During
regular trips up to the mountain, the cars lining
both sides of Highway 550 below Needles are often
hard to miss. Pedestrians with large, colorful saucers
firmly in their grasp play a real-life game of Frogger
as
they dodge passing motorists to get to the steep
incline
known as Chipmunk Hill. A secret stash for local
sledding
aficionados, Chipmunk Hill has gained fame outside
of La Plata County with large groups of speed
junkies frequently traveling up from New Mexico to
get
a little taste of the action. The weekend crowd and
the
continual toboggan traffic groom the hill to a nice
sheen, which provides ample speed for any tube, saucer,
skate board or home-made sledding device.
Josh MacDonald gets a face shot as he flies through
the air in the blue, one-piece ski
suit he received as a hand-me-down and creatively named “Madonna.”
A shovel used for
perfecting many
aspects of the sledding hill sits on the
side lines..
Santee Medicine Bear
hikes back up
the slope after a harrowing trip down
the hill.
Austin Hohnke
works the camcorder
filming
his friends Josh
MacDonald and
Graham Brookie.
Graham Brookie gets some solid air
time as he braces for
impact.
Jared Duvall, of Farmington, grabs
his sledding tube and leaves the scene of a
snowball fight at the top of Chipmunk Hill last week.
