Some Photos from our March 2001 trip

We stayed north of pinedale at The Place. I see on the web that it is closed, the owners were retiring and were trying to sell it. Guess things didn't work out.

We rode mostly in the Continental tDivide trail area between The Place and Togwetee pass. Staying more to the southern half of this area.

The snow level was much lower than normal for this area but it was still some of the best riding I have ever experienced. The off trail areas, know as the playgrounds, were absolutely awsome. The pictures just can't do it justice so I am trying to describe the areas some so you can better Idea of the expansiveness of the area. I hope you enjoy this short tour.

Yes, they really are that stuck. This is in the Playground, about 8,500 feet elevation so just walking over to help them out was a "breathtaking" experience. Actually Marc, on the white 700, got stuck first and Bill tried to go around him to break a track so we could get Marc out. Bill got too close, couldn't make her turn, and stopped so he wouldn't hit Marc. If you look close you can see Marc's hand above the handlebars. He is trying to stand on the other side of his sled. And no, that is not a 1 finger salute from Bill, it just looks that way in this photo. He is not that sort of person.

Also in the Playground. That is about a half mile of tracks you can see here. If you look careful just left and slightly below center you can see one of the other riders on the track ahead of me. The snow up here was very dry and fluffy making off track riding quite difficult. My guess was that it is 7 to 10 miles to the mountainside across the valley with most of it open to ride, if you dared try. We saw no other groups of riders out here that day, just some tracks and were glad we had some to follow as none of us was on a a mountain sled.

OK, so we SHOULD have had mountain sleds. Better description with next photo

I was second in line and the snow started to slide to my right. I got stopped where I am. The previous photo was taken while standing on my left running board. That is my sister-in-law's sled. She was headed into the gully up behind me so my brother, WJ, tried to ride hers on through. That little 440 fan was pushing a pile of snow about 4 foot deep when it finally stopped. It wouldn't have been bad but the gully is so steep we couldn't push the snow to the sides, it just kept falling back in on us. We packed it down in front and pulled her up on top and away she went. I was then able to go down the gully with no problems. Second sled through was always fun.

This was taken from the top of Austin Peak.You get up here by running a chute that varies from 5 to 10 feet wide and runs about a 15 degree slope. There was no way to get a picture of that because if you stop, you are done. When you are looking at bighorn sheep from this angle, you know you are up there. It was over 11,00 feet at this point and the sleds were all running kind of rich.

This was taken at a rest break in Yellowstone Park. My sled, Kim, Willy and Marc. It snowed quite a bit that day and the trails got pretty rough. Everyone said the snow was unbelievably low that year and that contributed to the trails getting rough. A few days after this some of the trails in Yellowstone were closed because of lack of snow.

It was cloudy that day, so the pictures could have been better, but hey, it was winter, you expect bad weather. I tried to get a picture of old faithful but white geyser steam against clouds doesn't show up at all. That picture just looks like 1 big cloud.

There is no questioning the beauty of yellowstone in winter

This is near yellostone lake. The large lumps of ice are trees and stumps with ice built up by the steam from the hot springs and geysers.

The view out the front door of our cabin. miles and miles of miles and miles. Again, people who had been here before said they neve knew there was a fence around the parking lot, it was always under snow before.

Had to try for a sunset picture on one of our few clear days. If RIV had been there I'll bet this would really be awsome.

Needless to say, I am ready to back as soon as there is snow.