mph down a stretch, I realized I was daydreaming about something else.
I had arrived. Which ended up almost being my downfall.
We broke up into small groups after lunch to make our way back to the hotel, with no two groups taking the same route.
Richard Burton, a local snowmobiler who had taken me under his wing and encouraged me as I struggled early on, said he knew a great route back that headed across a lake. "Oh yeahhhhh," I said.
Out on the open expanse of the lake, snowmobiling takes on a whole new dimension. No trees, no corners, just you and the throttle and whatever guts you can muster.
And by this time I had mustered plenty.
Now, I should mention that snowmobiling comes with a few rules, and one of them is that the speed limit is 50 mph. For the sake of self-preservation, I won't say exactly how fast we were going, I'll just say it was awfully, awfully fast (sorry, Arctic Cat). Snowmobilers discreetly refer to it as "the full 50," a term applied to most anything between 51 mph and your throttle wide open.
Hunched over, I let that mean machine rip across the lake, egging Burton to race me as adrenaline rushed in my ears. I was a Sabercat now, fierce and fearless with the scenery little more than a blur going by...
Which explains why I didn’t see the pressure ridge, a spiny ice formation protruding about 18 inches up from the otherwise flat surface.
Between the time I saw it and the time I hit it measured about two seconds, just enough time to slow down to around 30 mph., but still fast enough to launch me into the air.
And a funny thing happens when you’re flying through the air holding onto nothing but handlebars: you grab them tighter, which is exactly where the throttle is.
The Sabercat engine screamed and so did I, both of us sailing helplessly four feet off the ground for what felt like half my lifetime.
We hit the lake with a huge bounce, miraculously on both skis and with all my teeth intact, and I had to fight the temptation to get off the sled and lie down in the snow for a minute.
It was time to put this wild cat back in the kennel.
Respectfully, I drove the Sabercat back to the hotel and said farewell to it, limping away like I’d lost a brawl.
And despite my aching bones, I caught myself swaggering a bit too as I sauntered inside, proud that I’d tamed the beast just a little, or at least didn’t die trying. Better luck next year, Sabercat. I’ll be back.
