Day 5 - Monday, January 29th, 2001
 

Map of our route today!

Journey in a Nutshell
Today our group shrunk from 7 riders down to 4, Mike, Bryon and Julie had to get back to Michigan.... something about jobs, Bryon's excuse was that if he only 3 days he would not have to take final exams. The rest of us got on the trail by 7:50 A.M. we headed west from Hearst, Ontario, toward Longlac, Ontario. Today was extremely tough due to the fact that there was a 70 mile stretch that was unmarked and ungroomed. With the help of GPS, Maps and Roberts quick eye seeing what looked like an old drifted over snowmobile tracks, we made it through with only a few dead ends and backtracks. The biggest problem was "FUEL" we waited at the Pagwa River for Adam to catch up with us and bring us fuel. We waited for about an hour snacking and attracting Whiskey Jack's (see story below). We made a wrong turn as we got closer to Longlac and ended up going about 20 miles further then planned. This resulted in us running extremely low on "FUEL" again. We could not get hold of Adam, due to cellular phone coverage not allowing roaming. We ended up calling (with our satellite phone) an old acquaintance of George's from Longlac named Carl Davies, he called around and found Adam sitting at a gas station in town, Carl even jumped in his truck and brought us another 6 gallons to make sure we had enough. This caused us about an hour delay, we did not roll into our motel in Geraldton until 7:00 P.M.. We are heading to Gravel River in the morning. Also thanks for your emails replying to "the Question of the day" from yesterday, the best answer was provided by Joann Putnam "French Fries with goop on them"

Image Trek (click on pictures to enlarge)
As we waited for Fuel, the Whiskey Jacks fluttered around us landing on sleds and snow banks. We think they wanted FOOD!
 

A rare moment .....George at rest!
 
 

The question of the day is " Is, Clifford  stuck ???" Clifford the big red dog broke trail today to help all the little snowmobiles make it through the woods and safely back to civilization.
 

If we didn't know any better we would think this was a forest fire, it actually was the sunset... very red and orange. We also saw rainbows in the clouds (no rain or snow), very beautiful, no one had ever seen that before.