One of my long time hobbies is Amateur Radio and providing repeater stations around the state. Access for winter maintenace is normally by tracked vehicles. In the winter of 1984 a long walk up the last 2 miles to the site in snow motivated me to find another way; by snowmobile. I have know about them for several years and got to the sites with the help of others, either riding, or being pulled up on skis. I now wanted to be able to do this myself. So I shopped around and bought my first sled, a Yamaha 1973 292SM. It was a small single cylinder engine and in good shape with low miles. All for $350. Next I needed a way to transport it, since at the time all I had was a Toyota little car. I bought one of those cheapo $120 trailers, assembled it and was ready. After a few trips to some of the hills (occasionally getting someone to come with) I found out a new sport/hobby in just the fun of getting to the top, packing a trail and all the trimmings to go along, including rolling once and getting stuck a few times. When stuck, however, it was pretty easy to get out, since it weighed around 300 lbs.

To date I still have it the Yami, still runs just fine. I've done very little maintenance over the years. Let's see. 10 years ago I replace a couple or so boggie bearings. Rolled once so I welded a break on the handle bar. 4 years ago I lost one of the weights in the primary clutch. Welded it back on, cut a little metal off on the opposite side for balance and gave the engine a spin and got really luckily with no unusual vibration.

Year before last I took another technician on a pup sled, with equipment and me on the main sled, up an icy hill. Now this was a long run about a mile with a pretty steep slope. We got half way up and started sliding and slung him off the pup, but was ok. Coming down was the killer. I have never been in a total sideways side on ice with nowhere to go, but down. Also my other mistake was I thought I'd be "cute" and quite and do this "dead stick" opps, sorry that's a pilot's term for no power. Anyway started out fine, nice and quite, since I'm a skier from way back and like to listen just to the track. At the steep part hitting the ice that's all she wrote!!. Anyway he jumped off the pup this time, figuring I had lost my marbles this time, (LOL) and I caught an edge and flipped it and me off. Ouch! a little hurt, my ankle was a little sore, just enough getting my butt kicked I didn't have the "hump" to go after the sled so I helplessly watched it slowly go down the hill (dead) hoping it wouldn't hit anyone or a tree. I think I prayed a little, 'cause a few seconds later it drifted towards a tree well and rolled on the windshield and grinded to a halt, upside-down.

If that wasn't enough, we got down to it unsnarl everything, bending back the tongue of the pup sled back, then crawled down the rest of the 1/2 mile slope, as our feet stomping into the icy crust on top, breaking though to the softer stuff for traction. Something my sled couldn't do with the shallow track. When we got to the bottom a couple of pulls and we were on out way, less one windshield. That will be the last time I go down a icy slope with the engine off! Later thinking I could have powered out of the slide and pointed back up hill to start again. It's the only time I can remember when I froze with not knowing what to do. Will have to practice on that more. (the recovery part, I mean) A couple of weeks later I found a windshield on a news group for old sleds.

Last year (first run of the season) I took a quick run up the local hill to work on some radio gear and when I got to leave, I just barely got it started. Back home I later rode around the house and it finally died. I felt it was time to upgrade so bought a much newer one ('97) and had a blast screaming around. But that old sled, like an old friend, just sat there over this winter, nagging me to fix it.

Well one day in June I took a look at it, come to find out, it was just a wire (copper broken inside the insulation) for the coil. Fixed it, a few pulls (remember it had been sitting for 4 months, at least) and she fired right up as always. Amazing. 'Course it helps to have the fuel primer squeeze bulb. Wish the newer ones had that after working on the carb(s) so get some fuel into the bowl. One small tear in the seat was fixed with a little RTV. It's from where I was doing a lot of "standing" on the seat while side hilling. I learned in the early days the skill of breaking trail, not with brute power, but with gentle runs and turn out before trenching, and lots of patience. I'm going to try to discipline myself to apply these techniques to my new sled. The new one probably with do 100 mph if I let it. Only been up to 60. Real thrill. And it's so easy just to forget all that and scream up 'till you get stuck. I sure miss the 300 lbs sled, since all the newer ones are about 500. (dry)

Since my first sled in '84 I never wore a helmet, rather a fir hood, from Refrigerware, (NY) which was really warm, since the cold wind would stop at the opening, since I had a "positive" pressure around my head. It has a nice pull cord with a lock as to keep the drafts out. Another tip I use all one piece and layered clothing. 99% of my sledding was alone with no other sleds around, way up in the mountains, breaking in a trail of 1-3' of powder to get to my repeater sites, with speeds up to 15 mph. Maybe 20 on a good run, so there wasn't much danger crashing.

