From Star Peak the day before, we couldn’t help but notice that there was a pretty good snowmobile route that could lead us all the way to the base of Castle. So that was today’s plan. We dropped over the pass where we parked yesterday and were in the headwaters of the Taylor river. Then we tried to get over Star pass. Here’s Pete:
He kind of bogged down at the sidehill, but crawled it up and over. Then it was my turn. I bogged down a few feet higher, with a little more sidehill, pulled uphill with everything I’ve got, but it wasn’t enough. My snowmobile started tipping, and it brought me with it. I got tossed downhill far enough for my sled to gain some momentum as it rolled sideways over me, and then started flipping end over end. Thankfully it righted itself and stopped before the next roll:
My left arm took the brunt of the hit, and it’s pretty swollen, but thankfully I was allright. The sled? Broken windshield, obviously, bent handlebar, and one of the skis twisted on its’ post, but that was easy to fix. All in all, it could have been a lot worse 20miles from the trailhead.
