Three snowmachiners based in the Lower 48 have completed an epic backcountry journey from Minnesota to Alaska. They’re known as the 3 Old Guys: 70-year-old Rex Hibbert of Idaho and 72-year-old Paul Dick and 65-year-old Rob Hallstrom, both from Minnesota.
Hallstrom says the three friends have a done a lot of long-distance snowmachine racing and riding over the decades and were looking for a new adventure.
“When you think of adventure, Alaska comes up, of course,” Hallstrom said. “I started looking at a map and kind of connecting some old trails and lakes and rivers and talked about how we might be able to do it.”
The guys left on March 6 for the 4,500-mile trip. Hallstrom says the first thousand miles were on trails. But that changed in Flin Flon, Manitoba, where the next leg followed a long-abandoned cat track that required bushwhacking.
“Cutting down trees and willows — we had a real hard time getting through some of those stretches,” he said.
After that Hallstrom says they rode across Lake Athabasca, down the Slave River, across Great Slave Lake, down the McKenzie River to Inuvik, then on to Fort McPherson, and through the Richardson Mountains to Old Crow.
“At Old Crow, we went down the Porcupine River,” he said. “About 330 miles of river travel where no one travels, so that was all breaking trail.”
During the five-week trip, Hallstrom says they drove over a range of surfaces.
“Broken ice, slush, rocks the size of grapefruits, deep powder snow, gravel roads,” he said.
And they got stuck a few times.
“Our record was all three snowmobiles and sleighs stuck in the slush at one time,” he said.
And they suffered a few breakdowns, including successive issues this week which forced them to end the trip a little early, along the Steese Highway.
“We didn’t actually ride into Fairbanks,” he said. “But our goal was to ride to Alaska, so we feel like that was a success.”
Hallstrom says the trip was highlighted by amazing country.
“No day was like the day before,” he said. “I mean, every turn in the river there would be something that would come up that made it fun and challenging.”
And Hallstrom said they met a lot of great people who helped them along the way.
“We would stop into a little community, and they would tell us, ‘Well, you’re going over to this building, and they got supper waiting for you. You can put your machines over here and work on your machines — this guy’s got a shop,’” Hallstrom said. “They would have everything laid our for us and do everything they could to help us. That just made the whole trip.”
A little sore and a lot thinner, Hallstrom says the 3 Old Guys are ready to head home and rest, but suspects after a few weeks they’ll start dreaming up another adventure.
Dan Bross is a reporter at KUAC in Fairbanks.
