Hi,

I had another brief survival encounter today that I thought I would share with the group.

I was out by myself snowmobiling today on a big lake near the town I live in, I had a great day and about 1/2 an hour before dark I turned the machine north and started the 20 km ride back home. About half way there my machine (Ski-doo Expedition 600 TUV) started to loose power and died. I thought I must have bumped the kill-switch so I restarted it and tried to baby it to shore, 200 meters later it quits; it would run very roughly but would not turn the track without stalling; DAMN.

I am about 8km from town and 1.5 km from the nearest shore, it is a clear night and about -10*c, dropping to -20*c. I pulled out the cell phone (I almost left it at home and went back to get it earlier!) and let some folks know where I was and that I would be late getting home. I could not think of anyone I could call on short notice with a snowmobile big enough to pull mine (it is very heavy).

So I called my Dear Wife and asked her to meet me on the nearest road in an hour.

It was black dark now and I need to strip all my expensive gear off the snowmobile for fear it would be stolen before I can get back to it tomorrow. The CR123 batteries in my Streamlight Scorpian must have been rundown as they only lasted about 5 minutes.

The light that outperformed the others was a little Pelican VB3 LED that I clipped to my pocket. I just bought it at MEC before Christmas http://mec.ca/Products/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524442619452&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302696981&bmUID=1200192669177 .

So with between 80 and 90 pounds of equipment on my back and in my hands (being a loyal ETS Forum member I had a pile of gear, and some of it I left) I started to walk toward an abandoned factory at the nearest shore. The snow on top of the ice was only about 6 inches deep so I did not need snowshoes, but the hill I had to climb at the shoreline was a lot bigger than it looked from out on the lake. The ice broke under me just as I reached shore but it was proabally just because they have lowered the lake water level, I did not stick around to check it out.

I was almost to the road when I saw my Dear Wife's van go past and after a quick phone call I was in the vehicle, she even brought me a coffee!

So I learned a couple of things:

That your equipment can malfunction even after it has just been serviced,
That a flashlight is only as good as it's batteries and that LED's are the way to go,
That it is best to snowmobile with a partner on a second sled and,
That my Dear Wife can still be counted on to rescue me, even if preparedness is not her hobby.

Mike

P.S. I have arranged to retrieve the snowmobile tomorrow with another big machine, I hope it is still there and I am curious to know what went wrong with it?

Glad you made it back ok. Hope your machine is alright too.

Your story reminded me of Olympic gold medalist, Rulon Gardner. He has some snow mobile stories as well as survival stories. I won't tell though. Those are his. And even just horsing around, he is a big overpowering dude. I got the picture of me in his head lock to prove it. To me, it was an honor. Fortunately, he is a very nice man though.

Wow, frustrating. I'm glad you made it home okay. You wife sounds like a real keeper!

Thoughts:
1. NEVER leave home without a cell phone. True, you can't rely on them but when they work they make things so much easier. Some sort of secondary/emergency power source for the phone is also a real good idea.

2. Flashlights. High powered is nice but I think long-lasting is more important in an emergency "ditch kit". Having a 14-hour night and a 45-minute light is a bad combination. Good thing you had several. That makes me think I need to take my assorted flashlight, put new batteries in each and see just how long they each run. That'd be useful information.

3. 80 lbs of gear. Wow, that's a lot to haul. Could you have left some locked to the snowmachine using something like this? It's a steal mesh bag used to lock up luggage. Perhaps you could modify a roll-up sled so that you could pull the gear behind you if you ended up walking again.

4. When you have a chance could you please give us a list of the emergency gear you had brought along?

5. Did you consider spending the night by your machine or would the DV have killed you if you had tried that?

-Blast

Thanks for the nice notes fellas.

Blast:

I do not think I was in any real danger as the ice is about 10 inches thick and I could see the lights of town and on the highway. I did not consider spending the night on the ice when the highway was so close (what does DV stand for).

