The Great Trek Begins

Snow Date: 2/16/2010

Larry Harp, Mel Kitchen, Roy Wicht, Don Gapinski (Team #2/Group #2 Driver) and I (David Little) met at the Alba Snowmobile Club at 7:30 am for a photo shoot and interview with the Kalkaska Newspaper. After the interview we departed from Alba, MI at 8:05 am on our way to Mackinaw City.

We had about 2" of fresh snow this morning when we left. Mel was riding his 2010 Polaris 600 IQ Cleanfire Touring, Roy was riding his 2009 Ski-Doo GSX Limited 1200 4-Tec, Larry was riding his 2010 Ski-Doo 600 E-Tec, and I was on the 2005 Yamaha RX-1. In addition to those we have my wifes 2000 Ski-Doo Formula Deluxe 600 as our back up sled which hopefully (knock on wood - We won't need).

We made our way to Elmira, thru the Chandler Hills, up thru Alanson, Pellston and eventually made it to Mackinac City at 10:05 AM to fuel up. We loaded all 4 sleds into Mel's 40' trailer and transported the sleds across the Mackinac Bridge. After paying the $8.75 toll for 5 axels (2 on the Truck & 3 on the trailer) we were going to unload in St. Ignace but the snow was pretty marginal in so we decided to trailer to Moran.

We unloaded and made our way up to the Soo. We went thru Trout Lake, Brimley, and made it to the Soo, gassed up all the sleds and checked in at 1:15 pm. 5 hours and 150 miles, and so far so good. Had a Group #2 meeting at 3:00 pm to discuss tomorrow's trail plans and pass out the satellite phones. Tomorrow we will be leaving the Soo and plan on retiring in Ishpeming.

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