Anderson: Minnesota trio revs up their adventurous spirit again, firing up snowmobiles for trip to Newfoundland

They were old a couple of years back, when they rode snowmobiles from Minnesota to Alaska, a distance of 5,000 miles.

They’re older now — 67, 71, and 74 to be exact. And ready again to hop on motorized sleds, this time to bounce over hill and dale from Grand Rapids, Minn., to ... the coast of Newfoundland.

A pleasant little 4,000-mile jaunt.

What could possibly go wrong?

“Just in case we get into bad weather or break down and we have to camp on the trail, we’ll take sleeping bags with us,” said Rob Hallstrom of Park Rapids, Minn.

Hallstrom is the youngest of the three snowmobiling “Old Guys,” a moniker the trio of adventurers picked up in 2023 during their pilgrimage to Alaska.

That improbable journey required Hallstrom, Paul Dick and Rex Hibbert to pilot their sleds through deep slush and deeper snow while at night oftentimes burning wood to stay warm while sleeping in unlocked “survival” cabins in the Canadian bush.

The Alaska trip, which also began in Grand Rapids, was followed worldwide on the men’s Facebook page.

“We expect this trip to Newfoundland to be quite a bit easier than the Alaska trip,” Hallstrom said. “We plan to ride about 200 miles a day, and if we can, sleep in motels at night.”

Adventure junkies each, Hallstrom and Dick, of Grand Rapids, and Hibbert, of Soda Springs, Idaho, have recorded thousands of hours riding snowmobiles and nearly as much time “wrenching,” as Dick describes their handiwork with tools.

So they’re confident they can fix stuff if it breaks.

They’re also confident they can adapt if sketchy circumstances arise, because each has undertaken rigorous adventures previously and lived to tell about them.

A few years ago, Hallstrom rode a street-legal Yamaha 250 dirt bike from Canada to Mexico, following the Continental Divide.

“I had just retired and thought it would be fun,” he said. “I took a tent and sleeping bag.”

And Dick and Hibbert have raced in Alaska’s Iron Dog, which is billed as “the world’s longest, toughest snowmobile race,” covering more than 2,500 miles of Alaska’s backcountry.

“You meet a lot of people doing this stuff,” Dick said. “Good, goofy people.”

Before riding to Alaska, the three Old Guys made a jaunt from Minnesota to Hudson Bay, Canada. Initially following marked trails, they later bushwhacked their way across uncharted territory to Churchill, Manitoba.

Then, as now, the trip’s mechanical prep work took place in Dick’s workshop at his home on the edge of Grand Rapids. It’s there, in recent weeks, that the three men have built the custom plastic sleds they’ll pull to Newfoundland.

“We were going to take this trip a year ago, but we had to postpone due to a lack of snow,” Dick said. “Turns out, it’s a good thing we didn’t go. We hadn’t planned to pull sleds last year. This year we will. We won’t be bringing a chain saw on this trip. But it’s good to carry extra equipment, especially gas.”

Hallstrom is the group’s map guy, and the route he’s drawn to Newfoundland will keep the men away from towns, except at night.

“We hope to take off each morning and not end up in a town until that night,” he said. “With the sleds we can carry enough gas for a day. Also, it seems like every time we get near a town, that’s where the trails are the worst.”

During the Alaska trip, Hallstrom’s daughter, Kasie, who lives in the Twin Cities, regularly reported on the group’s progress on Facebook. Alerted by the online updates, residents of small Arctic villages sometimes greeted the vagabond snowmobilers as celebrities. Locals also occasionally led the men through difficult or unmapped territory.

“I remember when we rode into Circle, Alaska, we didn’t know anyone, but people were waiting for us and telling us to go to the school,” Hallstrom said. “I said, ‘What’s going on at the school?’ And someone said, ‘That’s where they have dinner waiting for you. Also, here’s the key to the town firehall. It’s heated and you can park your snowmobiles in there.’”

On the Newfoundland trip, as they did to Alaska, Hallstrom, Dick and Hibbert will ride Arctic Cat snowmobiles, a bittersweet choice because of recent news out of the company’s headquarters in Thief River Falls that the business is largely shut down and might be sold.

“We rode Arctic Cat Norseman 8000X snowmobiles to Alaska,’’ Hallstrom said. “This time we’ll ride Arctic Cat Riot 600 Catalysts. They were new models a year ago, and we actually got them last year. But we didn’t go because of a lack of snow. We’ve ridden each of them about 300 miles. So they’re ready.”

What isn’t ready — yet — are snowmobile trails leading from Grand Rapids through northern Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Most are covered with only traces of white stuff, with the men’s departure planned from Grand Rapids on Feb. 13.

“I took about a 50-mile test ride on my snowmobile [Wednesday], leaving from my home in Grand Rapids,” Dick said. “We’ve got about 6 to 8 inches of snow. We need more. If we have to, we’ll haul the sleds past Duluth and start from there.”

Hibbert had a knee replaced since the Alaska trip. Otherwise, even after bouncing on snowmobiles for eight hours a day, they say they feel pretty good.

“It’s also possible I’ve been in so much pain for so long I don’t know the difference,” Dick said.

The men expect to reach the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland in about three weeks. They’re uncertain how they’ll get their machines home.

“We don’t have that figured out yet,” Dick said. “Maybe we’ll leave them there and drive out this summer to pick them up.”

Uncertain also is how much weight each of the men might lose on the trip. En route to Alaska, Hibbert dropped 30 pounds, Hallstrom, 20, and Dick, 10.

And after Newfoundland, what’s next?

“I don’t know,” Hallstrom said. “There are a lot of places to go. Just head north.”