The Iron Monkey
story and photos by I.J. Valenzuela

All adventures start with a bright idea. It’s like a spectre illuminating the motions of everyday life. Borne was the idea to rally up a crew of eager participants to explore and ride the endless backcountry the Northwest has to offer. It would be a mission that required dedication and a pure sense of adventure. Somewhere along the blurred lines of this fantasy-filled reality, the notion of hauling our snowmobiles up to the Cascades took form. Snowmobiles require a towing capacity from your vehicle and, sadly, my 1965 VW bug would not cut it. But that was not going to deter our adventure. A few phone calls later, a mid-size Ryder moving truck was secured. The 15’ craft had plenty of room for our three snowmobiles, and its bright yellow paint and the moniker, “Ryder, We’re there when you need us,” lent a harmless appearance to law enforcement officials and citizens alike. Californians have long flocked to the states north of her, and many people of those states find this a most unwelcome gift, particularly cops.
Participating in the trip were fellow Tahoe residents Clarke Hurlbut and Steve Duke. Clarke is a Washingtonian, born and bred, which proved to be fortunate for our mission. Steve Duke is a kid to watch out for: his kicker skills are clean and his mellow demeanor lends to his abilities. The drive to Washington is an easy 12-15 hours through some very beautiful parts of the West. (Beauty is relative to the amount of skateparks that dot the path north. Oregon has an array of public skateparks, most of which are right off the freeway.) But figuring out the best way to load up the sleds took awhile to get dialed. Fortunately, the moving truck came with a ramp. Sled positioning was like an applied math problem, but the vehicle had plenty of space for all our gear and snomos, and it came equipped with a sleeping loft. As the drive began, Steve took full advantage of the sleeping quarters and Clarke prepared for a 13 hour ‘power snacking’ binge.
Upon arriving in Seattle we linked-up with snow shredders B.J. Kaiser and Tim Carlson. (Their house is somewhat of a hostel for the traveling snow adventurist.) Once at their residence, another group of traveling European shredders arrived, giving the house a definite youth hostel vibe. Everyone was returning from what Clarke dubbed ‘respective mountain day.’ Essentially, all the resorts were closing even though that Easter Sunday, the mountains received upwards of a foot of new snow. Perfect. We all agreed that indeed the sun would show up for the party. Funny, because it had pouring rain the whole drive north. Luckily, the next day proved to be sunny and perfect for investigating the Snoqualimie/Baker backcountry.
Right outside of Snoqualimie Pass lies incredible backcountry with easy access. Also awaiting in the outskirts are weird militia types that have mini camps set back in the foothills. Washington is one of the last frontiers in the U.S., and is a breeding ground for backwoods militia mavericks. Rolling up to one of these camps on a snowmobile is not the best idea. B.J. thought that we pulled up to the trailhead, but upon further investigation, we realized we were at “headquarters.” We weren’t really prepared for armed confrontation, so we decided to find another trail.
Three sleds and five people can present itself as a struggle at times. But when you have to dig a freeway to safely traverse a steep hillside over a river gully, the extra help is more than worth it. We dug a long freeway as we stared into some amazing kicker country. The terrain was full of features that were perfect for building giant hits. We arrived into the heart of this bowl section as the afternoon milk light rolled in. We parked the sleds and began to hike around, which revealed a huge variety of terrain, all untracked. It was incredible being the only snowboarders out there, the only people except for a couple of random sledheads.
Snowmobiling appears to be the fastest growing snow sport. A whole culture of people participate in sleddin’, machining, riding. There are entire families and groups of good ol’ boys out there ripping around on tricked-out machines. A lot of ‘em get a “real hoot watchin’ them snowboarders hit them ramps.”
Speaking of ramps, we chose one of the many spots to build a take off. We called it the Northwest Wood Turtle kicker because it looked like a turtle with its shell being this gritty rock band to the immediate right of the kicker. If you sailed too far right and not far enough down, the turtle would lash out. Not good. We had mapped out a tiny area of some awe inspiring landscape of snow-covered jagged rocks pushing toward the sky. Clouds rolled in as we loaded. They appeared to be bringing rain.
