When I looked at my rear-view mirror and saw the skis of my sled hovering in the air above the back of my car, I knew something was wrong.
It was the end of the day, after a fun session of late-season riding with a couple of acquaintances at Paradise Basin, near Panorama, B.C. We’d navigated around open patches on the trail and hopped from one snow patch to the next, piecing our way up into the plentiful snow that was still left in the alpine. We retraced our tracks down to the parking lot and loaded my two friends' machines into the backs of their Fords and mine onto a newly acquired (but hardly new) tilt-deck trailer, which I was towing behind my Subaru Legacy.
After exchanging high-fives and making the usual plans to get together again soon, we got in our separate vehicles and began our parade down the twisty Toby Creek Road. I let the two pickups go ahead of me so I could control my speed a little more comfortably on the steep descent back to Invermere. After all, the consequences of not staying on this road include smashing into a rock bluff on one side or plunging hundreds of feet into a canyon on the other.
Sparks begin to fly
At the bottom of the road, the grade climbs again gradually to a stop sign, where the road meets the main street heading into town. I paused here briefly, then accelerated into a right turn. Then the sparks started to fly—literally.
A loud crash, followed by a terrible grinding sound, got my attention immediately. This is when I checked my mirror to find that my sled was no longer sitting pretty.
The machine was still attached to the trailer, but the tilt deck had come loose and was dragging along the road in the ramp position. I hit the brakes and pulled over as fast as I could, but it wasn’t quickly enough. The tail end of the deck caught the edge of the road and held it there with enough force that, within the blink of an eye, the deck, axle/wheels and sled were ripped clear of the tow bar, which was still coupled to my trailer hitch. The deck/wheels/axle/sled combo rolled for an instant and then slid sideways into the ditch while I pulled over just ahead.
Assessing the damage
I got out of my car and approached the trailer, expecting to find carnage. Surprisingly, aside from the severed trailer, there was almost no damage. Once my heartbeat slowed a little, I chuckled at the situation. I managed to get all the way down the hill and the accident happened here, at the most benign point in the journey. After calling one of the other guys I had been with, we left the sled in the ditch and took the metal tow bar to his shop, where we drilled a new hole to reattach it to the deck. In the end, it wasn’t more than a 15-minute repair job, which wasn’t bad considering I had missed utter disaster by just a hair.
Looking back at the situation, I realized that the pin that keeps the deck from tilting up likely hadn’t been put back in when I loaded the sled at the bottom of the trail. Thankfully, going downhill the weight had all been set forward; it was only when I began to ascend up to the stop sign that gravity pulled it back. Not putting in that pin was a simple mistake that could have destroyed my sled—or worse.
