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?