Talking about communications I had some others with me that I did not need. A Globalstar Sat. phone that is really just dead weight because it has not worked properly in months and an old PLB that should work in a real emergency but I have never used it. I also had a 2 way radio that I did use, along with the cell phone (a Sanyo 7050).

I was in a rush to get going today (it was my first day snowmobiling this season) so I did not put the time into selecting my equipment that I usually do and had a lot of duplication. I hate to admit it but I had 5 survival kits with me in different locations (Altoids kit on belt, small kit in floater coat pocket, Medium kit in daypack, large kit in Rubbermaid storage bin on snowmobile rack and small kit under seat of snowmobile)! I also had 3 - 1st Aid Kits!

When I got home my son would not believe how much the stuff weighed so I loaded up again and jumped on the bathroom scales, 98 lbs, and I left about another 50 lbs on the machine. I go alone to many remote areas and the snowmobile is large so this equipment really rides for free, this is the first time I have ever tried to carry any amount of it.

I had the same pull sled idea you had as I was looking at the pile of gear I was going to try and carry, I remembered Les Stroud using one in the Temagami Air Crash Survivorman show. Tomorrow I will take a plastic sled (we call them Crazy Carpets) with me because if the track of the snowmobile is seized we will need to lash it underneath to make it slide. I remember seeing in the Cabelas catalog a thick plastic sheet with rope tie points along the edges that was made to drag out deer, it would have worked great.

I have been very deficient in posting the kits I use while enjoying the ones you folks post. I am a bit of a techno dinosaur and do not have a digital camera but my son got one for Christmas so maybe he can help me post some picture and lists.

The metal mesh locking bag would have worked well. I wish the underseat compartment of the snowmobile locked but it does not.

And yes, my wife is a keeper, we have been married for 20 years this spring.

Mike

Well I am back from the lake and my snowmobile made it through the night just fine, there were not even any other tracks around it.

I placed a plastic slider under the track, took the drive belt off and used a 1000cc 4-stroke Ski-doo to tow it off the ice. It was tough going as there was very little traction under the snow but with lots of pushing and running we made it. A couple of nice ice fisherman at the landing helped us load it into the back of my truck, and it goes back to the Ski-doo dealers shop tomorrow.

It seems like I have blown the transmission or power linkage somehow, as the engine runs and the track turns but it just won't go?

Another adventure for the notebook!

Mike

Hope it was a large double-double from Timmy's! Sounds like she is a keeper!

Thanks for the story. Great reminders of why we are all here. Glad it turned out better than the two guys that were snowmobiling North of Toronto that went into the ice. Not a good story.

Glad it turned out ok. Put extra batteries in your pack

Glad you are safe and got everything back ok. Great post, thanks.

There is another small twist to this story that I forgot to mention.

When the snowmobile first broke-down I called my wife on the cell and told her the situation but that I was going to try and contact a friend of mine to see if he could come out on the lake with his snowmobile and a sleigh, that way I would not have to carry all my gear. Unfortunately my friend was not available (he was out ice fishing) so when I called home the second time I reached my teenage son who was to relay the message to my wife that I needed rescue in one hour.

When my wife picked me up at the abandoned factory on the edge of the highway I was surprised that she was alone, I thought my son would have been with her? I had not told him to come but assumed that he would to both help me and lookout for his mother.

I arrived back home to find my son on the couch playing video games and I had a "discussion" with him about how in an emergency situation everyone pitches in to help. I explained that in an emergency there are many unknowns (e.g. stuck vehicle, go through ice, aggressive people) and that often an extra pair of hands or eyes is beneficial.

He is normally a very helpful, responsible kid so I was not too hard on him, we will see what his priorities are like in the next situation.

Mike

P.S. I took the snowmobile in to the dealer today, repairs sound expensive.

Come on over to www.candlepowerforums.com to learn about more options for your flashlight needs. There are a lot of like minded folks "over there".

Roger