Solo On Snow

Snowmobiling

He had beaten mechanical breakdowns, temperatures of 40-below, a wild snowstorm that forced him to hole up in a motel for four days and trails so rough that his average speed sometimes dropped to 15 mph. None of the above could stop him.

But when he reached the 3,500-mile mark of a planned 5,000-mile snowmobile jaunt from Maine to Minnesota and back, Bob Hansen ran into the one thing that will stop every snowmobiler - dry ground.

“I was sitting at breakfast (in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) when I heard the people at the next table talking about how awful the trails were,” said Hansen, 58, an accountant. “They were talking about deep holes, dry patches, water so deep they had to stop and help each other through. I asked them what trail they were talking about, and it was the one I had to ride on.”

Hansen decided on a whim to combine a trip back to his boyhood haunts with an attempt at setting a world record for a single, unsupported snow machine ride, and his aborted trek still might get him into the Guinness Book of World Records.

“Some guys rode from Alaska to Nova Scotia to set the all-time record, but there were four of them, they were supported by trucks that followed along with them and they even got help like police escorts along roads,” Hansen said. “But there wasn’t a record for a single rider who did it by himself.”

Hansen said that while his machine is capable of speeds over 80, his average was about 10 mph lower than the 35-40 he expected.

“Some trails have been great, but a lot of trails are really torn up. There are just a lot of riders on them.”