And sometimes this happens...

We got another 10.5" of the blessed white stuff last night which managed to wipe out all the tracks in the yard. That of course needed to be fixed so I fired up the '91 Jag for a good rip. 10.5" is good deep powder but the Jag just eats it up, no problem at all so full of confidence I hit the trails for one of my pirate runs.

Nobody had been through since I went last week and even then I'd only made one pass out and back which doesn't make much of a trail. About 200 yards in I found a 5 FOOT deep drift, fortunately it descended to only 3 feet at the left side of the trail, unfortunately that was right next to a tree. I split the difference and blasted through a 4 foot wall of snow, had no choice really, there was nowhere to turn around and I didn't dare stop for fear I wouldn't be able to get going again.

With that behind it was a hard but slow run to where I leave the railbed and cross to a parallel trail. I was nervous about this because its a tight area and wasn't sure if I could keep headway but the Jag just kept slogging along. Finally got to where I could turn around, decided I'd do a clockwise turn but suddenly realized there was a deep spot right where I was headed, reversed course and ended up foolishly getting off the power and hitting that deep spot heading the other way...

I commenced to digging. This was a learning experience, with older sleds that have no rear suspension travel you heave the back end over to the side, fill in the hole under the track, heave the sled back on top to pack the snow, then back off and repeat. With a sled like my Jag that has some rear suspension you dig out under the footboards the length of the sled, then sit way back on the seat and apply power, the track hopefully finds traction and you're out. I had to try the old method once before I realized the new method would work better.

Here's a look at how close I was to completing the turn:

I think my mistake is that I thought I was going to stay in the seat through the turn, I should have been standing on the left footboard. I also realize now that I should always plan on a counter clockwise reversing turn when I can manage it because it'll be easier to stay on the throttle through the turn. In a right turn it gets hard to pull the throttle since the right grip is now down by my right knee.

Ahh live and learn right? The good news here is that since the Jag is such a good powder sled I feel much more confident about trying to make it to our camp in Maine in the winter. The camp is 3/4 of a mile from the road with no trails kept in the winter so we'd have to break trail through what would probably be powder similar to this.

I took the Jag yesterday into the state park and rode the groomed trails, it rides good but fishtails something awful. I'd decided that it needed a new track but considering its powder performance it might just need studs. Actually if I could get a deeper lug track AND studs and slightly wider plastic skis this would be an amazing powder machine...