S
sw Pub
Well-known member
Knowing full well how treacherous the new deep snow has been in Island Park, a group of five ventured up into Jefferson Thursday to see exactly how much new snow there was. In order to keep this story as brief as possible, I’ll merely say it wasn’t a matter of if you got stuck, but rather how many times. But I’m going to skip through all the minor mishaps when as many as all five sleds were buried (let’s just say that every sled was rolled out of a hole more than a half dozen times each), I’m just going to focus on one time.
It was near the end of the day. We were all pretty much worn out. There was more than a foot of new snow on a wet crust that once you broke through it would wedge your sled into a trench. We were just starting our descent off the eastern access to Jefferson when I dropped the group into a drainage that probably was a little more than we could handle at that point of the ride. (But hey, the snow was great in the trees.)
Anyway, after fighting with a creek crossing for a while, I blasted through it to try to climb out on the other side. (That is where I lost contract with my group … I’ll get back to that later.) After winding my way another 200-300 yards through the trees and up a sidehill, I found myself in a spot where the trees took my line … my only hope was to make a sharp turn around a big one and hope for an opening.
Well, there was sort of an opening … if you don’t count the five trees (all sized for good Christmas trees) that were between me and daylight. Since I couldn’t stop without losing my momentum (I was still climbing uphill) I grabbed the throttle, and did my best to launch my sled through the group of five trees, throwing my sled out from under my to eliminate my weight. I beat the first four … sort of. As my sled buried into the snow, I landed next to the sled like a lawn dart, sticking five feet down into the snow. (Notice how there’s always a lot of air under the pine trees.)
Now here’s the situation. I’m buried up to my chin. I can’t move my feet without sinking further down in the snow. I’m right next to the right side of my sled (the uphill side). It’s still idling like it’s trying to catch its breath. The bottom of the track is just above my knees. And there’s nobody around. What do I do?
My first instinct is to call search and rescue. However … my cell phone is in my pocket and like I said before, I’m just a lawn dart stuck in the snow where I can’t even begin to get to it. Then my next thought was “what would Christopher do?” But then I ruled out the possibility of leaving my sled and walking out … mostly because of that lawn dart situation I was still experiencing.
So it was time to do the only thing I could. I started pushing the snow away from my upper body until I had enough room to pull my backpack up over my head so I could get to my shovel. The first thing I did was to use it to reach the kill switch of my sled so I could hear if help was on its way. Then I began digging down until I had enough snow away from me that I could lay the shovel handle on my running boards and push myself up, each time kicking my toes into the snow and trying to open some room for my legs. Once I got to the point I could put my knee on the bottom edge of my track, I lifted myself out of my hole. This process took probably 5-10 minutes … although I could swear I was entombed for hours.
Once out, I looked the situation over again. It looked about as bad as when I was looking at it from my hole. And I could hear no sound of my group. So it was time to start sawing and shoveling. I knew that I had better depend on my own ability to get out of this mess because I really wasn’t sure if my friends liked me that much. Since my sled was still facing uphill, and there wasn’t room to roll it because of the bigger trees on both sides of my gap, I had to dig the front down enough to give myself a fighting chance of going forward.
Again, after 45 minutes of digging and stomping, I was to the point where I thought I could crawl the sled out of its hole. But I also knew the last thing I could afford to do was to spin my track down. So I edged the throttle until the track would start to lose grip. Then I would put the sled in reverse and edge the sled backward. It was one inch at a time. Each time I would rock my sled to make sure the track was set good and wasn’t bound on its sides.
The unintended benefit, however, is that the reverse buzzer on a Ski-Doo is about as loud as a front-end loader. It carried through the trees to where my group was located … stuck in the creek about 200 yards downhill. However, one of them did manage to get out and follow my tracks to where he assumed I was stuck. About the time he reached me, I had gone back and forth enough times (gaining an inch or two each time) to have about a three foot launch area where I could get out of my hole.
Well, I was able to punch out of the hole and in so doing, picked a line that literally ended up on the Sawtelle road about another 100 yards away. And since it was late and we were all tired, it was time to collect the group and utilize the road for about a mile or so until we were in familiar country where we could drop off and pick up our tracks from earlier that day. (It did take another hour to collect the group … but that’s another story for another day.
