It is often heard that one can’t start riding a machine that is facing upslope.   While you should always try to stop your machine facing in an easy start direction, if that does’t work out as planned, there are ways…

In this instance, the sled, while not dramaticially, was facing upslope and I had to get above an obsticle.  The first step in this instance is to keep as much weight off the sled as possible until you build up some momentum.  I do that by standing oposite foot forward and keeping most of my weight on the slope.  Next I have to alternate forward traction with upward direction:  by allowing the machine to lay flat I can get an instance of traction and momentum – but the machine will continue down the fall line if I let it; so I pull the sled back into the slop to stay on line and gain upslope direction.   Pulled into the slope, without sufficient momentum will get the sled to get stuck.  The rocking motion back and forth allows me to continually trade instances of tracking with slight gains up slope, each time building a bit more momentum…