The old days of Snowmobiling.  When I checked out the link for goCAST net on the associations page I got a great idea for this page.  There they said something like: Do you remember when you rode out from the back yard, did 10 miles and it took all day?  Well that got me thinkin' how about a page to reflact back on those days. So.....

Do you remember when you did ten miles in one day and were very happy about it?

Do you then remember working on the sleds for several hours to get them running properly so you can go out the next day and do another 10 miles?

Do you remember starting out with one pocket full of new or cleaned plugs and coming back with your other pocket full of fouled plugs?

Do you remember when there were very few bridges and you wrestled each machine through the ditch?

Or how about having to mix your oil and gas!  Having to borrow a gas can at the station to mix the gas before you put it in?

How about those great suspensions that gave you 2" of travel.  And the seat was only 4" thick.

How odd it was to ride sitting down! You almost always kneeled.

How about totally tearing apart a carb on the trail to get the ice out of it!

In 1965, my next door neighbor built his own snowmobile from scratch.  He used a 10 horse Kohler, made the track from roller chain with cross cleats of channel and canvas webbing.  The cowl was out of aluminum sheet. The skis were bent tubing with sheet metal welded in. It work and was my introduction to snowmobiling.

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Submitted by a reader:

I remember when my dad and his friends use to make cross country trips with thier sleds in the early 70's.  He had a 1972 Polaris Mustang 20 inch track with steel cleats.  On hard packed snow it would run 50 mph.  Boy did we think it was fast!  They use to go out in the fall of the year before the snow started and hide gas under trees so they could make their trips.  They had cargo sleds they made, that they would haul gas and supplies on these trip.  Some of the trips they use to make that took 2 or 3 days we do in a day now.  They had cabins that they stayed in along the way.  They would have to dig there way into them.  They had to dig there way across slides and all kind of stuff as there were no groomed trails where they went.  Today most of the trails where they went are groomed.  I remember one time that one of the guys machine broke the front drive shaft for the track and they hung it in a tree, tore it apart, went and got the parts to fix it, and finished their trip.  They just thought all of this was in a days riding.  No hand warmers, thumb warmers, or groomed trails.  Just them, their machines, and the great outdoors.  It sounded like they had a good time doing it.  My dad is 79 now and still talks about the "Good Old Days".