Dave invited Jeff, a buddy from Ohio with whom he served in the Navy 20 years earlier, and the trip was set.Īfter Dave and Steve rejetted and clutched their respective MX Zs for the altitude, we left the Minneapolis area and headed west. Last winter I made a proclamation: It was the Black Hills or bust. This was supposed to be a grand adventure to the West. We had a great time each year, but our original focus was lost. Suddenly, the late winter snowmobiling trip started taking on its own form – northern Minnesota one year, Michigan’s U.P. When the next March came, the Black Hills had yet another relatively bad season, and we headed back to Michigan’s U.P. We’d go to the Black Hills the following spring, we pledged, and a couple more friends were added to the agenda, including my longtime close friend Dave. Instead of canceling the “guys getaway,” we rode instead in Wisconsin and Michigan. We were set to go the following March, but the snow didn’t stick in the Black Hills that spring. It was only about 9 hours away, it would allow Steve to get used to the altitude, and he could bring his MX Z 800. I talked briefly about the joys of western riding and then said, “Well, let’s just plan a trip for next winter – you’ll be family by then, and we’ll both be looking for an excuse to get away!” We turned to an atlas and started planning a trip - the Black Hills would be our destination, we decided. He’d been in the mountains skiing before, but had never pulled a rope on a sled west of Minnesota. Now that the western-riding hook has been set, our annual riding trip may never return to the flatlands again.Ībout eight years ago, my sister-in-law’s then-fiancé, Steve, was helping hold down the couch and empty some 12-ounce bottles when he asked about a trip I had just returned from in Utah. Altitudes are low enough (max 6,700 feet) that our flatlander lungs, 121-inch tracks and Midwestern riding skills could get by. It features a wonderful 350-mile trail system with stunning scenery and interesting places to go, yet seemingly unending off-trail possibilities in the 1.3-million-acre Black Hills National Forest. The Black Hills proved to be an absolutely perfect first-trip-west for these guys. For three of the four members of our group, it was a first-time experience riding at altitudes over 2,000 feet. The snowy meadow provided a dramatic end to a trip that was years in the making, yet bound to be repeated soon. We all got stuck there, and had a riot doing it. Over the next three days, we would all get stuck – in fact, by end of day 3, we would find a vast, completely untouched, powder-filled meadow that dreams are made of. We’d dug Dave out plenty of times before on some Michigan Upper Peninsula trips, so this was fully expected. “How did you get stuck already? Weren’t you following John’s tracks,” another friend, Steve, teased. The rest of us flatlanders un-did our chin straps and pulled off our helmets, knowing the depth and angle of Dave’s sled, not to mention the added altitude, meant we’d be working up a sweat getting him out. A half-hour into our first morning of riding, still within sight of the main trail we had left for our first off-trail adventure in the epic Black Hills of South Dakota, my buddy Dave’s MX Z 600 sat with the back end trenched 3 feet deep.
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