Recently, since I'm running around state parks and other busy areas I decided to start wearing one. Also to the fact the newer one is much faster. I'm using my old MC helmet. It's an open type and I did get cold while running down the trails, looking for powder or some other neat cornice or road side cliff to scream up and over on. One stupid thing I did....watching the others zip up a long steep ramp and catch some air, I did that several times, but the lower (safer, I thought) part comes out right at the park's gate!!. Of course it's painted white (of all colors). I came over the top of the cornice and saw that, fortunately I hit the snow pack just before the gate, so I was able to get slowed down almost to stop, but did ski right over the top. (The snow pack was even with the top of the gate). No damage done, but got me to thinking. Someone else just before me was not quite so lucky. Even though they didn't wreak the sled I imagine the pounding the poor skis took hitting the top of the gate. Since my neighbor is with the State Parks, I mentioned the color of the gate to him, suggesting orange, red, "cat" green, anything but white !! On the helmet thing, I shopped around for the closed type but wasn't too impressed, considering the price is way over $100. I suppose I should try one any way and not be so cheap. It's just an eye opener for this expensive hobby for the 21st century. I'm still living in the '70's.

Back in '84 when I started to haul equipment to the tops, I built a pup sled out of a large wood box about 4x4x4 with a some "L" brackets from the local HW store. Boy! what a learning experience! First trip out on a real slope the brackets collapsed under the weight of the equipment. My next modification was to beef up the suspension. I bolted some cross braces with an "H" pattern across the bottom on each side. That did the trick for several years, where, in the 90's I was able to rebuilt the entire low end with a nice welded frame. Below is that same one in the yellow box. I just picked yellow for good visibility. Suppose I could have made it that obnoxious cat green, which really doesn't bother me, and in some cases is kinda cool. Especially when you want to get someone's attention. I remember going "echhh!" at the local fire departments truck with that color, except in a lighter shade. Cat green is like ketchup or mustard on a hamburger. A little goes a long way.

The second pup is my most recent home build, around '95. This is the one I had slinging my friend around in the story, above. Either one will haul equipment up the hill nicely. I added a hitch to the rear of this one, so I could tandem the first pup with the second one if I had a really, really large load to haul. Both are made with common downhill skis from the second hand store, or one of the garage sales I like to go to, when time permits.

This one is my original, with a wood, shallow box. The weld in the middle of the tongue is where I twisted it on that icy slope.

Then I built an improved version, with a metal open, frame type box.

Here's a classic. In the fall I blow out my lawn sprinkler system with my pancake air compressor. I guess it makes me think of the best season in the world-WINTER! And maybe it will come sooner if I get busy with the other home chores. Because of the small capacity of the pancake, I added a bunch of garden hoses to act like an air tank reservoir. That way each sprinkler zone gets a long blow out job. While piling the hose, which looked like a pile of snakes, I cracked open the air valve to clean out what water was in the hoses. So of course, the end started wildly screaming around the place, squirting water in random directions, everywhere. Well wouldn't you know it, about this time my other half opens up the door, coming in the area, which generally hates to get wet. Needless to say my newly acquired "water snake" got her soaked from head to toe, so she went yelling out the door " yaaaaahhhhhhh"! Kinda like an old "I love Lucy" flick ! I don't know what's was more funny watching this slapstick or writing about it !!

For my loading into my pickup, here's my story:

I use five 2x12" 8 foot long planks. Originally I used four, but when I got my newer (bigger) sled last season I needed a one more. For the original four I ordered Ramp-Arts, which is just a fancy aluminum "end" to put on the upper end of the wood for a fair grip on the tailgate. I mean fair, so I added some small bolts that point down into the tailgate and bite into the metal a little. You may not wanna do this if you have nice new pickup, but mine is a little older (95) so I don't mind a little.

Then to add stability I mounted little metal loops on the bottom of each plank;a set near the top and a set near the bottom. then I have a round rod and I shove through the loops, with a tightening nut on the end (with a washer) so the whole five planks, become one solid nice ramp. I even took the outer two Ramp-Arts to the grinder, so the little "cross gribber" on the top don't hurt the carbides so much. I guess they were designed for summer ATV loading.

I got them through J.C. Whitney, but I think I've seen them in Cabela's Mag. It takes me about 5 min. to assemble it at the parking lot for unloading.

My next story about my Cat. (That's a brand of sled, for those "non-winter" folks).

Karl's email