Now the reason for the wheels on the snowmobile: even though its been a cool spring, the snow line has retreated pretty far up the mountain. Many mountain road, (including this one) are quite premitive and would be difficult to get a truck up in the dry summer months, not to mention a trailer and mud from runoff.
Mona Pole Road
So the idea of the wheels is to get the sled from the parking area across the dry stuff and reach the snow line. I literally spent months trying to figure out a plan that would actually work. What I ended up with worked brilliantly! Although I must pass a little credit to my neighbor. I was trying to reposition the center of gravity to the back of the sled and he suggested moving them up to the front. This proved to be magical. When I arrived at the base of Mt. Nebo I was still skeptical that my creation would work, or hold up to an extensive test. When I made that first run up the steep mountain road I couldn't believe how well everything was holding up. The wheels out front acted like sensors to rocks and other objects ahead and the ski would flex accordingly. Also the track seemed to hold up fine. After the day was over the lugs and everything seemed intact. I wish I had a picture or a movie to show of this in action but in all honesty I was literally griped to the sled, crossing my fingers it would make it while tearing up the rocky road. I loaded it with my skis and my partners (whose name is also Matt) on this nifty snowmobile rack invented by a fellow in Orem (this latter proves a life saver to myself).
So the idea of the wheels is to get the sled from the parking area across the dry stuff and reach the snow line. I literally spent months trying to figure out a plan that would actually work. What I ended up with worked brilliantly! Although I must pass a little credit to my neighbor. I was trying to reposition the center of gravity to the back of the sled and he suggested moving them up to the front. This proved to be magical. When I arrived at the base of Mt. Nebo I was still skeptical that my creation would work, or hold up to an extensive test. When I made that first run up the steep mountain road I couldn't believe how well everything was holding up. The wheels out front acted like sensors to rocks and other objects ahead and the ski would flex accordingly. Also the track seemed to hold up fine. After the day was over the lugs and everything seemed intact. I wish I had a picture or a movie to show of this in action but in all honesty I was literally griped to the sled, crossing my fingers it would make it while tearing up the rocky road. I loaded it with my skis and my partners (whose name is also Matt) on this nifty snowmobile rack invented by a fellow in Orem (this latter proves a life saver to myself).
Sled comes to rest here (notice the improved and safer ski carrier)
Roll Marks in the snow, it rolled 3 times
I was shooken up but alright and amazingly nothing was broken, execpt for the winshield on the sled. It could have been much worse. Had I gone with my orginal design for ski carriers on the sled I would have been entraped and most likely broken somthing serious. But the ski rack made it so that I could get out of the way, and that my skis rolled inline with the center of gravity with the sled. So my skis wern't damaged, nor the rack or anything else. After I got myself put back together and geared up. We put our skins on our skis and began our trek up the mountain. We soon found out that we had followed the road too far and had to traverse a good portion of the mountain to help us reach our goal. With a number of delays that day, prolonging our accent the snow began to warm which posed a real problem, we were sinking into the crust and reaching a powdery base from a storm that had passed through a week eariler. With the temperatures as they were, snow begain to stick to the bottom of our skins, much in the same way as rolling snow for a snow man. Only this added 10lbs to each foot and really made the going hard. I was already having a hard time on this climb due to the fact that I've had a bout with strep and other bacteria in my throat for about 3 weeks. I was feeling much better, but I hadn't trained in 3 weeks either. I told Matt that he shouldn't wait for me and that if I was unable to summit that he at least should and I would try and watch him from below.
Roll Marks in the snow, it rolled 3 times
We traversed until we reached a main gully from the point we headed up and had lunch in an old avalanche runout zone (we commented on this as we ate). We felt confident that the snow pack was stable and safe, which is the only time to be on Nebo anyway. We continued on until we reached our first cirque.
Matt began to get ahead of me at this point and I lingerd in the back. We passed through one last bit of forest until beginging the last big climb to the summit. The snow in this forsest really stuck to the skins and made it difficult. Once out of the forest and onto sunnyer slopes the clumps fell off and the going was good, for a moment.
