Stuck On A Mountain

Being stranded on a mountain is not a fun thing to think about. It can get scary and life threatening very quickly. The problem that I have is that I can get myself into situations very easily some can be good, but most of the time it’s a bad situation. It happens all of the time while out backcountry snowmobiling but my worst one wasn’t any fun. I decided to go out for a little 30 mile trail ride by myself. Riding by yourself is not the best idea but I was bored and wanted to ride, while the others back at camp were too tired or too lazy to go.

We had just gotten a fresh foot of powder the night before and I was Itching for some throttle therapy. So I set out for Day Mountain hoping to find some nice riding. After about an hour of riding I finally made it to the base of Day Mountain. The snow was deep, and that is what I set out to find. My buddies back at camp didn’t think that there was enough to go ride off trail. I thought to myself what can hurt from hitting just one finger? So that’s what I did, then hitting one finger turned into hitting multiple, then before I knew it I was in one of the nastiest tree sections I have ever rode in my life. The problem is that when you’re having such a great time in the backcountry you lose track of the time of day and before I knew It, It was 3 pm. So I said well I better turn back and head for camp, ready to tell my buddies about the amazing tree section I found and the deep snow that’s on Day Mountain.

As I was coming back to the trail I spotted a new finger that looked like it would be sweet to ride. So what did I do? I rode it and that’s where I ran into a problem. After climbing to the top of a finger I saw a natural jump off to my left and when I hit it I knew that it was a mistake. As soon as I landed I broke through the Ice of a brook. My sled sitting in about a foot of water and me partially soaked I looked around for a way to get out of the brook. There was only one way out. I fired my sled back up and tried to hit it and get out but as soon as I hit the bank my A-Arm on my sled hit a big stump that was under the snow. I checked to see If my A-Arm was still intact, which it was then tried to decide what to do next. With dark coming soon I was starting to get cold and still half soaked started to get a little bit worried. So I called up my buddy Garret and told him what happened and that I really needed some help. I waited for probably an hour until he finally showed up. With barely any light left we got right to work trying to get my sled out of the brook. We tugged, pulled, lifted and did whatever we could to get the sled turned around in the brook. Both soaked at this point and only being able to see from the lights on our sleds, we decided to give it one last shot at getting out of the brook. We both hopped on our sleds and held them wide open and just barely made it out of the brook. Both of our phones had died from the cold and we just needed to get back to camp. We finally made it back to the trail and we started to rip back to camp.

The temperature had dropped to 5 degrees and being soaked made it one of the coldest rides of my life. Going as fast as we could through the windy trails we finally made it back to camp at around 7 pm. With all of our riding gear frozen and barely being able to move from how cold we were, it was a pleasant welcome when we walked through the door of camp. If Garret didn’t come to my rescue, I don’t know what would have happened. That is why we all need really good buddies in our life. They will come and save you no matter the circumstances.

Photo by dinlaroche on Foter.com / CC BY-NC