FIRST TRIP ON SKIS

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our first trip on skis took us to a lake about an hour north of Winnipeg for a week-end of fellowship and simple living in the Manitoba wilderness.

It was 15 below and before landing and putting the plane to rest for two days, we had to prepare our departure in creating a "runway".


We couldn't see it from the air, but there was about two feet of snow on the frozen lake which acts as an insulator and there could be slush between the snow and the ice.


So we checked the snow condition with a low flight along the "runway" and so we also could see whether there would be snow drifts present or not.



It looked pretty good and the next step were several long touch and go's, which means we packed the snow of our "runway" and now were able to see how much snow was there and whether the amount of slush would be ok to handle - which was the case, so the next approach led to a landing with a huge turn and finally coming to a stop.


The first steps was a feeling like the astronauts must have had on their Apollo Mission to the moon - untouched surface and lonely wilderness around us.


It was indescribable awesome.

I went up again to packed the runway a little bit more before we prepared the plane for hibernation which meant draining the oil out of the engine, removing the battery, putting the wing covers on and off course tying the plane to some trees.


Now to get to the cabin, we had to snow shoe 1.5 miles on a trail cut out last summer, we also had to drag all the gear (oil, battery and food) with us.

After the weekend with fellowship, snowshoe hikes, hard wood splitting work and the try of ice-fishing we went back Monday early afternoon to wake up the plane (it was still 15 below) and prepare for restart which meant preheating the engine with two propane torches which took us an hour, before we could refill the hot oil back into the engine, which now allowed a guarantied material save restart.




Thanks to the well prepared "runway" the take off was easy followed by an uneventful  flight back into civilization.