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HomeMcCall/Stanley,ID Feb27th-Mar3rd

CDS Trip to McCall/Stanley 2010


 We had great time in McCall and Stanley.  We hooked up with Idaho SSA member who took us to the west side out of Donnelly for a ride. We rode a few miles up the trail, jumped up to ridgeline and boondocked the rest of the day. We found huge areas of untracked snow. One day to Warren and hot springs. One day I sat at Hinsons getting a new starter pull rope installed. Wednesday ride to Stanley was off the charts. Drive into Warm Lake was slow and icy. 78 miles of trail through meadow after meadow. We didn't get into Stanley until dark. We took every off trail opportunity, wove thru old burns and hooked back to trail at intersections. Best day. We will do that again.  Lunch at Deadwood Lodge.  Everything on menu was $8.  Snowy day on Thursday so it was a trail ride to smiley creek lodge. Pete tried to kill himself by hitting a bridge abutment. Sled went off the bridge, landing right side up and still running (it is a Cat).   Battered and bruised but Pete is okay. Sled needed more than duct tape. Next day the northern loops and the fire lookout. Great photos of the group and of the entire Stanley basin. Elwood led us down the mtn where he got a bunch of us stuck. For lunch entertainment Elwood gave us a belt changing demo. 


Ride home on sat was quieter.  Freezing fog and cold until we got out of Stanley.  Ken Bowen was nursing a bad bearing and I got a free ride behind Mark Berg as the new starter assembly crashed and we weren't able to get my sled started.    I got 78 miles on less than 2 gallons of gas.  We ended up with 14 riders.


 On sat afternoon Pete and Bruce headed to Halfway, I went back to Hinsons, others met Lee and Shirley in McCall, Elwood went to Bear Lake, and others headed home thru Boise.    


Ride report submitted by DeAnn Reeves


Another report:

14 members of the CDS club went to McCall/Stanley for a week long trip. We arrived Saturday Feb 27 in time to attend the ISSA Ride Dinner. There we met several local members of the McCall snowmobile club and were able to find out the good areas to go riding. On Sunday Feb 28 we met 3 members of the Donnelly Snowmobile Club and they took us to some awesome areas including a bankrupt ski area and play areas and bowls that went on forever. The next day we ventured out and rode to Warren for some great burgers and then headed over to Burgdorf Hot Springs to soak in the “lobster pot” that was 113 degrees. Some of our members even ventured out and made snow angels while there. On Tuesday we rode the Goose Lake and Hazard Lake area: at the end of the road Ken lead us to untouched meadows filled with powder and miles upon miles of areas to play in. The worst part was we had to leave and come back to the hotel. On Wed we got up to our first dusting of new snow and drove to Warm Lake, where we left our cars and rode 80 miles to Stanley. On the way over we stopped at Deadwood Lodge and visited with the caretakers and learned the history of the former gold town. Our first day in Stanley we tried to ride up to 4th of July Pass but we were in a blizzard and couldn’t see very far so we decided to ride over to Smiley Creek Lodge where we had a great lunch. It was fun talking to the locals and learning more about the area and a near by ghost town. On the way back to Stanley we took a side tour and road to the Red Fish Lake area. The next day we decided to ride up to the lookout that is 8800 feet elevation. While there four F15’s did a fly by, which was fun to watch. Several of us ventured down a trail that took us to a snow covered lake which we carved up.  That night we took advantage of the natural hot spring at the hotel, it had an awesome view of the Saw Tooth mountain range. Our last day we woke up to heavy freezing fog which made for a very cold ride through the valley. We had been asked by the caretakers at Deadwood to pick up some lettuce, tomatoes, and ketchup and drop it off on our way back to our cars. Apparently the groomer hadn’t made it up there in a while and supplies were running low. They rewarded us with some great stew and fresh biscuits. We all made it back to our cars around 3PM on Saturday March 6, which concluded our very long week of riding. I think we probably rode about 600 miles in the 8 days of riding. I would like to thank everyone that took on the responsibility of ride leaders, they all did a fantastic job and we all had a great time.