Fire on the trail: ‘Old Guy’ snowmobilers face new obstacle in Alaska

Alaska is proving a difficult state to traverse for the three “outdated man” snowmobilers who set out March 6 from Grand Rapids, Minn., for Fairbanks.

Starting as an journey that Paul Dick, 72, Rex Hibbert, 70, and Rob Hallstrom, 65, deliberate for about two years, the journey has in some ways change into a saga.

The story’s newest chapter unfolded Saturday, when the three males have been making an attempt to achieve the village of Fort Yukon, Alaska, having left a distant cabin that morning the place they’d bivouacked Friday evening.

Using their sleds alongside and on prime of the frozen Porcupine River, the boys endured deep snow and, at occasions, slush, based on stories they despatched to Hallstrom’s daughter, Kasie Plekkenpol, within the Twin Cities.

The lads had hoped to achieve Fort Yukon by darkish Saturday. However that plan was dashed when, by way of textual content utilizing their inReach satellite tv for pc communication machine, they reported to Plekkenpol that Hibbert’s snowmobile had caught hearth.

The lads have been secure, they mentioned, however annoyed. “They have been so shut and but so removed from their ultimate vacation spot,” Plekkenpol recounted on the boys’s Fb web page.

By air, Fort Yukon is about 150 miles from Fairbanks. Overland, following the Yukon River a lot of the best way, because the snowmobilers intend to do when they’re transferring once more, the gap is indeterminate, given the numerous stops, begins and redirects the boys make whereas breaking path.

Already low on gasoline when the hearth began, Hibbert, Dick and Hallstrom determined to desert in the meanwhile the broken snowmobile and its cargo sled, and proceed on to Fort Yukon, a village of 600 largely Gwich’in Alaska Natives that straddles the Arctic Circle.

In the meantime, Plekkenpol and others who observe the boys’s whereabouts by way of two GPS gadgets hooked up to their sleds contacted folks in Fort Yukon, searching for help.

“We have been humbled by the Fort Yukon group and their willingness to assist,” Plekkenpol reported on Fb. “They went out and met our guys on the path — touring about 50 miles earlier than their paths crossed — they usually have been capable of escort the fellows into city, providing not solely a path, however steering towards the simplest route into city. Deep gratitude for the assist of Joshua Cadzow and the numerous others that pitched in late on a Saturday.”

Ready for the boys once they arrived in Fort Yukon was a scorching stew of moose meat, rice and greens, due to Melanie Olivia of the native tribal authorities, amongst others.

Easter Sunday was the thirty fifth day the boys had been on the path. Challenges overcome to this point on the journey embrace an earlier snowmobile hearth that began when a stick grew to become caught beneath a machine’s hood and lodged towards its engine or exhaust. And in Outdated Crow, Yukon, at the very least two sleds wanted new clutches.

Every man tows a specifically made cargo sled behind his snowmobile loaded with further gasoline and different provides, together with instruments and spare components.

Hallstrom, Dick and Hibbert are adept at sled restore — a talent that was examined in Outdated Crow once they needed to talk by sketchy wi-fi cellphone service which clutch components they wanted delivered by airplane from Whitehorse, Yukon.

Plekkenpol mentioned Sunday evening the plan now could be to retrieve on Monday the sled broken by hearth and get it to Fort Yukon for analysis.

“(The fireplace) sounds fairly gentle, so far as snowmobile fires go,” Plekkenpol mentioned on Fb. “The blokes suppose it could have been a gasoline line leak that sparked the hearth on restart.”

With some luck, the machine can be repaired upfront of a attainable departure for Fairbanks on Tuesday.

Hallstrom is a retired electrician from Park Rapids, Minn. Hibbert is a farmer and rancher from Soda Springs, Idaho. And Dick is a retired beer distributor from Grand Rapids, Minn. Every is an skilled long-distance snowmobile traveler and racer.

The lads have lined greater than 5,000 miles on their Arctic Cat Norseman 8000X sleds since leaving Grand Rapids. A lot of the gap has concerned breaking trails and bushwhacking.