By Corey “Iceman” Lopez

Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 2 (November 1988)

Sledding is done down a hill, on top of snow, by a sledder. The terms “hill,” “snow” and “sledder” cover a great many conditions, any of which may exist when you sled.

As a sledder you can be one of three varieties: the rookie, the sage, or the hot dog. You are still a rookie if you buy a sled only once every five years or so. You have reached the semi-honorable rank of sage if you need a new sled every other sledding season. You are one of the the elite, a hot dogger, if, when the winter’s over, you can use your sled to grate cheese.

Snow, a product of weather and time, changes from day to day. A hill, the product of location, is more durable than snow. Once you have found a hill, you can plan on it being there for years to come.

Which is more important, the snow or the hill? Well, it’s kind of a chicken/egg situation. Without snow the best hill will get you nowhere, and likewise the best snow is worthless without a hill.

A sledding hill has three basic characteristics: length, steepness, and obstacle population. The length and steepness of a hill are objective characteristics, labeled subjectively. One person’s long hill, for instance, may be another person’s short hill. As a rule of thumb, long hills get 1 to 3 runs and short hills get run until you lose count.

Long hills are for racing. Short hills are for jumps, trains, and general hot dogging. There are no perfect hills; some hills are good, some hills are bad. A good hill mixes drops of varying length and steepness with obstacles of all design.

Hot Dogging and other childish behaviors can go beyond exciting and become dangerous if your hill has a high obstacle population. A sledding hill’s obstacles are what separates it from just plain places to sled.

Trees, jumps, cliffs, rocks. gullies, streams, barbed wire fences, logs, drifts, and snow banks are all obstacles you may encounter while sledding. There are also people, sleds, animals and a million other things that might happen into your path.

The best way to prepare for these things is to treat them all the same. Anything in your way is an obstacle. To get past an obstacle there are four options: over, under, around, and through. Which option you choose is half personal preference, half fight-or-flight reflex.

When you find a hill to your liking, the snow to hope for is powder. Powder, that light and fluffy snow that falls in big flakes, is the soy bean of snows. You can use it for anything and it’s nice and safe.

Trails through powder can be difficult to make. In snow of 6 or more inches, your sled will act more like a plow than a steam roller. With very deep powder, 1 to 2 feet, you may never get a trail. Your sled will slice through the snow like a speed boat, leaving only a wake in the powder for those behind you.

Powder stays powdery for only a couple of days. To get the most fun out of powder, you need to go sledding during the storm from whence the powder originates. Only on the longest hills or during the best storms will the snow fall faster than you can pack it down.

An annoying condition that you may encounter is crust. Crust doesn’t fall from the sky. Crust forms when either a wet snowfall or freezing rain is followed directly by a cold snap. This creates a layer of hardened snow, much like the hardened snow that forms in a well-used trail.

Crust at its usual thickness should be avoided. A trail broken through crust is well-defined and quick, but painful. There is no safe way to sled on a trail blazed through crust. If you wipe out on crust the edges of the trail and stray chunks of crust will cut you up like the thorns of a briar patch.

There are times, however, when crust can work to your advantage. Slow trails topped with a glazing of crust will have new-found speed, and fast trails will become nearly impossible to navigate. An especially thick layer of crust can create an interesting treat of its own: sledless sledding. Even when the crust doesn’t hold you up as you walk on it, it may hold you up if you lie down and spread out your weight. If it does, give yourself a push and slide down the hill free of the restrictions of sleds and trails.

Getting into a sled and thrashing down the hill is a great way to get to the bottom. In fact. thrashing is the best way to practice and master the positions and techniques required for sledding at your full potential.

The upright or ‘just sit in your sled” position is suitable for all sledding conditions and is recommended for trail blazing and beginners. Sledding upright provides a bit of everything: superb maneuverability, visibility, good top speed, and safety for dangerous maneuvers. Unless you are an experienced sledder or have complete disregard for your own safety you should always make the first run over a fresh trail in the upright position.

On the other hand, the best way to get down the hill for pure speed and excitement is flat out on you stomach or back. Both variations on the “flat out’ technique provide the even weight distribution that lets you ride high in the snow (the speed part;: navigational guess-work due to limited visibility in fresh powder makes up the excitement part. Belly-down puts your face in the snow and your nose to the trail for a thrilling perspective . If your favorite hill has jumps, bumps, and trees, expect scratches, bumps, and bruises when you use these positions.

