Last Friday, we met Derek halfway at Strawberry Reservoir so that he and I could go snowmobiling together. We headed out on what I thought was a trail, but it was only a detour. Derek was following some tracks to see where they headed. When they led him to the base of a very steep mountain, he headed up without hesitation. I, not knowing that this was not the trail, hesitated at the bottom, then followed him up.
After he had crested the top, he parked his machine and came to the ridge to tell me not to follow, but he was too late. I was heading up at full speed. The ground flew swiftly past me and it didn’t seem so steep after all, that is until I reached the last 20 feet or so of the hillside. Then the ascent became almost vertical. I think fear must have subconsciously made me steer away from it because I got off course and my machine curved slightly left. It was too late to correct my course and get back onto the tracks of the other snowmobilers. I knew I was in trouble. I had two choices: jump off the machine, or leap to the hide side of the snowmobile and attempt to turn my machine around. I really didn’t have the expertise to do the latter on so steep a hill.
In that nanosecond of thought just before one has to make a do or die decision, I mourned the loss of my machine and leaped off. As I struck the ground to the downward left side of the snowmobile, I glanced over my right shoulder and viewed my upside down machine, skis sticking high in the air rolling towards me. I said the s.... word for the second time (the first time being when I found myself in this predicament in the first place) as I realized that I was about to be crushed by my machine. The machine continued in its roll and struck me on my right side, then it righted itself in the roll and continued its downward plunge on the mountainside, now right-side up. I watched it bounce along for a second and I realized that I, too, was sliding down the mountainside, superman style, and that because of the steepness of the ground, there was no stopping! I also realized that this is what probably saved me from being crushed. As the machine was following gravity, so was I, and while it was falling toward me, I was falling away from it. A quick mental body check assured me that I hadn't been hurt.
Meanwhile, in my plummet down the mountain, I thought that if I could turn sideways, maybe that would stop my sliding. Instead, when I tried it, that slight shift made me realize instantly that if I continued this maneuver, I would find myself rolling side over side down the mountainside. Correcting back to Superman slide, I remembered my feet and began to dig in my toes. This finally stopped me, and by carefully maneuvering my legs around me, I was able to sit up and slide down on my seat the rest of the way.
My machine, meanwhile had come to rest in a grove of quaking aspen at the bottom of the hill.
Derek had witnessed the whole thing from the top. When he saw me sliding face down, he thought I looked like an unconscious body falling down the mountain. He was relieved when I sat up and gave him a thumbs up. He went back to his machine and rode it down. He said that was tricky business because he couldn’t brake or he would have lost control, so he came down in brake-skid, brake-skid fashion. He was glad I didn’t have to do it.
After examining my machine, we decided that the damage wasn’t too intense. Besides a cracked windshield which occurred on the first roll, there was a 4-5 inch crack in the right front bumper and the lights had been pushed in. The machine had hit a smaller dead tree which not only stopped it, but saved it from total destruction. It narrowly missed a head-on crash with a larger, healthier tree which would have totaled it.
Derek opened up the hood and pushed the lights back in place. Then, instead of having to abort our ride five minutes out, we were able to hit the trail, the real trail and ride for three more hours.
We had a really great time and hit speeds of 70 mph on the last stretch back to the truck.
I felt no pain during the entire day until Ed and I stopped at Arby’s in Heber City on the drive back home. I discovered that I could hardly get out of the truck and walking was painful. I then realized where the machine had struck me. It had hit my right thigh and bruised it good. But, I knew it would quickly heal, which it did.
So, did I use another of my nine lives? I’ve already used a few. How many do I get? Actually, I felt that I’d been really watched over. And to think that whoever was looking after me also took care of my machine, as well. Now, isn’t that something?
