With nearly 2 months of weekly snowstorms in Colorado, January was the
perfect time for us to do something we have always wanted to do, CEMETERY
SLEDDING! For this we headed to Green Mountain Cemetery outside of Boulder
Colorado.
The
"Hill" behind the cemetery was no joke. Not quite a mountain, but
most assuredly big as hell.
This
gives you an idea how large it was, those are our hearses at the bottom and
this is about 1/5th of the way up
By far the best picture from the meet, Josh holding on for dear life and
failing in that venture.
Coming in on US 36 into Boulder
Chicago Mike
Erin and her new hearse!
Aubrey, our cinematographer
This picture doesn't look like much, so click it. It's a full panoramic of
the cemetery from near the summit taken by Steve Widman
Amber and Detarra
Rob's hearse at the head of the line
Josh's Miller Meteor
This turned out to be the best damned sled of all of them, a $15 air
mattress from Walmart that Josh brought!
This sled was constructed after the style of Alexi, complete with wings,
expanded mesh, machine guns and a small flamethrower.
More of the sled
The mini flamethrower. It wasn't too impressive and the flame didn't show up
on camera at all, but I was able to use it...
To make THIS in the snow!
Alexi
Matt and Erin
Dragan
Josh hauling ass
Josh about to disappear in the shrubbery
Getting ready to go in the Alexi sled. The sled was mounted on two skis and
had drag bars on each side for functional steering and brakes. I used an old
hearse jump seat, so I also had a nicely padded place to sit!
Pushing off
Spilling it in the Alexi sled. Post game analysis - The sled was a great
idea in many regards, the steering worked, as did the brakes. The main problem
was that I should have placed the skis farther apart and sculpted the drag bars
a little better. The other problem is that it was heavy. I am talking Nel Carter
riding in a 49 Hudson heavy. Being heavy is great for going downhill FAST, it
sucks for going uphill.
The second problem was that the wings made it somewhat
difficult to bail from the craft once things got ugly, which they did rather
quickly.
The last problem was that after a sojourn of nearly two
decades of sledding, I had forgotten that if you get onto a big enough hill, it
is not a question of IF you will lose control of your craft, but when, how
badly, how fast you'll be going when it happens and exactly how much you are
under the mistaken impression that there will jack shit that you will have
control over it when it does happen. You always assume that you'll have some
control over where you fly or what you'll do when you are ejected, you're
probably wrong.
Anita
after sledding into Josh's hearse.
Colorado.
Josh doing Zoolander poses
Rob
arrives
Departing
on Josh's air mattress
Doing
well
About
to lose a passenger
Dragan
and I after another unsuccessful run with Alexi sled
"Taaaaake these broken wings and learn to sled again..."