Yellowknife
TY 4 Stroke Master
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.
Ported Hornet
Expert
Excellent write up Allen, keep up the good work!
Happy Holidays
PH
Happy Holidays
PH
ColoMtnMan
Newbie
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
- Messages
- 2
YellowKnife, Thank You so Much for the part # on that hitch! I enjoy your write ups and photo's being new to the sport and owning a 08 Nytro.
Yellowknife
TY 4 Stroke Master
No problem.
Ride Update
Brian and I headed out today, trailered all the way to Reid Lake. Put the key in the Nytro and the infamous Error Code 43 (low voltage to fuel injection) flashed itself again. We spent a half hour pulling fuses and connectors, couldn't get it to work. Trailered back to town, right to the dealer. Put the key in and boom, fired up, no error code. I HATE ELECTRICAL ISSUES!!!!!!! So we went riding and decided on a spot for the tent to go up. And the temperature dropped like mad - and my steering is frozen again. Obviously the snow is still piling in from somewhere. What a pain!!! About to go pour lots of hot water into the engine bay to melt the ice so we can ride tomorrow and I can fill it up again. I'll watch where the water drains to see if I can figure out where snow is entering.
Ride Update
Brian and I headed out today, trailered all the way to Reid Lake. Put the key in the Nytro and the infamous Error Code 43 (low voltage to fuel injection) flashed itself again. We spent a half hour pulling fuses and connectors, couldn't get it to work. Trailered back to town, right to the dealer. Put the key in and boom, fired up, no error code. I HATE ELECTRICAL ISSUES!!!!!!! So we went riding and decided on a spot for the tent to go up. And the temperature dropped like mad - and my steering is frozen again. Obviously the snow is still piling in from somewhere. What a pain!!! About to go pour lots of hot water into the engine bay to melt the ice so we can ride tomorrow and I can fill it up again. I'll watch where the water drains to see if I can figure out where snow is entering.
Yellowknife
TY 4 Stroke Master
Ride Updates:
Sunday, Bruce and I went riding on a partially traveled loop. There was a 20 km stretch that we had to break trail. Lots of tree’s in the way, but it was good riding. –30 degrees, but you wouldn’t know it working so hard to be the first through the trail…
We stopped over at a cabin, this is about as high as the sun gets this time of year:
Trail breaking continued…figure we have an average amount of snow this year, which pales in comparison to the past couple seasons…
Stopped for lunch…
Today, Nate and I headed out to Whitebeach Point. We were the first ones to the area as far as we could tell. It was a great ride, but very, very rough. We traveled a good portion of the route over Great Slave Lake. Some drifts were 3 feet high and as solid as cement. Everything is wind-blown in the area, and Whitebeach Point is a piece of land mass that intercepts those winds and accumulates deep amounts of snow for our area. With the lake being so rough it was slow going. I can only imagine how the guys in Nunavut ride.
The lighting was flat and the conditions at the location weren’t very good. There was some deep snow, but everything was very inconsistent. Some of it was hard packed from the wind, some was soft, and some area’s barely had an inch of powder on top. It made for some interesting riding, taking the handlebars in the chest a few times when going from soft powder to a solid inland drift.
I got stuck about 20 seconds into our arrival:
Nate found a nice hill that was drifted over, it was vertical, so we made some runs…
As you can see I didn’t get far or have enough speed…
So try, try, and try again…until you hit it so fast your sled shoots straight up into the air and comes back down on top of you…HAHAHAHA!!
One broken handguard, but the laughs were worth it!!
Sunday, Bruce and I went riding on a partially traveled loop. There was a 20 km stretch that we had to break trail. Lots of tree’s in the way, but it was good riding. –30 degrees, but you wouldn’t know it working so hard to be the first through the trail…
We stopped over at a cabin, this is about as high as the sun gets this time of year:
Trail breaking continued…figure we have an average amount of snow this year, which pales in comparison to the past couple seasons…
Stopped for lunch…
Today, Nate and I headed out to Whitebeach Point. We were the first ones to the area as far as we could tell. It was a great ride, but very, very rough. We traveled a good portion of the route over Great Slave Lake. Some drifts were 3 feet high and as solid as cement. Everything is wind-blown in the area, and Whitebeach Point is a piece of land mass that intercepts those winds and accumulates deep amounts of snow for our area. With the lake being so rough it was slow going. I can only imagine how the guys in Nunavut ride.