As I said earlier, Clarke is from Washington and his parents own a cabin at Snoqualimie Pass. This is where we waited out the rain. When Clarke first mentioned the cabin, I thought of “cabin in the woods” style. However, this “cabin” has three stories, 21 beds, is stocked with the basic necessities for a nice stay at the Pass, and comes equipped with a billiards table, a foosball table, two fireplaces and a whole pass of ‘closed’ ski areas right behind it. It rained and snowed the whole next day, but as night set in, the clouds began to break. We took advantage of the rain and stocked our fridge with food and “the beer the deer drink,” hometown favorite Schmidts.
Sun is nice, especially when fresh snow accompanies it. It took us a while to get our shit together that day, but we got to the N.W.T. kicker while the sun was still shining. The kicker was tricky; jumping into the wind and staying on target was very difficult, as Steve proved. On the christening of the jump, he flew off as a huge gust swept up the landing. He smacked his face into his knee upon landing, which left him unable to see out of his right eye for about an hour, which was scary. Tim and Clarke took this as a caution sign and warmed up kind of easy. But the jump proved to be a launch pad and the session continued ‘til the light was too flat.
Clarke’s sled acquired a lot of nicknames throughout the week, mine for it was The Iron Donkey, but Clarke had a more positive perception and called it The Iron Billy Goat, which is laughable at best. But before we go any further, if you plan on doing some snowmobile adventuring of your own, it’s important to make sure that the sleds can get to and out of wherever you intend to venture. This is a lesson we came to learn during the course of the day. The sled Steve was riding had good power and relatively good traction, but The Iron Donkey, on the other hand, came up a little short. The main problem was that the ski on the right didn’t track at all, which equates to no steering on that side. Sidehilling is difficult on any sled because it requires that you balance all your weight on the uphill side of the sled and simultaneously give it gas and pull uphill, which is nearly impossible without steering. Steve had to pull the right ski and I needed to push the sled from the bottom as Clarke gave it gas and pulled uphill. This was only the beginning. Steve had yet to make the traverse, and after seeing Clarke’s predicament, was determined to cross and do it fast. That was the idea anyhow. What actually happened was that the sled and Steve hit a series of mini whoops. Steve got bucked and the sled acquired a ghost pilot. What made bailing this traverse so consequential was the fact that about 100 feet down the hill was a river gully; losing anything in there would not be good. Steve’s sled shot through the air hitting some baby trees, which actually shot it higher. The machine took flight and landed on its skis and continued to be piloted by some unseen force toward a cropping of baby trees further down the slope. As the sled hit the baby trees it slowed down a little bit, but not enough to stop it, and the sled headed toward the river gully. I closed my eyes fearing the worst was about to occur. Or so I thought.
The machine was on target to hit some really big trees, but at the last minute the ghost pilot took a different course. Somehow, the sled guided itself in between two trees and crashed into a snowbank. This stopped the sled, and amazingly enough it was still running by the time I reached it. It stopped about 20 feet from the precipice that would have swallowed it whole. Incredibly, the sled was completely unharmed! We pulled the sled out of the snow and Steve rode it out of there. We, too, were out of there, Or so we thought.
We made the traverse out and were at the last climb for the easy path leading back to homebase. Steve and I made the climb with ease, but The Iron Donkey was choking. Clarke tried maneuvering his craft up a little pitch, but the sled had no heart. As the sun set behind the mountains, visibility dwindled and fatigue set in. We planned on sending Clarke around the nose to where the slope was less steep and perhaps easier for The Iron Donkey to climb. Nope. The Donkey, Clarke, Steve and I had a moment of tension, but then Steve took one ski and I took the other, and we pulled the damn thing uphill while Clarke gave it gas. Pulling a sled up 500 feet of hillside sucks, but with a lot of help from his friends, Clarke and The Iron Donkey made it out, and we reached the Ryder well after dark.
Clarke didn’t take too kindly to the insults I cast toward his sled, but in all honesty, it is a piece of shit. Dirty Harry best said it: “A mans gotta know his limitations.” The day’s events proved that The Iron Donkey was not backcountry worthy. But there is a great sense of magnificent release you feel when everyone is back safely from the day’s excursions. This feeling is compounded when you add a few beers and a warm fire. While Clarke’s sled may be less than good, the comfort provided by his parent’s crib made up for it.
