13.   I think this years Annual Winter Cabin Trip officially takes the cake as being the shortest one on record in addition to being a month late. Warm weather and rain cancelled our mid February trip.  Wednesday directly before our current trip our snow drought was finally broken with a fresh 20cm snowstorm burying the city in fluffy white greatness!

12.  Excitement ran high, as I wanted to test ride my new sled Project Powertek REV a 2006 short track REV 800, Maffer wanted to get out for his first ride of the year on his 2006 REV 500ss, and Sooley wanted to test out the quality of his S-module repair after hitting a rock last month on his 2009 Renegade 800r. Most of the rest of the crew headed to the West Coast in desperate search of snow!

11.  Unfortunately, warm weather and heavy rain arrived Thursday night and into Friday (the first day of our trip). We left town Friday morning with the expectation that surely not all of the fresh snow could be gone already We arrived at the cabin an hour later in disbelief that all of the fresh snow from Wednesday's storm was gone!

10.   Not only that, but the ice on the pond (although thick enough to safely ride on) was as slick as a dick. It was perfectly smooth, the rain providing the perfect mix of lubrication so you could hardly walk, let alone ride up the pond without a studded track.

9.   We did manage to take a few rips up and down the water logged pond as I really wanted to rip on the new weapon, needless to say I was not disappointed in the sled!

8.   We didn't do much Saturday other then mill about the cabin & garage, testing more ice with the ice auger and taking a run to Whitbourne. Water was now frozen so there was no way to keep the sleds running cool.

7.   That night we had an awesome barbeque for supper followed by a bon fire in the new fire pit behind the cabin, you know it's a great fire when the RCMP show up to see if the cabin is on fire! They were good natured and wished us a good night. High winds prevailed overnight which did a lot of damage to the ice. A lot of cracks & holes opened up and the already thin ice got measurably thinner.

6.   Sunday morning we had a dusting of snow so we managed to do a very small amount of riding after re-checking the pond with our ice auger.

5.   Sooley's pond was the only one we were (barely) able to ride on, all the other gullies were now open water!

4.  

3.   We managed to do a little water skimming and made an unnecessary and delicate run up the pole line finding patches of snow here and there to scoot across on.

2.   When we got back to Sooley's Pond, Maffer somehow managed to recreate a crash dating back to the old Scandic days when he flipped his REV whilst doing donuts on the ice! Luckily nothing was seriously damaged, and Maffer was no worse for wear.

1.   The new sled works very well. It's such a huge leap forward from Project Renegade, which I truly enjoyed, the REV is so much more comfortable, powerful and capable. Skimming water on this sled is a dream, I can literally stop on the edge of the ice and start out building up speed, even lifting the skis all the way across the water!

At the end of the day, I did manage to pop the motor in my sled. I expected it, as it has 6500km on it and had a rattle when I bought it which was reflected in the purchase price. I plan to have Drive Line in the Goulds rebuild it with premium parts, so next year I will have a reliable & awesome sled to ride.

With my machine broken, and the weather getting worse, we decided to have a Barbeque supper and head home Sunday evening rather then stay up until Monday as originally planned. A short trip but we certainly made the best of it.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2025 Michael Smith