I love bushwhacking, because you never know what you're going to find. Big trees? Rare lizards? Dildos? Now I can add three badasses jumping a bus on skis to the list.

Let me back up. I rallied adventure regular Kyle and newblood Izaak for a snowshoe to Sturgeon Falls on a perfect late-winter weekend. Along the way, we planned to stop at Silver Mountain and an old camp I found along the way a few years prior. In the parking lot at the trailhead there was a truck with a Shaggy's bumper sticker. "Whoever those guys are, they're cool," I confidently stated. Which was likely true, as their backcountry ski tracks headed off in our direction.

We followed the North Country Trail for a mile or so before coming across three igloos next to Boulder Creek, a tell-tale sign of Cool People™. Alas, there were no humans though, so we continued on. We plowed our way through open hemlock forests and tight alder thickets before coming upon the edge of the abandoned camp. Then... voices. Our new friends were near.

We burst on the scene with exuberant greetings to reassure them that we were not trouble and they were not in any. Three snowshoers vs. three backcountry skiers in a stand-off nobody was expecting warmly greeted each other next to an abandoned cabin full of Playboy magazines while a historic bus sat ready to be jumped by said skiers. The afternoon was about to get wild. We let them to their business of building the jump and hiked up Silver Mountain to kill some time. There was no way I was going to miss this epic feat of bad ideary.

We arrived back just in time. The jump had set up perfectly, a corridor had been cleared from the mountainside, and nerves were steeled. Wausau Kyle climbed the hill and launched. He shot down the hill and pumped the flats before hitting the jump at full speed. He rose up. He cleared the bus. He landed on the roof, then dropped for a landing. It. Was. Awesome. Wausau Duncan, having witnessed such greatness, cruised in for his shot and stomped the roof even harder. The crowd, as it were, was thrilled.

Wausau Kyle decided a second go would have to top the first and blasted off the jump and onto the roof with ease. He spun 'round and attempted to grind the backside of the bus on the way off with mixed success. I managed to catch a few shots as I tripped over a tree myself and he fell off the back of the bus into a laughing heap. Showmanship at its best.

With many miles yet to hike until we reached our campsite near Sturgeon River Falls, we left our three new friends and the cabin behind before Wausau Tyler could get up the gumption to take a run at the bus. I can only assume that he made it and it was similarly glorious. 

The rest of our camping trip was comparatively uneventful: I drank a Mellow Yellow I found buried in the middle of the snowmobile trail, cowboy camped 8' from the edge of a 150' high cliff, and caught the falls just as the morning sun peeked over the edge of the gorge. The usual.