So I guess the moral of the story is this. It would be better to have the bears pick my bones clean than to take the abuse of this forum for leaving my sled or calling for help.
P.S. Sorry about the length.
It was near the end of the day. We were all pretty much worn out. There was more than a foot of new snow on a wet crust that once you broke through it would wedge your sled into a trench. We were just starting our descent off the eastern access to Jefferson when I dropped the group into a drainage that probably was a little more than we could handle at that point of the ride. (But hey, the snow was great in the trees.)
Anyway, after fighting with a creek crossing for a while, I blasted through it to try to climb out on the other side. (That is where I lost contract with my group … I’ll get back to that later.) After winding my way another 200-300 yards through the trees and up a sidehill, I found myself in a spot where the trees took my line … my only hope was to make a sharp turn around a big one and hope for an opening.
Well, there was sort of an opening … if you don’t count the five trees (all sized for good Christmas trees) that were between me and daylight. Since I couldn’t stop without losing my momentum (I was still climbing uphill) I grabbed the throttle, and did my best to launch my sled through the group of five trees, throwing my sled out from under my to eliminate my weight. I beat the first four … sort of. As my sled buried into the snow, I landed next to the sled like a lawn dart, sticking five feet down into the snow. (Notice how there’s always a lot of air under the pine trees.)
Now here’s the situation. I’m buried up to my chin. I can’t move my feet without sinking further down in the snow. I’m right next to the right side of my sled (the uphill side). It’s still idling like it’s trying to catch its breath. The bottom of the track is just above my knees. And there’s nobody around. What do I do?
My first instinct is to call search and rescue. However … my cell phone is in my pocket and like I said before, I’m just a lawn dart stuck in the snow where I can’t even begin to get to it. Then my next thought was “what would Christopher do?” But then I ruled out the possibility of leaving my sled and walking out … mostly because of that lawn dart situation I was still experiencing.
So it was time to do the only thing I could. I started pushing the snow away from my upper body until I had enough room to pull my backpack up over my head so I could get to my shovel. The first thing I did was to use it to reach the kill switch of my sled so I could hear if help was on its way. Then I began digging down until I had enough snow away from me that I could lay the shovel handle on my running boards and push myself up, each time kicking my toes into the snow and trying to open some room for my legs. Once I got to the point I could put my knee on the bottom edge of my track, I lifted myself out of my hole. This process took probably 5-10 minutes … although I could swear I was entombed for hours.
Once out, I looked the situation over again. It looked about as bad as when I was looking at it from my hole. And I could hear no sound of my group. So it was time to start sawing and shoveling. I knew that I had better depend on my own ability to get out of this mess because I really wasn’t sure if my friends liked me that much. Since my sled was still facing uphill, and there wasn’t room to roll it because of the bigger trees on both sides of my gap, I had to dig the front down enough to give myself a fighting chance of going forward.
Again, after 45 minutes of digging and stomping, I was to the point where I thought I could crawl the sled out of its hole. But I also knew the last thing I could afford to do was to spin my track down. So I edged the throttle until the track would start to lose grip. Then I would put the sled in reverse and edge the sled backward. It was one inch at a time. Each time I would rock my sled to make sure the track was set good and wasn’t bound on its sides.
The unintended benefit, however, is that the reverse buzzer on a Ski-Doo is about as loud as a front-end loader. It carried through the trees to where my group was located … stuck in the creek about 200 yards downhill. However, one of them did manage to get out and follow my tracks to where he assumed I was stuck. About the time he reached me, I had gone back and forth enough times (gaining an inch or two each time) to have about a three foot launch area where I could get out of my hole.
Well, I was able to punch out of the hole and in so doing, picked a line that literally ended up on the Sawtelle road about another 100 yards away. And since it was late and we were all tired, it was time to collect the group and utilize the road for about a mile or so until we were in familiar country where we could drop off and pick up our tracks from earlier that day. (It did take another hour to collect the group … but that’s another story for another day.
So I guess the moral of the story is this. It would be better to have the bears pick my bones clean than to take the abuse of this forum for leaving my sled or calling for help.
P.S. Sorry about the length.
SO freakin' true! 
