Went on yet another snowmobile adventure yesterday. It had been dumping snow up in the Cascades all week, meaning thick powder. We loaded up and hit the road early.

First glimpse of snow, low in the foothills near North Bend. Good sign as we're still fairly low in elevation...( as always, clicking on the pics gives you the fullsize version)

Arriving. The people we were to ride with were already there. Beautiful thick snow in the trees....

Winter Wonderland. The noise from the sleds and our voices would often set off a release of snow from the tree branches, creating a mini-avalanche of snow on anyone dumb enough to park under one. (It actually doesn't hurt, just a bit surprising. But refreshing!)

Yours truly, after 30 hours of no sleep. Worth it.

Playing in the powder. Deep, light, wonderful powder.

Deep powder means deeply stuck if you lose your momentum. If you look down the trail, you can just make out the uptilted hood of a buried skidoo...

Pretty cabin pic shows just how much snow came down recently....

I had plenty of time to compose the previous shot, as I was well stuck myself. I'd run down the trail to another meadow, trying to find a turnaround spot so I could return and help a fellow rider get unstuck. I was cruising, carving through the fluff, snow coming up over the hood.

Crested the rise out of the ditch to the trail, let off just for a second, lost my forward momentum and the track dug itself way way down. Stuck. Chest high snow.
Spent a good 30 minutes pulling, tugging, compacting, kicking, just to get the front of the sled turned 90 degrees. The tail was buried, all the weight of the sled on it, but the track just spun impotently underneath. Impossible for me to lift it out solo. Thankfully, a group of riders stopped and gave me the one final pull that allowed me to get going again, just as my group showed up. Comparing stories, two of them had gotten stuck as well, we were all fairly winded. That's the cost of enjoying such deep powder.

Pretty trees....

"Really, it just jumped out in front of me".....

Could rip along the groomed trails, surfing the deep powder ungroomed sides, then returning to the harder packed path for a speed fix. Everyone's waiting for me to put the damn camera away...

Look at that snow.....

Each rock had it's own little cap...

Leaving, we passed the groomer on its way up....

Coming over the pass in the dark, thick blowing snow, pulling the sleds. Slow and steady. There's a lot of people on the road who have no business driving in snow.

Home, tired, sore, happy. Riding a sled in powder uses different muscles that riding trails, getting the sled tilted over on it's side so it'll carve takes power and balance, my shoulders sure can feel the difference this morning. What a great day.