Journey from hell
(Lou, Yukon) Driving a snowmachine, it’s hard to know what’s happening to the rider following you. Two-stroke engines whine at ear-splitting pitch and your head’s muffled in fur, ear defenders, goggles, hood. You wrench your neck round, keeping your thumb on the throttle, and snatch a glimpse of their headlight to be sure they’re still there. Often you only see the back of your hood. So it’s a sign of how bad things got that I could hear Neil screaming Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! from 20 yards behind me. Yesterday goes down as one of our worst journeys. Another one. For the past week we’d been riding an emotional rollercoaster on our broken-down snowmachine. We must have involved everyone in a 100 mile radius in the saga. Homer helping with diagnostics from between Neil's legs Both our Alaskan friend and a pal in town had the spare part we needed. They got those parts to the Rangers who were headed to us, breaking trail for the Yukon Quest dogsled race. Preparing for the...