Dokken: ‘3 Old Guys’ gear up for March snowmobile trek from Minnesota to Alaska

GRAND FORKS – In March 2019, they made an epic, 2,950-mile round-trip snowmobile trek from Grand Rapids, Minn., to Hudson Bay at Churchill, Manitoba.

Now, the “3 Outdated Guys” – as they’ve come to name themselves – are kicking it up a notch. This time round, Paul Dick, Rob Hallstrom and Rex Hibbert are snowmobiling from Dick’s dwelling in Grand Rapids to Fairbanks, Alaska.

The 4,000-plus-mile journey is about to start Monday, March 6, stated Hallstrom, a retired electrician from Park Rapids, Minn. At 65, Hallstrom is the younger man on the crew; Dick, of Grand Rapids, is 72, and Hibbert, of Soda Springs, Idaho, will flip 70 through the journey.

All three have in depth expertise in each snowmobile racing and long-distance using. Along with the Churchill journey, every of them accomplished Cain’s Quest, an excessive snowmobile race in Labrador, Canada, that’s greater than 2,000 miles lengthy however doesn’t comply with a particular course.

After snowmobiling to Churchill and again, Alaska appeared just like the pure subsequent step, Hallstrom says.

“I like journey – at all times have,” stated Hallstrom, who’s initially from St. Hilaire, Minn. “I’ve at all times considered the snowmobile as a key to journey. We had such a superb time once we went to Churchill, so after all, while you’re doing it, you’re sitting round speaking, and it’s like, ‘Properly, how would you high this?’

“And naturally, Alaska begins arising, and we began how we might try this.”

It’s a chance, Hallstrom says, to see firsthand so most of the locations he’s examine.

“If you begin placing collectively all these locations we’re going to go to, there are such a lot of attention-grabbing facet tales,” he stated. “All my life, I’ve been inquisitive about northern Canada and Alaska, and also you learn all these cool tales. Properly, now, we’re going to be using and going by way of a few of these areas.”

The course they’ve charted, Hallstrom says, will take them totally on groomed trails from Grand Rapids to Flin Flon, Manitoba, and past that, a backcountry route that features parts of Reindeer Lake, Wollaston Lake and Lake Athabasca in northwest Saskatchewan. They’ll comply with ice roads to the Nice Slave River as much as Nice Slave Lake, the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean on the northern tip of the Yukon, cross the Richardson Mountains to the Porcupine River, steer their sleds southwest to the Yukon River after which end the journey on the Yukon Quest sled canine path into Fairbanks.

The three adventurers will drive Arctic Cat Norseman 8000X snowmobiles with 800cc engines. They drove related snowmobiles, which have longer tracks, wider skis and get pretty good mileage – by snowmobile requirements – to Churchill in 2019, however these sleds had smaller 600cc engines.

Every of them will pull tow sleds loaded with provides, together with sufficient spare snowmobile elements to deal with nearly any breakdown which may happen, Hallstrom says. From Flin Flon, they’ll additionally every carry 30 to 40 gallons of gasoline, plus regardless of the snowmobiles maintain, he says.

“We’ll be loaded up fairly heavy once we go away a city, as a result of it’s simply so tough,” Hallstrom stated. “It’s not like a automobile, the place you’ll be able to simply say, ‘OK, we get 20 miles to the gallon, so we’d like this many gallons.’

“If the snow is difficult and frozen, the snowmobiles run actually effectively, and also you get good mileage. For those who get on the market, and there’s 2 ft of powder snow or one thing like that, you get horrible mileage. You must contemplate that when it’s 300 miles between cities.”

Apart from meals, gasoline and spare elements, their gear checklist consists of an Arctic Oven Igloo-model “scorching tent,” a woodstove and sleeping luggage rated for -60F. They’ll even have a few totally different satellite tv for pc communicators, Hallstrom says, which can permit them to ship textual content messages and let a number of individuals comply with their course in real-time. The communicators even have an SOS operate to contact the closest authorities in case of an emergency.

They’ll keep in accommodations the place attainable, however the tenting gear will most likely get loads of use, Hallstrom says. On the Mackenzie River, they’ve made tentative plans to remain in a trapper’s cabin with a trapper one night time, he says.

“Hopefully, all of it works out,” he stated “There are a number of locations the place, except we discover a shelter on the market – there could be a cabin on the market someplace – but when not, we’ll be sleeping in our tent.”

If all goes in keeping with plan, Hallstrom says he anticipates the journey will take a few month. They’ll fly dwelling on the finish of the journey and work out the way to get their snowmobiles again to Minnesota later, he says.

“We’ve organized for locations to retailer them there,” Hallstrom stated. “We’ll both ship them dwelling or someone will go get them subsequent summer season on a trip.

“We sort of assume the very first thing we must always do is get there earlier than we fear about that,” he added. “There’s an terrible lot of unknowns. That’s an extended solution to go on a snowmobile, and we’re going to be in some distant areas.”

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