Awesome Self-Braking Sled System

This is a very simple system using stuff I had on hand. For those who don't have fall arrest lanyards laying around, it wouldn't be hard to rig up similar length sections of rope with carabiners or other hardware on the ends to achieve the same effect.

I'm not sure how much weight I had in the sled here, but it was a substantial amount of gear. A really light sled won't self-brake quite as well, since it doesn't dig the rope and hardware into the snow as deeply, but it still works okay. The key is that the more rope gets sucked under the sled, the more friction it creates, and it also pulls the nose of the sled downward into the snow.

It is a little tricky negotiating tight corners, but that will be the case with any sled pulling. Steering is fairly simple by grabbing the rope and re-aiming the nose of the sled. Once on track, release the rope and let it go back to autopilot. I'm confident enough in this system now that I never even bother to look back when I hear the sled accelerating, as I know from experience that it will not run into me.