Brake

[CDahl]

You see my avatar? A novice holding the sled from rolling downhill while ski buddy laughs and takes picture. Should be enough said. We doubled up to Mount Baker Sunday (NW Washington), parked the sled at 8000 feet then hiked to the summit and skied down. I jumped on the sled and followed my buddy who was skiing all the way down, he wasn't paying attention to the canyons and I was blindly following and we ended up going down the wrong one which did have snowmobile tracks down it so we figured we could get back by following it down. It got narrow and steep, I drove down things well above my pay grade, which is at TWO trips thus far, ever. The tracks we were following made a U-turn and then up a side hill and out of there. No way could I pull off the ride up. Would either hurt myself or the machine or both. I parked it and strapped on the skis, which later proved we made the right call by not going further; we skied down a couple good size waterfalls (snow covered) and the canyon got narrower.

I trust a seasoned rider to ride it back out, I do not have the skills to do it. I'm going to toss a big donation to the local snowmobile club and they plan to go grab it Friday. If that fails we also have the helicopter option!

 

[cannondale27]

You see my avatar? A novice holding the sled from rolling downhill while ski buddy laughs and takes picture. Should be enough said. We doubled up to Mount Baker Sunday (NW Washington), parked the sled at 8000 feet then hiked to the summit and skied down. I jumped on the sled and followed my buddy who was skiing all the way down, he wasn't paying attention to the canyons and I was blindly following and we ended up going down the wrong one which did have snowmobile tracks down it so we figured we could get back by following it down. It got narrow and steep, I drove down things well above my pay grade, which is at TWO trips thus far, ever. The tracks we were following made a U-turn and then up a side hill and out of there. No way could I pull off the ride up. Would either hurt myself or the machine or both. I parked it and strapped on the skis, which later proved we made the right call by not going further; we skied down a couple good size waterfalls (snow covered) and the canyon got narrower.

I trust a seasoned rider to ride it back out, I do not have the skills to do it. I'm going to toss a big donation to the local snowmobile club and they plan to go grab it Friday. If that fails we also have the helicopter option!

Awesome! Don’t feel bad it happens to many guys. Buddy climbed one so steep with a Turbocat he did actually have to get a helicopter to bring it down. $1800 I think he said. You guys are nuts!

 

[CDahl]

Went up with local snowmobile club Friday and got the sled back out. I hiked in a couple miles and they took the trails, we met at the sled and got it oriented uphill and away we went. I managed to ride all but a waterfall where I quickly put my pride on the shelf and had one of them ride it up. Finished out the day riding with them and watching them ride walls and cliffs /drops and things I would not have envisioned feasible. Fun day indeed, learned a lot!