Yellowknife
TY 4 Stroke Master
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2004
- Messages
- 1,105
- Reaction score
- 54
- Points
- 988
- Location
- Yellowknife, NT, Canada
- Website
- www.youtube.com
Yammerhead said:What's your thoughts on the track? I see the paddles are folded over quite a bit. I would think you see soft snow on the trails and hard, windblown snow in the open areas. Do you think the big paddles are good compromise for your application?
Oh yeah, I wonder if everyone understands HOW FREAKIN COLD it must have been when you took the last couple sets of pictures. I am betting -30deg C or lower?? I had only ever ridden in those temps a couple of times. I get the shivers just thinking about it.
Keep up the great commentary!
The track, well, it's flexible. If lugs don't rip off i'm happy for my application. So far so good. I'm not climbing like many with this unit, so I don't know the benefits of a stiffer track. Our open area's are powder and the trails are hard packed. I stay in the deep snow as much as possible, plus it's far more fun.
I ride at all temps, coldest ever was -45 C. Coldest this year so far was -35 C. Dressed properly, it's not impossible, and it sure is an experience!!
Hey Tork - you should add that post of yours from the lounge right into this thread!! Thanks for that!!
Ride Update and Fuel Mileage Comparisons:
Myself, Mike and Ray left Yellowknife shortly after 11am, returning roughly 9 hours later. Our destination? Discovery Mine!
Here’s a map/jpeg of our route – not sure how well it will show up. I did a screen capture of the Mapsource software I use with my GPS. If anyone else knows a better way to export this type of image into a jpeg from mapsource, let me know…here was the route:
Here’s the guys as we arrived on Bluefish Lake…
Hey wait, what was that dark spot in the background?
If you look closely above, you can see where the ice shelf dropped. Bluefish has a dam on it, and they opened it after freeze-up, resulting in roughly a 6 foot drop! The ice caved in! How dangerous is that!! It also created a pressure ridge on the lake below where the water flows into (Prosperous Lake)
As we continued on our ride, we stumbled upon a local trucking company who just happened to be plowing the road to the mine we were trying to get to!
Neat little vehicle…
And we can’t forget his little chase buddy…they hit me up for matches so that they could light their cigars…not having matches in their occupation is funny…maybe they were packed away.
As the trek continued, we ran into this lonely little critter, all by himself…
For those interested, here’s some background on the Discovery Mine area:
The Discovery Mine was a gold mine 81 kilometers northeast (approx bearing of 15 degrees) of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories that operated between 1950 and 1969. Gold was discovered here by Alfred Giauque in 1944.
A complete townsite, on Giauque Lake, was established by the company to house workers and their families. The mine produced one million troy ounces (31,000 kg) of gold from one million tons of ore. The abandoned townsite, not accessible by road, was demolished in 2005.
Discovery Mine was serviced by air and had an unpaved airstrip to fly people and supplies in and out. After the mine was abandoned, the airstrip was often used by flying instructors from Yellowknife to teach their students emergency landing procedures on abandoned airstrips. As late as the early 1980s, the airstrip was in sufficiently good shape to use, with only a few potholes even after more than ten years. An aerial view of the lake at that time showed it to be crystal clear, with an unobstructed view to the rocky bottom and a beautiful blue colour. A tailings spill in the early 1960's deposited contaminated waste into the Lake. The short-life cyanide was undetectable within a few years, but the residual mercury remained in the sediment and entered the food chain. Declining concentrations of mercury in the fish since 1975 has occurred as the contaminated wastes are naturally buried. Clean-up of the townsite and tailings concluded in 2005 with no detectable contaminants in Giauque Lake water.
Additional mineralization discovered in 1994 led to renewed development of the area. It is currently owned by Tyhee Development Corp of Vancouver, B.C. and plans have been filed to exploit the over 1 million ounces of gold identified on site.
The area had high traffic at one point, and with high traffic comes abandoned cabins…here’s the goof balls…
Another set of not-so-old tent frames…complete with antenna…not sure what’s happening in this area…
The change of terrain North of Yellowknife is beautiful. Rolling hills and a wicked experience. I powder busted the whole way taking advantage of the unplowed ice roads. What a blast!
The trip continued with the sun setting – mid-afternoon – light is short this time of year…
May I introduce to you, the Nytro Fuel Tanker…carrying 12.6 liters in the Tour Buddy, another 10 liters total in the Yamaha Fuel Caddy’s, and another 20 liters of fuel in the fuel cans in the rack. I heard a magic number that 1 LITER of gasoline weighs 1.6253 lbs. If that’s correct, I had 69 pounds of fuel on the rear end, but at my weight, the sled still handles surprisingly well with room for 5 more liters.
Of coarse, as soon as we get there, all Ray and Mike can think of is how to steal some gold from the core samples…
With the town site gone that used to house workers and their families, nothing much remains of old, but I think this is left from before…
Here’s some housing that the mine staff stay in now…
And the main area near those trailers above…
Out near the mine, another ‘house’ of sorts…HUGE!!
124 km’s (78 miles) later, we arrived at our destination, Discovery Mine on Giauque Lake:
Lunch time – nice fire Lou’s!
We headed back, without problems (for once) and the trip ended with a total of 234 km’s (146 miles) from start to finish. Thanks for the great ride guys!!
Now lets crunch some fuel numbers:
234 km’s – 146 miles traveled
Nytro MTX with high altitude clutching/gearing – trail breaking and deep snow riding for roughly 80% of the ride, burned 55 liters – 14.53 U.S. Gallons = 10 MPG fuel economy
Nytro MTX with sea level clutching/gearing – mostly hard packed trail riding with some playing in the powder, burned roughly 45 liters – 11.89 U.S. Gallons = 12 MPG fuel economy
Summit XP with sea level clutching but stock gearing – all hard packed trail riding, burned 40 liters – 10.57 U.S. Gallons = 14 MPG fuel economy. Out of the 40 liters of fuel burned, only 1 liter of oil was burned. Great ratio.
Makes sense to me – very good mileage on all counts. I’ll be sea-leveling my clutch when the clutch tools arrive.
