Tower Brackets

The big tow has been running well so far with the new drive wheel setup (knock on wood).  Having the truck up at the top is definitely the way to go as we don't have to worry about the extra slack causing the rope to slip on the drive wheel anymore.  The extra slack also seems to make it so the the rope doesn't drag down into the ground as much.  The only downside is that we now have sags in between some of the further spaced return towers.  We'll slowly add a couple extra towers to keep the return rope out of the way.

The top needs a tower the most as the tow got extended a bit longer when we moved the truck.  Building the brackets for these extra return towers was pretty straightforward.

Since we now have a wide trail up to the top of the tow from our house I was able to use the snowmachine to haul the brackets up.

Getting the tower up in the tree (by myself) was a bit tricky but with careful planning it wasn't too bad.  Having snow to prop the ladder up made it easier.

Once I got the first lag screw in I wasn't  sweating up on the ladder.

Since I had the pole saw up on the hill (to shave the bark of the tree before fastening the tower bracket) I took some time to clean up Jay Way.  The heavy 2' snow storm we had eariler caused a lot of pin cherries and stripe maple trees to sag and break.

On a day after work with a little daylight left we went for a family ski.  Galen got to hitch a ride with me.

Elet hitched a ride with mom.  Here they are skiing down upper 101 before catching Jay Way to the bottom.

At the bottom we took a little break while I got our skins back on.

It was a quick ski back but everyone had fun (Elet slept the whole time).