Grand Canyon Snowmobiling

The Enchanted Forest

The snowmobile just ahead of us lurched to a halt in the approximate middle of nowhere in a lane hedged by enchanting snow-frosted firs. "Please, Lord, don't let him be out of gas," I muttered as I glided up behind the Snowmobile-fromHell, a capricious machine that had sputtered, fumed, and threatened through a long day of exquisite beauty and uncertainty. John Goodwin, Jr., the Arizona Game and Fish Department expert on ponderosa pine forests who had led our quest for the best patch of virgin ponderosa in the state, climbed off his suddenly silent snowmobile as Debbie Noel, a state researcher, remained sitting quietly on the two-seated machine. I didn't like the look on her face.

We pulled up to John's motionless steed (I drove while photographer Christine Keith rode behind) and cut the engine, which sounds like a hysterical lawn mower on steroids.

And the Snowmobile that Wouldn't

The silence hoarded in the dark needles of the encircling conifers crashed in on our little group. It echoed in my ears. Overhead the weather front we'd been worried about all day was closing in.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Dunno," said John unperturbably. John, you must understand, could not be daunted by anything short of a woman with marriage on the mind. "It sounded funny, then it quit.

We opened the engine compartment and stared down at the frayed remains of the drive belt which transfers the whining energy of the engine to the tiny caterpillar treads that drive the snowmobile forward at schussingly exhilarating speeds.

"Ever changed a snowmobile belt?" I asked.

"Nope," John said cheerfully, setting to work replacing what was left of the old belt with a spare precisely as if he knew what he was doing. I alternated between watching him and the lowering clouds. It It occurred to me that it might have been a mistake to try so hard to convince John to take us to the best patch of old-growth ponderosa pine forest in Arizona, a pristine gathering of never-logged trees on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon at the end of a 25-mile snowmobile trek.

It was the first flicker of doubt I'd entertained. After all, so far it had been one of the best days of my life.

Snowmobiles, you must understand, are a kick. Granted I did I run off the edge of the road that one time while trying to turn around. Unfortunately Text by Peter Aleshire Photographs by Christine Keith I forgot that it's more useful in such a situation to grip the brake than to hit the engine cutoff button. Fortunately we were going very slowly when we plowed gently into the lordly ponderosa.

Granted Chris spent a considerable proportion of her time trying to keep her camera gear from ejecting as I steered us inexpertly into one nearly invisible bump after another. John later commented dryly that only the evidence of our tracks con-vinced him it was possible for a snowmo-bile carrying two people to spend so much time in the air.

Granted I tipped the whole thing over in the course of one too-sharp turn. Well, two actually. All right, three. But it was kind of exciting. I mean, Chris was laughing. But these seemed small matters, next to the enchantments of the day.

We saw no one else in the course of a long day. Whenever we stopped, we quickly found ourselves enfolded in the slow ancient thoughts of the forest.

The most magical moment came as we crossed the boundary between the Kaibab National Forest and Grand Canyon National Park. I'd already fallen in love with the vanilla-scented ponderosas during our daylong ride through some of the most lightly logged stretches of forest in the state. But passing into the park was like stepping through a portal to another world, where wood elves weave spells that sound like the sighing of the wind through the leaves.

The cathedral of pines stood poised at the brink of the Grand Canyon, a fantasy of another sort where eons lie in multicolored layers, and vanished seas have been transformed into a wonderful geometry of time.

The canyon filled me with its emptiness.

The forest soothed my Ruffled, harried spirit.

But then the clouds scudded toward us from over the horizon.

So we hastily packed, stared uneasily at the dropping gas gauges, and hurried back to-ward the uncertain blessings of civilization.

Until the fan belt broke.

Initially I wasn't too worried. I have watched clever and knowledgeable people change such belts on cars. How hard could it be? Well,

such belts on cars. How hard could it be? Well,

On cars all you have to do is loosen a couple of bolts, slide the doohickies closer together, put on the belt, slide the doohickies back into place, and bolt them down. But the snowmobile's doohickies couldn't be moved, and the spare belt was too small to loop around the doohickies.

John spent the next half hour unbolting everything that seemed even remotely related to the parts in question with no useful effect.

I wondered how cold it was likely to get in a snowdrift, without a sleeping bag, a dozen snowshoeless miles from the truck.

Finally John stood back and stared at the unruly metal beast, wearing a look of amiable bemusement that was beginning to get on my nerves.

"Why don't we push it?" he said.

"John," I said patiently, "it's uphill."

"If we push it," he explained, "then these things will turn, and we can thread on the belt."

It worked.

We lost no time shattering the brooding silence of the trees with our blessedly annoying engines and whined on back to the truck. We arrived just ahead of thestorm, running on fumes, brimming withmemories of an ancient forest.We jounced back to hot coffee and soft beds. But strangely enough, I found myself yearning to be back in the gathering storm and the spreading night, listening for the call of the owls amidst the dreams of trees on the rim of the world.

Photo Workshop: Join the friends of Arizona Highways and photographer Edward McCain on a cross-country skiing and snowmobiling adventure at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, January 13 to 18, 1994. For information and reservations, call the Friends' Travel Desk, 602)

271-5904. For additional trips, see the

Friends' column on page 45.