January 26th. 

Mark had been waiting for his new, customized access tool for four months- a turbo charged Yamaha Nytro with all sorts of goodies on it.  He has since named her LuLu.  All his hopes and dreams of accessing big powder spine lines were vested in this fine machine. It was to take us up to our dreams, but alas, on its maiden voyage LuLu almost took herself to the junkyard. With the temperature hovering around -5 farhenheit, we went for a test ride on a hard Klehini river. Midway through this joyous excursion, the throttle stuck and LuLu bolted from Mark like a wild, young lover. That activated her TORS, a computerized self-defense mechanism that is spurned on by a kink somewhere in her throttle cable. TORS instructs the sled's computer to not let the RPM's climb- rendering her very hard to drive- something like an obdurate animal reluctantly being led to pasture. 

The video chronicles the scene, and yes there will be skiing soon.