The lighting was flat and the conditions at the location weren’t very good. There was some deep snow, but everything was very inconsistent. Some of it was hard packed from the wind, some was soft, and some area’s barely had an inch of powder on top. It made for some interesting riding, taking the handlebars in the chest a few times when going from soft powder to a solid inland drift.
I got stuck about 20 seconds into our arrival:
Nate found a nice hill that was drifted over, it was vertical, so we made some runs…
As you can see I didn’t get far or have enough speed…
So try, try, and try again…until you hit it so fast your sled shoots straight up into the air and comes back down on top of you…HAHAHAHA!!
One broken handguard, but the laughs were worth it!!
Ike
Expert
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2005
- Messages
- 400
- Age
- 48
- Location
- Sodankylä, Finnish Lapland
- Country
- Other
- Snowmobile
- Vmax-4 MountainMax 800
I´ve spent "few" hours on those BV´s (BandVagens) when I was in the army. It goes on water, snow, peatlandsetc. Just about everywhere. Those are just missing the .50 CAL machinegun from the roof what I used to operate.. LOL 
Great report once again!
Ike
Great report once again!
Ike
Tork
TY 4 Stroke God
Hundreds of us are huge fans of Yellowknife (Allen) the gifted writer.
And he has a lot of extremely interesting things to talk about because of his location in Canada's Northwest Territories
This thread is what is possibly the best thread on TY
Thought it would be interesting to give some background on Yellowknife the location.
250 miles from the Arctic Circle, Yellowknife had its first boom in the 1940 when deposits of gold and radium were discovered, about 1000 population then and more than 16,ooo now. 190 miles north there are a number of diamond mines, and now this area is the third largest producer of diamonds in the world.
Here is a map of the Ice Road Trucking Route and Yellowknife
There are some great videos courtesy of the History Channel, THESE WILL GIVE YOU A PEEK AT ALLENS WORLD. I believe he gets to snowmobile from November thru April. Short 15 second commercials before each video.
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?cont ... i_id=54692
And he has a lot of extremely interesting things to talk about because of his location in Canada's Northwest Territories
This thread is what is possibly the best thread on TY
Thought it would be interesting to give some background on Yellowknife the location.
250 miles from the Arctic Circle, Yellowknife had its first boom in the 1940 when deposits of gold and radium were discovered, about 1000 population then and more than 16,ooo now. 190 miles north there are a number of diamond mines, and now this area is the third largest producer of diamonds in the world.
Here is a map of the Ice Road Trucking Route and Yellowknife
There are some great videos courtesy of the History Channel, THESE WILL GIVE YOU A PEEK AT ALLENS WORLD. I believe he gets to snowmobile from November thru April. Short 15 second commercials before each video.
http://www.history.com/minisite.do?cont ... i_id=54692
Yellowknife
TY 4 Stroke Master
Ride Updates:
Let’s see…last weekend was by far some of the craziest riding I have done in Yellowknife, thanks to Nate and Brian.
First off, these two are nuts, which is awesome because they’re style of riding is challenging and they introduced me to hills and rock I never dreamed of climbing around Yellowknife. LOL
Basically with all our lakes, most people just ride through them, and then there’s people like me who ride the shorelines in the search for blown in powder snow, to do some boondocking, etc.
Well, Brian and Nate prefer to get off the lake and climb the shoreline, any shoreline. Rock? No problem. Cliffs up top? No problem. Hills with trees? No problem. They giver gas and go.
And do you think I could just stand there and watch? Of coarse not…I follow…it’s like a challenge, especially if one of them gets stuck…gotta try to make it or at least get further up right???
I don’t have any pictures of myself, but I’ve got plenty of their adventures, injuries and mishaps.
