Today, we have a guest blogger. Greg has written up the tale of what we did on the evening of Saturday, January 12th.Somebody shook up the snow globe. The snow fell Friday and Saturday. I plowed all day on Saturday, then came home to get ready to go town. Paul plays bass in the Trail's End Band and they had a gig at the Gunflint Tavern in Grand Marais.
Our party consisted of Gramma Sharlene, Barb, Patrick (longtime friend of Paul's), Pablo and me. We climbed in to the van and drove to town, arriving around 6:30 or so. We ordered dinner, and waited for the band to start. It had been snowing heavily on the way down, so Barb suggested filling the gas tank before Buck's Hardware and gas station closed. That way, we would be driving home on a full tank. I had no idea how wise a decision this would turn out to be.
All the time the band played, we marveled at how much snow was coming down. The county pulled their plows off the road and told the drivers to get some sleep. We were hearing stories of how there was more than twelve inches on the Gunflint Trail. But people tend to exaggerate, so I figured that we would be okay.
The band finished playing, and everything was loaded up by midnight. Mark, the keyboardist, had to get up to the end of the Trail to feed his dogs. Andy, the vocalist, was driving up to stay at Mark's. Our van completed the threesome, all with two-wheel drive. Outside of the Tavern, a deputy told us how bad it was, but if we were still going, he would at least be able to break trail for us up to Pincushion, about three miles.
We hadn't gone two blocks when the deputy stopped in the middle of Highway 61 and walked back to tell Andy that he should park his truck, since he was sliding around too much. Andy said that he would be fine, and we continued on. Shortly, we lost lost him. Mark went back to see what happened. He came back to say that Andy had decided to stay in town. I followed Mark up the hill, but then stopped to speak briefly with another deputy. He told us that he didn't think we could make it. We could have turned back at that point, but Mark had kept on going, and I felt it was better if we travelled together. The deputy headed down the hill, and we prepared to go ahead. The slight incline caused trouble for us getting started again, so I backed up in my tracks to get a run. Ahead of me, I could see our bumper and license plate imprint in the snow that we had banked up. It took a couple of tries before we started to gain momentum. Twenty to twenty-five miles per hour seemed to be about the right mix of momentum and control. The little van would get tossed around, since it didn't quite fit into the ruts, so it took a fair amount of concentration to keep the thing pointed in the right direction.
By the lumber mill, the snow was around eighteen inches deep. There were some tracks to follow, but we were still pushing some snow with our bumpers.
Nine miles out of town, Mark's truck stalled. As a rule, Mark, Paul and I carry Gerber tools, but all three of us had left them at home. I found a vice grip in Mark's glovebox, and borrowed Gramma's Swiss Army knife. Between those two tools, we were able to check the air box and distributor cap. Then we traced back to a blown fuel-injection fuse. We replaced it with a fuse from his horn/hazard lights, and proceeded. That lasted for a half-mile. There was likely snowmelt causing a short somewhere, but there wasn't time to sort it out, with snow rapidly filling the tracks behind us, and the deepening the blanket in front of us. So we took the fuse from the dome light, plugged it in to the fuel injection slot, and searched for a side road to park the truck. We found one shortly, and the truck died just as Mark started to turn in. Four of us used our feet as shovels and cleared a parking spot, just large enough to push the truck into it. We transferred the keyboards, guitar and cold weather gear to our parked van. The clock said 1:30 AM. We had made it eleven miles.
John the deputy drove up to check on our progress. I asked him if he had time to break trail to Northern Light Lake. He agreed, and drove on ahead of us. He actually went a little further, to the South Brule bridge. Beyond there, we were on our own. The further up the Trail we drove, the drier the snow became, until it was powdery enough to turn itself into a down quilt, become airborne once again, and blanket our windshield. Mark and I would get out every couple of minutes to clear the windshield, the head lights and the grill. Each time, we would notice the mound of snow that had built up for several feet in front of the bumper. We weren't able to defrost much of the windshield, nor could we clear the ice and snow that kept building up on it. Every so often , we would plow into powder that would bury the front of the van, stall out the wiper motor, and I would have to look out the side window, gauging the bank to make sure we were still on the road. Our speed through this stretch was no more than ten miles per hour. But ten miles per hour is still moving, and it sure beats walking. The moose must have been laying low, because we only had to brake for two of them.
Finally, as we approached the Clearwater Road, there was a set of tracks from a four-wheel drive truck. The ruts didn't fit our van, but the differential had carved a trough down the middle, and that's all we needed to keep the snow from blanketing the front of the van. We followed these tracks for five miles. Beyond that, there were no more tracks, but the snow was not as deep. We had no more problems getting up to the end of the Trail to drop Mark off. We actually got stuck in Mark's driveway, but I was able to do a half-Jimmy Rockford (a reverse fishtail spin) that got our front end aimed downhill.
The drive back to Gunflint Lake was a piece of cake, except that there was no more excitement to keep me awake. So that became exciting in and of itself. That 72 miles took us four difficult hours, but we were finally home, with one last chore to do. I called the dispatcher to get a message to Deputy John to let him know that we had made it, and to thank him for breaking trail for us. We headed up to bed--the clock said 4:05 AM.
Throughout this whole ordeal I was feeling pretty guilty about keeping my mom, Gramma Sharlene, up until 4 AM. Barb talked to her the next day, and she said, "You know, I'm really glad that I was along for that. It was a good adventure." She's a cool mom.
I promised it to you time ago but had problems with my PC and Internet, so I can write about it only today. And there are different notices to tell you.
Castle of Lanzara is probably one of the 15 build here by Arechi I. He needed them mostly for supervision of conquered territory.