With the next day came clouds, but no precipitation. This was ideal for checking out the “closed” resort located behind us. Ski Acres is not known for its terrain, in fact it is known for its lack of it. Often the greatest rewards present themselves in the most sublime form. During the season, Ski Acres had constructed a big air kicker as a way of enticing snow shredders to their slopes. Tim had checked it out and knew where it was located on the hill. With a little scouting we found it, sitting perfectly, as if it were waiting for us to come along and build a runway.
Tim and I hustled back to the cabin to rally up Clarke, Steve and The Iron Donkey. We returned to the kicker and began building the run-in and sideslipping the landing to smooth it out. The jump was a perfect contest kicker with a 6 to 7 foot tall take off and a 35 foot deck with a super steep landing. Steve was beyond stoked and the session was in full swing. Tim, Clarke and Steve busted out smooth tricks as if they were not even trying. Everyone jumped with complete confidence, pulling out tricks like Kobe shoots hoops. It was just the four of us playing at this closed down ski area, like those movies where the world gets destroyed and only a few people are left. The whole thing was very surreal. We had a lot of fun for the exact cost of nothing but imagination and sense of adventure.
We stayed at the Pass for the whole week, and it was hard to leave the comfort of the Hurlbut haven. We decided to venture into Seattle for a night out. Seattle is a really great town, it’s clean (for a big city), and it’s populated with a lot of nice people. We made plans to rendezvous with a friend at this posh bar in downtown called the Cloud Room. It’s located on the top level of a hotel and has that cigar/jazz bar feel. Sadly, the piano player was on break and our friend wasn’t there, so we made tracks to some frat-guy bar that had $1 beers, which is almost worth dealing with a bunch of ex-frat guy, Adam Sandler wannabes trying to keep the college dream alive, drooling over the bartendress. For every problem there is a solution, and ours was to go back downtown to the ArtBar, where we stumbled upon some good Jamaican dancehall. I was transported back to Jamaica as the bass pulsated through my bones. The dance floor was filled with dark bodies rhythmically grinding to the selections played by the D.J. It was a celebration without a cause, and often that is the best kind.
Morning comes early when you go to sleep a few hours before the sun rises. We had plans to head toward Stevens Pass, our good friends up there reported a perfect place for a tow-in kicker to be built. Once in Skykomish, the town near Stevens, there is only one place you ever need to go: the house inhabited by Elan Bushel, his girlfriend Jamaica and Monty Hays. Their house is a cozy little place by river a that hosts countless guests during the winter months. Elan is the Don of Stevens Pass, Monty has ridden there for years and knows the place like his own backyard, and Jamaica is quickly fine tuning her skills in the snowboard arts. Monty had just returned from a trail-building mission with his crazy biking buddy, and was pumped to go for a little cruise. We decided it’d be good to have a few cold ones preceding the ride, plus we needed time to rally up some bikes. Within an hour there were bikes for everyone and the trek ensued. The dirt was perfect and everything was slick as snot. Monty’s biking skills almost outrank his snow skills. He was jibbin’ everything in sight, and jibbin’ on a bike is entangling should the jibber bail. At one point, he mounted this a fallen tree covered with slippery moss. It sat about 4 feet off the ground at its highest point and Monty rode the whole length of it, doing one-footed exits off. It was an impressive display of balance.
After our biking adventure, we ventured to Leavenworth, which sits on the other side of the mountain from Skykomish. As we neared the pass, we were greeted with snow dumping out of the sky. In Leavenworth we connected with another mellow ripper named Kurt Jensen, who took us into his compound and showed us gracious hospitality.
We met up with the rest of the crew at Stevens Pass. The resort had closed a week prior to our arrival, but the new snowfall covered the whole mountain. We pulled the Ryder into the parking lot as a large group of telemarkers gazed upon us, half-smiling, unsure of our intentions. As soon as the back door of the Ryder opened up, it became clear that we were the “enemy.” Smiles turned to frowns as we “environmental terrorists” pulled the sleds from the back of the truck.
“This land is my land, this land is your land.” I felt it necessary to sing the telemarkers a little ditty. Anyway, it was a beautiful sunny fresh powder type of day and a bunch of stiff-necked fools weren’t going to spoil it. We had three sleds and seven people, except as soon as we started, Steve’s sled, which had been charging the whole week, decided it didn’t want to take part in the days activities. This left us with two sleds for seven people. Oh well, at least the kicker spot was easy to get to. Or so we thought.
