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Help with winter expedition sled 29-Aug-2012 At 10:05:50 AM dburg

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Well, thanks for all the advise from everyone over the past few weeks. I am happy to report that the sled, nicknamed the "Red Caboose", performed better than I had anticipated. Everything performed faultlessly.

We arrived at the toll both at 11.30 on Friday and were greeted by snow storms and a road covered in snow and ice, the sled was used from the back of the car all the way to camp, yep, there was 15 cm of fresh snow in the Dead Horse carpark. First test was the hill on the other side of the creek so we blasted straight up it, if it was going to fail, I wanted it to fail close to the car. My only change will be a better sewing job of the loops on the harness (they held together, but did show signs of giving out after a few trips)

We were breaking trail all the way up and no one was skiing down until late afternoon amazingly. We got to above the tree line near the Ramshead but the wind was around 55-60 km/h at this stage so we retreated to the trees and found a nice sheltered spot. Temps never got above freezing but Sunday was clear and sunny and perfect conditions on the lee side of the range.

Heading back to the car I loaded the sled a little higher and tested it out on some steeper traverse sections. The fins held perfect and the crossed poles stopped it from flipping (I actually couldn't get it to flip over which was a good sign)

The poles, which I ended up epoxying to the rod ends held great, I scored the fiberglass rod (like you would a glue-in bolt) and gouged up the inside of the Aluminum sleeve and the bond was rock solid. Hopefully that's the last Ill have to worry about that.

All in all, a great gear test weekend and one very happy camper, thanks for all the advise, much appreciated.

Blue lake, this weekend, can not wait!

Few pics of the "Red Caboose" in action

ready to go

heading up from the carpark

one happy chappy

sunday on the east side