We started out Saturday towards the North Arm of Great Slave Lake. We had just had a few days of snow…awesome amounts for the area…suddenly it was a new ball game out there and the winds seemed to blow perfectly to be able to do this…
The drift was literally up to my neck in depth. We got stuck a lot, and I couldn’t believe how deep the snow was. I’ve never seen it this deep here. I thought last year was amazing with some of the video/pics you may have seen on last year’s thread…this weekend put those to shame…
The cat tails do a good job storing the snow through the winds causing the huge buildup…
Of coarse, all that snow is on ice…and with that kinda weight comes water and overflow/slush…so why not RUN IT!
Brian on the water…
Nate on the water…
What about me guys???
So the pond had nothing left of it, we spent hours on it, so it was time to hit the shorelines/hills…
Brian on the gas…
Nate with more of the same…
And some of the snow you could get air off….and some you ran through like it was a wall…
Sometimes the wall ate your sled…
Or not…
What a great day of riding. We were exhausted, so we decided to get up 8 hours later and trailer one hour to head for more unchartered territory. It turned out the trail to the East Arm through Blachford had been broken the day before…all that meant was we had easier access to the fire roads and this…
Along these abandoned mine roads there would be snow covered rock piles…and sometimes the climbs wouldn’t go so well…lol…
Can anyone pick out what’s wrong with this picture????
Close UP:
No big deal, just missing a ski boot…the ride continued…along with the climbs…
Hey, what’s going on here???
Is that a sled that dropped off a ledge???
Why yes, yes it is!
No worries. Tree’s are meant to be moved. LOL
The day I find time to get to the video footage, it’s gonna be good.
Definitely the best riding of 2008 is on the way!
Cheers,
YK
Let’s see…last weekend was by far some of the craziest riding I have done in Yellowknife, thanks to Nate and Brian.
First off, these two are nuts, which is awesome because they’re style of riding is challenging and they introduced me to hills and rock I never dreamed of climbing around Yellowknife. LOL
Basically with all our lakes, most people just ride through them, and then there’s people like me who ride the shorelines in the search for blown in powder snow, to do some boondocking, etc.
Well, Brian and Nate prefer to get off the lake and climb the shoreline, any shoreline. Rock? No problem. Cliffs up top? No problem. Hills with trees? No problem. They giver gas and go.
And do you think I could just stand there and watch? Of coarse not…I follow…it’s like a challenge, especially if one of them gets stuck…gotta try to make it or at least get further up right???
I don’t have any pictures of myself, but I’ve got plenty of their adventures, injuries and mishaps.
We started out Saturday towards the North Arm of Great Slave Lake. We had just had a few days of snow…awesome amounts for the area…suddenly it was a new ball game out there and the winds seemed to blow perfectly to be able to do this…
The drift was literally up to my neck in depth. We got stuck a lot, and I couldn’t believe how deep the snow was. I’ve never seen it this deep here. I thought last year was amazing with some of the video/pics you may have seen on last year’s thread…this weekend put those to shame…
The cat tails do a good job storing the snow through the winds causing the huge buildup…
Of coarse, all that snow is on ice…and with that kinda weight comes water and overflow/slush…so why not RUN IT!
Brian on the water…
Nate on the water…
What about me guys???
So the pond had nothing left of it, we spent hours on it, so it was time to hit the shorelines/hills…
Brian on the gas…
Nate with more of the same…
And some of the snow you could get air off….and some you ran through like it was a wall…
Sometimes the wall ate your sled…
Or not…
What a great day of riding. We were exhausted, so we decided to get up 8 hours later and trailer one hour to head for more unchartered territory. It turned out the trail to the East Arm through Blachford had been broken the day before…all that meant was we had easier access to the fire roads and this…
Along these abandoned mine roads there would be snow covered rock piles…and sometimes the climbs wouldn’t go so well…lol…
Can anyone pick out what’s wrong with this picture????
Close UP:
No big deal, just missing a ski boot…the ride continued…along with the climbs…
Hey, what’s going on here???
Is that a sled that dropped off a ledge???
Why yes, yes it is!
No worries. Tree’s are meant to be moved. LOL
The day I find time to get to the video footage, it’s gonna be good.
Definitely the best riding of 2008 is on the way!
