Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Ski Pulk

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One of my latest projects has been the construction of a ski pulk.

SKI PULKS: sleds towed with a harness and rigid poles

I have to say I'm quite impressed. I made mine a bit more heavy duty than usual but it is for pulling my daughter not supplies, so that can be forgiven. The Main benefit of doing it myself is that it would have cost me between 250 - 300 dollars to buy one and I got mine done for about 80 dollars. And it is not a hard thing to put together.

If you live in a snowy area and you would like to try to build one. Here is a link to a make your own ski pulk booklet. I have to give a tip of the hat to the ski pulk company for offering this booklet. They obviously understand not everybody has the money to buy their products which have a very specialized audience.

The harness is a backpack waist strap bought for 25 dollars from MEC. The carabiners combined cost about 8 dollars. 50 cents for the D rings. 4-5 dollars for 15 meters of Paracord (which has a little too much give) which will have to be replaced with another kind of cordage. And last but not least the sled (hunting/icefishing sled) cost 40 dollars. All you need is a drill to make some holes in the edge of the sled and lace the rope through.

I have not had a chance to try it with skis yet. I'll do that this weekend hopefully. but with snowshoes with crampons I can pull my wife and my daughter, at least for a little while.

6 comments:

D. Gillespie said...

love, love, love this!!!

I like the part at the end when you mentioned that you pull your wife too.

Jeope said...

This is absolutely fantastic.

James said...

Thanks, the only drawback is I can't use it on groomed trails. I should think about trying to mount it on some skis.

Future project.

Alexandra MacVean said...

Oh gosh, LOVE these photos, James. Your family is oh so beautiful and sweet. Your wife is beautiful. And love the blue/white polka dotted hat!!

Thanks for a peek into your personal life. :)

Kevin Asmus said...

You have a great looking family man. I have a little one myself. These pics make me wish we had a winter this year!

All the best!

James said...

Kevin:
Thanks for your kind words about my family. I'm crazy about them myself. Sorry to hear about your lack of winter. We had what we consider here to be quite a warm and short winter. My cross country skiing season was cut short by at least a month. However I'm back on my bike which is great. I hope you have a better spring and summer.