Day 3 started out with Big D and John heading out to get a part for the downed sled. The night before, while attaching a new coolant line, the plastic nipple it slides onto broke off and they needed a new one. They were soon back with bad news. The shop didn't have the part so the trip was cut down to two sleds. We then decided to make 2 trips. Mike and I would bring the first group and some gear up to the alpine so they could build a jump while we turned and burned to get Jon and Big D.
The first trip started out alright and we were making good time. This shortly changed probably due to it being warm out, I had forgotten to put an additive in my coolant to make it run cooler and our much increased speed up the mountain. I started having some over heating issues about 1/3 of the way up and to make matters worse I had accidentally twisted off my coolant cap and dropped all my fluid. I had already lost a bunch out the over flow and this meant Mike had to shoot back down and get me some more coolant. Once he got back it was all gravy, we got the guys up to the alpine, scoped some areas for jumps and took a few minutes to do some powder runs on the sleds.
Mike and I cut through the trees on the way back down. This not only cut time but got us face shots half way back down the mountain! Once down, we turned around quick. Mike jumped on my sled with me leaving Big D and Jon on the 1000. It was a lot hotter (in winter terms) at the bottom and way less fresh snow on the trail, which left us having to routinely stop because of my sled over heating. As we got up higher Mike and I used our doubling skills to duck into powder and get fresh snow to the coolant system to keep my sled cool for the rest of the way. The whole turn around took about an hour and a half which wasn't bad for covering over 50km of trails to get down then back up.
Once back up, the jump was ready and it looked sick and looking good is important if it's not going to work the way you want it to. After several sled tow-ins, we just couldn't get enough speed to hit our target landing about 70 feet to the knuckle. Not so good for filming but because it was a step up with lots of pow it was fun to ride. We all started tossing flips right off the bat, then in keeping with the underlying theme of the trip the 1000 blew a relay which meant no lights. The sun started going down so we all took a couple more jumps but had to pack it in early. While packing up Mike decided it would be fun to put us under the gun so while towing up Kyle and Brent for "one last pow run" he got epically stuck, in a precarious position. Trees and a 10 foot cliff below him and an angled 6-8 foot wind lip drop directly in front of him. It took almost half and hour and four of us to dig him out to get the sled to a position safe to ride out.
On the way down, I let Brent jump on my sled and ripped down on skis. I scored sick sunset lines and pillows for most of the first 15km down before it flattened out and we relied on the sleds to tow us over the minor inclines and flat sections. By the time we got down it was dark, about 8 o'clock. In the parking lot the call was made, with the difficulties of getting all of us up the mountain on 2 sleds and no lights on one, it was time to drive back to Calgary. It was a fun road trip back, mostly eating "hot and readys" talking about the sick stuff that did go down and how and when we can get back there! The trip was cut 3 days short but it was still a good time! Hopefully we can get back soon!
In the picture above is me mid air after hitting our jump.
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