This past weekend was fun, I got to see some old friends and make a lot of new friends. Had a little scare on the drive out where it started to leak some fluids but ended up being a power steering line that was starting to fail. I made it home and got the truck into the shop.
ChaserCon this year was different for me since I worked at the Chasers Edge booth with my friend Brandon Clark since another friend got sick and could not make it out to help out.
Brandon, pictured with his girlfriend Arilla above, is a chaser that Chris Collura and I met back on the chase on 5/22/2008 and he is the mastermind behind the new clothing line at http://www.ChasersEdge.com.
I missed a lot of the talks that I wanted to hear while helping out at the Chasers Edge booth so I was a little bummed out. While the flip side was I was able to meet and greet a lot more people then I would have have if I was just sitting around listening to talks. I practically chatted with almost 95% of crowd that was at the convention and those who I didn’t get a chance to talk to, Brandon did, so it was a pretty fun time and a huge success for the launch of his clothing line.
Speaking of fun times, Friday morning, was the best part of ChasersCon. The snowmobile trip that Tony, Chris and I always try to make up into the mountains and bring a few new people with for the fun. This year, we brought Evan (Wipe out) Bookbinder, Scott Bennett, and Scott Hammel
We were up at the crack of dawn and left the hotel just after 6am to head up into the mountains for what Tony, Chris and I knew would be a life changing day for the rest when we got up on top of the divide.
After some practice runs around the test track, our guides had to get a few of the people in our group some warmer gear to they didn’t freeze their necks and face. From then on, it was all fun with some joking around at Evan’s expense since his new nick name is Wipe Out.
I was able to get one photograph that I have been after for years. Since it has been a couple year’s from the last time we were out there, I have had this idea of one photograph that I have been wanting to redo with a wide lens and I finally got to get the shot.
Flying down the trails at 50 mph with taking photos behind me at the same time was pretty fun.
Tony and Scott Bennett taking a break at Tony’s mine. The scarf is covering up the ear to ear grin on Scotts face. The fun factor was off the charts.
Another scenic shot while working our way around the trails up to the pass.
And then the wow factor as we rode the sleds up to the top of the Continental Divide, at Georgia Pass where we were at 11,585 feet above sea level.
Below shows Tony, Scott and Evan having fun and looking off to the west on the top of the divide.
Chris Collura just amazed and talking about how he jumps out of planes to go skydiving from this height and now he is standing here again.
After we drove down off the divide, Tony redeems himself by making it past the area where he crashed last time when some idiots stopped around a blind corner to take a photo. He drove off the side of the path and down a cliff instead of driving into them and killing them.
When we got back to the area where we started at, one of the managers showed us some of the new born sled dog puppies.
Again, this year’s pre ChaserCon sledding event and almost everything with ChaserCon was perfect.