We reached the steepest part of our accent. It was almost to the point that skis would come off and begin booting up this slope. It wasn't a couloir, just a large open face. We began to traverse the slope. When traversing, such as we were, the hill risers are up to the maxium and on hard snow one must side kick his ski into the slope so as to get a "bite" on the snow. Otherswise the ski slips and no progress can be made. The skis I was using were/are about 5 yrs old and I lost count long ago how many trips they have made. As I was kicking and climbing I reached a point where I noticed that I could not long get a bit with my left ski. I flipped it over and saw that it was caked in snow - stuck to the skin again. I proceeded to scrap the snow off with the basket on my pole. Then I flipped the ski back again and tried to get a bite. I couldn't and at that point my attention was directed to my right ski and noticed my binding at an acute angle to my ski. At this point I lost it and began to slide down the slope. Using my poles and skis to arrest myself, I took my skis off and dug into the snow with my boots. A closer inspection confirmed my worst fear, my binding was breaking, seriously. Part of the front toe plate pulled through one of two screws securing the binding to ski. Metal fatigue I suppose. I bent it back and locked my heal in. The binding seemed to hold. The worst thing to possibly happen on a mountain (besides an avalanche), is to have your skis totally crap out on you. Skis cover distance like you wouldn't believe. If your stranded and left to post hole out (walk but sink in the snow) it would greatly multiply the time to get out. Making the possibility of making an overnight stay a serious reality. I then yelled at Matt, who at this point was half way up the slope, "My binding broke!". "How bad?" he replied. "Bad!", I yelled back. We decided that he would continue up the slope until he reached the ridge. While I attempted to ski back to the sled.
I have to say my first turn on that ski was a little unnerving but it ended up skiing ok. Once I reached the end of our gully I had to traverse what we had just did earlier. Only this time I tried to say higher to avoid more climbing. My worst fear was being cliffed out on my traverse, forcing me down only to have to climb back up. This almost happened, but was able to minimize it by hiking slightly up through oak brush (my favorite kind of brush) a short distance that allowed me to get atop the cliff. Next I feared that on the other side the cliff would continue and my hike would have been in vain. Luckily on the other side was the end of the cliff and I was able to continue my traverse on my skis to the snowmobile.
I was able to get in a little glade skiing, thinking I was directly above the sled. I reached a point that I realized that I was still shy a drainage an quickly darted into anther forest to continue traversing. After coming out of this into the next drainage I saw the sled. Yes! It hadn't slid down the slope at least. I began to straighten it out to go down at which point I noticed how on the edge of sliding down the slope it was. It startled me and for a moment I thought I was going to lose it. I was able to gain control of it again and shove the skis sideways into the hill. I got on top of it and pulled the cord. It started Yes! again. I loaded my skis, boots and backpack on the back again and coasted down the hill. Once down this hill and in the valley again I noticed two 4-wheelers. They were looking at this powder cat that had broke an axle and was stuck in a gully. I chatted with them for a moment and then played on the hill with the snow mobile for a while (no more hill climb attempts though) and then headed down. When I reached the end of the snow line there was Matt waiting for me. He beat me by about 40 min. He reached the ridge but was unable to make it to the peak. Too many driffs that would have taken all day to nagivate. When my binding broke I checked my gps. It said I was 500 vertical ft from the ridge and 900 ft from Mt. Nebo. It sucks to get so close only to have to turn around. Matt was only able to ski along the base of the couloir's we wanted to ski. Next time I suppose.
I got the wheels back on the sled and headed down, again, they worked and was able to get the sled onto the trailer. Never have I had such a good day and a bad day all in one trip. Good because my invention worked well and nobody was seriously hurt but bad just because of all the difficultly we had.
It was good to get home and take a nice long nap on the floor.
2 comments:
holy cow! intense trip! I am glad your okay!
That's my boy, really intense stuff. Glad you were able to make it home in one piece.
Post a Comment