research , development , testing and hard |
by miles of loosely strung barbed wire . |
am frequently out of my comfort zone . |
thousand foot high ridge , or a long |
work goes into each piece of gear – from |
And , it ’ s not really a parking lot anymore |
The trees are dense . Often , a finger-sized |
pull up a sketchy chute , usually with |
the initial design to the durability testing . |
but rather roadside ditch parking . |
branch can cleanly wipe a rider off his / |
some means of sidehilling technique , |
What was most exciting , however , was |
Wyoming sledding is all-around a |
her sled and , because the branches are |
leaving one dangling hundreds of feet |
getting to see gear several years before |
different experience than what I typi- |
much bigger – or so they seem – there is |
above the valley floor . The later of |
its actual production . I left feeling pretty |
cally ride . At higher altitudes like Colo- |
a more visible line to the bottom of the |
these situations is mind-stoppingly |
thankful for the opportunity , but of |
rado , the trees are generally smaller , |
hill , increasing the perceived sense of |
terrifying to me . |
|
course I was still eager for the ride ahead .
Let The Fun Begin |
feel more spaced apart and are certainly less dense . The vast elevation changes of Wyoming , comparatively , lend them- |
danger to self and sled should one lose the intended line .
Many of the trails include , in at
|
The First Chute After traversing the nearly 10 miles of
|
The next morning was chaos . It ’ s quite a |
selves to dozens , if not hundreds , of long |
least a section of the trail , somewhat |
trail , our group arrived at the top of the |
chore to keep two dozen people organized , |
chutes , devoid of trees or any measurable |
ominous features such as an exposed |
pass – a small saddle with complete |
and even more so when you have a dozen |
growth , for thousands of feet . The tec- |
crossing at the bottom of a several- |
views of two different drainages . It was |
of them looking to out-do each other at the |
tonic forces that created these mountains |
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first blip of the throttle . The tension was |
with violent upheaval created pictur- |
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fun but still apparent – as was the rush to |
esque cliff bands , each broken up with |
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get to the snow to find out , again , who was |
striations of angular bands from the dif- |
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the best . I am reminded of a certain scene |
ferent layers of the earth ’ s crust . |
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from the movie Days of Thunder , where |
The riding in Wyoming , therefore , |
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Cole Trickle ( Tom Cruise ) and Rowdy |
seems more formidable to me . In Colo- |
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Burns ( Michael Rooker ) face-off in a rent- |
rado , I ’ m comfortable riding the trees at |
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al-car battle on the way to supper . |
any angle where I can keep forward mo- |
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On this day , we stormed past Alpine in |
mentum and , often times in failure when |
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the tow vehicles and down the Star Valley |
I can ’ t . The trees are pliable enough so |
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en route to the Willow parking lot , where |
that one can brush past them , and short |
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we would unload . I hadn ’ t ridden “ Willow ” |
enough that they seem less of an ob- |
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in almost a year , and I was anxious to get |
stacle . Outside of the occasional meadow , |
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on the mountain . The Willow lot ( often |
rarely is there much in the way of chute |
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alternatively referred to as the Bedford |
climbing , and the trees are usually thick |
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lot ) is just outside of Bedford , Wyoming , |
enough that even on the steepest of as- |
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which is not really a town but more of a |
cents , my fear of heights rarely kicks in . |
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centralization of small ranches separated |
Contrast that to Wyoming , where I |