“But,” you say, “where do I do all this sledding?” Well, if you’re in Randolph, I recommend sledding at one of the big three: Sunset Hill, Montague Golf Club, Or Pinnacle Mountain. Sunset Hill is a small ski hill operated by Vermont Technical College. Sunset has a rope tow that is operated once a week. The hill is steepest at the top. A few sharp dips and a jump occupy the transitional middle. The bottom third is gradual. Under all conditions except ice and crust. you stop before you reach the base of the hill.

The wide-open sledding at Sunset provides few surprises. To make it more interesting, I only sled Sunset during a snowstorm or at night. You can do anything at Sunset: trains, races, jumping. sled surfing, blind sledding, partial runs. Sunset is a relaxed hill equally suited for novice and advanced maneuvers.

In the summer, the key to playing the upper holes at Montague is avoiding the woods. The woods at Montague are sure disaster because ten feet into them the bottom falls out and you’re looking down the bank of a ravine that only a sledder could love.

Sledding down the banks of the ravine at Montague is not for the lighthearted sledder. The standing and fallen pines are dense, and once you drop in the only way to stop before you hit bottom is by hitting one of them, and you will hit one of them. Sledding these banks can make quick work of you or your sled if you don’t take the proper precautions. When sledding these banks you should use a 36-inch bungee to hold yourself in the sled. In addition I use two sleds sandwiched together for strength. If you want to live, sled the banks only in the upright position. Don’t let me scare you off, though. These banks are fast, frightening, full of bumps, and not to be missed. One of the most unusual things about sledding the banks is that you hit the bottom. There is no coasting to stop.

The banks of Montague short. You can get in twenty thirty runs in an afternoon, if you’ve got the energy.

In the mid-seventies Pinnacle left the ranks of mountains used for skiing. Skiing’s loss, however, was sledding’s gain, as Pinnacle is now the anchor of Randolph’s three prime sledding grounds. Pinnacle is a sledder’s paradise, a rare hill that has three distinct environments for sledding, each with its own character.

The first part of Pinnacle sledders discover is the access road. It is plowed by the town crew, but the absence of any real traffic makes the road the ultimate quarter-mile of multi-lane racing trail. It is generally covered by hard-packed snow with a little sand or glare ice thrown in for textural excitement. The road offers high speed sledding without the near vertical drops and trees found on the golf course and Pinnacle’s summit. An advantage that the road has over the rest of Pinnacle and other sledding hills is that you can drive up. If you’ve got a car, or, even better, a truck, you can alternate drivers and sled the road all day without getting worn out. The road is safe. It flattens out before it meets with the highway, and even under the best conditions (or worst, depending on your perspective) there is time to stop before you enter the flow of traffic.

The other two parts of Pinnacle are virtually unknown to most people. The longest trail is a logging trail that goes from where the lodge burned down all the way to where the ski lift ends. The trail snakes its way down the hill, starting with two short, steep drops paired with switchbacks. The trail then levels out into a section of straight-away with a drop at the end that is called The Glades (but more closely resembles the opening stretch of a bobsled run) . The drop at the end of The Glades has two mean bumps, the second of which you can almost clear when the trail is icy and lightning-fast. After the final switch back, the trail splits. The trail to the right starts quickly (very quickly) and ends slow. The trail to the left is a long straight run with two lanes and lots of bumps. It is not as steep as the right trail, but it’s so long and straight that there is plenty of speed to be attained.

For the logging trail, a double sled is not essential; only recommended. If you’d like to make a complete run of the logging trail without any spill, you will need a bungee to keep you in the sled down the first two drops and the bumps at the end of The Glades. This trail is great fun, and during some years it’s been the only sledding I’ve done . Beginners and advanced sledders alike will love it.

The final part of Pinnacle that I have tested is the woods. Just downhill from the head of The Glades is a protrusion of rock that can be clearly seen from the logging trail. If you hike to the top of this rock, you’ll see that the imminent descent is made up of a series of vertical plunges, 6 to 15 feet in height. This is the woods trail. To attempt this trail you must have a bungee. The woods trail is full of rocks. Some are buried, some are at the surface, and others are integral parts of the trail. The woods trail rides in bursts. You are constantly shooting off cliffs and crashing down onto the trail. If you have a weak back, you don’t want to try this trail. This woods trail is not a racing trail. It’s hotshot trail. You don’t master the woods. You survive them.

Don’t think that these are the only places to go sledding. You can sled in your backyard, in the street, or at your uncle’s farm. Hell, you can sled down the front steps if there’s no snow. Just make sure you sled; don’t let the five year olds have all the fun.