The Iron Donkey was running more powerful than it had been all week. It managed to shuttle the riders up to the top with no difficulty, but it would not make the last climb to where the kicker awaited. Now we had one sled and six riders, not ideal for my sled, which now had to do all the towing-in.
The kicker construction required a lot of shoveling, but the finished product was a massive tribute to all kickers ever built. The thing was enormous! Tow-in jumps can be really tricky and this one was no different. The run-in required the person towing the people to gun the sled at the jump for about 200 yards, then at the last minute, perform a quick bank turn to avoid being launched by the kicker. This proved to be very difficult at first. Monty and Clarke took turns pulling people, and the tow-in provided plenty of beat-downs throughout the course of the day. Jamaica had a gnarly whipper that left me wondering how the hell she even got up from it; the girl is tough. If you survived the tow-in, you hit the jump with at about 40 m.p.h.
We were not alone out behind Stevens. Slednecks from miles around converged on the resort. The telemarkers we encountered earlier in the day would not be happy as what seemed like hundreds of sledheads shredded the resort on their suped up machines. Most of the slednecks in Washington ride without the front covers of their sleds, which reveals the powerful engines and makes them look real macho. At one point, a whole family of camo-outfitted militia types came from outta nowhere and checked us out. All the slednecks that saw us stopped to ask us what we were doing. We told them we were building a launch ramp for our snowboards, and they just laughed and called us crazy. But they had to check us out. A whole group of them sat and cheered on the riders saying, “Somebody do a flip. If you do a flip, I’ll break out my video camera.” Steve busted out his signature underflip and the slednecks went berserk. “Shit, whoowee man, y’all is crazy man. Hey, wait, let me git my video camera ready.”
As I tried to climb out of the valley, the sled ran out of gas. No big deal I thought, I’ll use The Iron Donkey to go get some more gas. Then I realized that Clarke drove his sled into the valley, which, given The Iron Donkey’s climbing ability, was not the best place for it to be. Another long day was ending and we still had to get both sleds out of there. I radioed Clarke and informed him of the situation. He responded back informing me that some sledders were in their immediate zone and they would talk to them to see if they could help. Within minutes I heard the buzz of the approaching machines.
Three snowmobiles pulled up. The first guy took his helmet off and revealed a face that looked like the late comedian Sam Kinison. He got real close and told me that he and his buddies hid gas in the woods nearby. As I wiped the spit off my forehead he offered me a beer and told me how he and his friends wait all year for Stevens to close. Then he saw my registration sticker. “California huh? Ain’t there no sledding down there,” he inquired. “Hell yeah, there’s tons,” I told him. “Well, why you come all this way then?” he asked. “For the fun of it,” I said. “Plus, we got some real good buddies that we come and visit all the time.” The conversation turned to Washington backcountry and he told me that where we went in the Baker backcountry was like the “bunny slope.” I pointed to The Iron Donkey and he nodded in understanding. “What are you doing with that thing?” he asked. “I woulda retired her way back.” I nodded in agreement. His buddies returned with the gas and poured it in my tank free of charge. “We all gotta help each other out,” he said, with a maniacal smile.
Turned out that we didn’t have to ride Clarke’s sled out of the valley; we followed the tracks to the Nordic center and picked him up there. When we arrived at the Nordic center parking lot to retrieve Clarke, we witnessed how giant snowmobiling is. The whole parking lot was overrun by families and hardcore slednecks with bonfires burning and hamburgers acookin’. The group that helped us was there, as well as the group that videotaped us jumping. Everyone was stoked to see us, and they laughed as we opened the back of the Ryder. The parking lot was further entertained as Clarke pulled into the parking lot on The Iron Donkey: the sled has a light blue paint job accentuated with orange and yellow stripes, and Clarke was wearing a pink fuzzy headband. The macho slednecks weren’t quite sure what to think of Clarke, but they got even more of a kick when he bailed off the ramp while trying to load his sled. Needless to say, we caused quite a stir that evening. The whole scene made me proud to be a part of a weird subculture that many people will never see, and fewer will take part in.
Huge thanks go out to Tim and B.J., the Skykomish posse, the Hurlbut parents and Kurt Jensen for making the trip what it was: 100% fun.