Cheers,
YK
Yellowknife
TY 4 Stroke Master
Speaking of video...here is this season's November Sleding Summary
WARNING: Viewer discretion is advised. There's a little bit of death in this one...hopefully nobody gets offended...I hunt and fish, and don't waste any of it so no worries there...please don't watch if you don't enjoy seeing dead things. If the reaction is negative rather than funny, i'll keep future dead things out of the video's...but i'm sure some of you would love to see us get some caribou later on or a moose.
Here it is: http://media.putfile.com/November-2007-Sleding-Summary
WARNING: Viewer discretion is advised. There's a little bit of death in this one...hopefully nobody gets offended...I hunt and fish, and don't waste any of it so no worries there...please don't watch if you don't enjoy seeing dead things. If the reaction is negative rather than funny, i'll keep future dead things out of the video's...but i'm sure some of you would love to see us get some caribou later on or a moose.
Here it is: http://media.putfile.com/November-2007-Sleding-Summary
gormleyflyer2002
TY 4 Stroke Junkie
thats some serious snowmachining
Unluckydiablo
Expert
You. are. the. man. 
Yellowknife
TY 4 Stroke Master
Glad you guys continue to enjoy this stuff!!
Ride Update:
Today myself and a few friends loaded up and got ready to set up the wall tent!
We started loading the boggans (2 of them) at 9:30am, and we left the house at 10:30am…
We took it easy so fragile things like the TV and the fire bricks wouldn’t break! I think we got there just before noon…
Some of you know where this tent is – please keep the location name out of the thread so that nobody rips me off…J
The task started by shoveling a nice spot out for the tent – Ray, myself and Brian has scouted out the lake a couple of weeks back, so we knew where we had to go to get started…
Yes, they’re pictures of me standing around lol
After shoveling and laying the tent on the ground, the first poles went up, using the back tree as a brace…
6 tree’s later, skinned of branches…
Of coarse we had a fire going for the little guy…
It was a family day of wall tenting…
Greg getting the all important firewood…
Greg trying to set himself on fire…
Construction continued…
Steve and Greg…and me all serious working away lol
Nice work guys…
We’ve got more work to do, plan to get it done tomorrow afternoon if anyone wants to come out for the ride, the grunt work is over lol
Cheers,
YK
Ride Update:
Today myself and a few friends loaded up and got ready to set up the wall tent!
We started loading the boggans (2 of them) at 9:30am, and we left the house at 10:30am…
We took it easy so fragile things like the TV and the fire bricks wouldn’t break! I think we got there just before noon…
Some of you know where this tent is – please keep the location name out of the thread so that nobody rips me off…J
The task started by shoveling a nice spot out for the tent – Ray, myself and Brian has scouted out the lake a couple of weeks back, so we knew where we had to go to get started…
Yes, they’re pictures of me standing around lol
After shoveling and laying the tent on the ground, the first poles went up, using the back tree as a brace…
6 tree’s later, skinned of branches…
Of coarse we had a fire going for the little guy…
It was a family day of wall tenting…
Greg getting the all important firewood…
Greg trying to set himself on fire…
Construction continued…
Steve and Greg…and me all serious working away lol
Nice work guys…
We’ve got more work to do, plan to get it done tomorrow afternoon if anyone wants to come out for the ride, the grunt work is over lol
Cheers,
YK
Irondoghalf
Veteran
That's it. I'm moving to Yellowknife. You guys have too much fun for me not to be there.
I especially like the video of hunting spruce hens without firearms! Mmmm, grouse and ling cod...surf and turf.
Kick butt stuff.
I especially like the video of hunting spruce hens without firearms! Mmmm, grouse and ling cod...surf and turf.
Kick butt stuff.
Ported Hornet
Expert
Sweet, man I love this thread. All time fav!
Thanks,
Allen
Thanks,
Allen
OST
Expert
Wicked thread!
Just watched the last video. Good stuff!
Yellowknife, you're gonna have to get a full sized truck. Bigger front area to hit more of them birds on the road.
Just watched the last video. Good stuff!
Yellowknife, you're gonna have to get a full sized truck. Bigger front area to hit more of them birds on the road.
