Snowmobiler Falls Off A 700ft Cliff: The Taylor Hoffmann Interview

All right, welcome back ladies and gentlemen. We have another Sledder Cast episode. This one's a little bit different than our usual programs. Occasionally cool stuff happens and you got to just jump on it and as quickly as possible. If you're on social media at all, very good chance you've seen the 700-ft fall. And that video has been rolling around our algorithm for the last few days. And I thought it would be interesting to sit down and just have a quick conversation with the man who fell 700 ft according to the videos and the reports online. And so I got Taylor here. I reached out to Taylor.

I said, “Hey man, you're probably super you know you got a ton of questions and DMs and people kind of going at you from all certain angles. I'm going to throw my hat in the ring as well. If we can hop on a call and make something happen, that'd be awesome.” And Taylor replied back pretty quickly and said, “Let's do it.” And so I have got a list of questions.

So we're going to go through the entire experience but also get to know the man behind the fall, the sledder behind the fall a little bit better cuz there's not a lot of content out there around Taylor and who you are and kind of what you do and how you ended up being there that day, right? So why don't you kind of kick it off, Taylor? Give us a just a quick little intro to yourself and kind of your history with snowmobiling and then the Big Iron Shootout that you were at last weekend.

Sounds good. Yeah, so I'm from Edmonton, Alberta up in Canada here. Typically most of my riding is technical riding, just technical tree riding, just get out with my buddies and rip. I kind of first got introduced in the climbing scene last year at the 2025 Big Iron Shootout. Thanks to my buddy Troy Lakusta. I did end up pulling one chute, or at least attempting, Swenson Street last year on his Apex and you know, it was probably the biggest adrenaline rush I've ever experienced in my life, so you can ask him, I didn't shut up on the whole drive home that I needed to get a climbing sled. So anyways, this summer I picked one up.

We spent lots of hours, late nights in the shop, me and Troy, just kind of getting it dialed in. Fixing some things, trial and error. And then we headed out to Revelstoke for the 2026 Big Iron Shootout this year.

Now, would you consider yourself primarily like a backcountry rider, more trail, more meadow? Like what would be like your typical riding style?

Definitely more backcountry. You know, nice sunny bluebird day, we'll be in the alpine all day, scoping out features, you know, just smashing pow. But most of the time technical tree riding, just out in the backcountry with the boys.

Okay. And now with this new build that you built for the Big Iron Shootout, was this the first run, like the first attempt on this sled build that you did?

No, we Yeah, so I didn't build the sled. It's actually It was Yeah, it used to be Dave's from Redline Turbos there and then I bought off a guy named Ryan this summer.

Okay.

But we did do a lot quite a bit of wrenching on it this year, but it was running great till it wasn't. But I know I wasn't the first pull. I did a couple pulls in the Airport around Christmas time this year with it. Had to go back, fix some things, and then wasn't my first pull of day either. Luckily, I was able to pull chutes in the Airport there. I attempted the Monster. I made it to the top, had to get roped up about 10 ft, and then the Gash has always kind of been on my hit list since last year, so that was the next one up.

As far as the day progressed, was this late after like late afternoon? You had already had a bunch of run runs in throughout the day?

Yeah, it would have been probably about my sixth pull of the day. First attempt at the Gash.

Sixth pull, first attempt at the Gash. How many people had attempted the Gash before you, your attempt?

I'm not sure how many people actually attempted it. You know, it's kind of chaos out there. You got, you know, They got people all over the place swinging lines trying to pull. I believe there's three or four guys up before me that actually pulled out, but there's definitely more than that that tried it.

How do they Is there just a line? You just kind of wait in line until it's your turn, or is it just kind of like a mad dash to whoever's going to pull the Gash?

There's been a line. There's been a line at the bottom there, but you know, you just kind of weasel your way in and see who's going next, and just make sure it's clear. Bunch of guys tying up top, bunch of people down below.

Nice. Okay. So, as all videos, the videos never do justice as far as like how big and steep terrain is, can you kind of give us an idea cuz the only thing we've really seen, right? We've seen some drone video, we've seen I think some cell phone footage from back ways. We've seen heard people say, you know, the headline say 700 ft. Can you maybe give us an idea of how big this pull is, this chute? From the bottom to the top.

Yeah, so we did we tried to I didn't have a computer nearby me today, so called up Troy actually and he went on Google Earth. So it's kind of rough. I've heard different numbers. He did 830 vertical feet is what he got and then from the lake to the top it's about 1,200 ft actually traveled and pretty much as soon as you get through that S bend it's like it's straight up and down. Like

Once you get around the curve just straight up to the top. Okay, so I'm going to pull up the video. And we're just going to we're going to get like a play-by-play, okay? I was telling you earlier and I'm sure this is how everyone who's watched it with buddies, sitting back, armchair quarterback. How come you did this? Why didn't you do that? Where were you going here? Like that type of thing, right?

For sure, man.

We are hearing it from the man himself, okay? And we're going to get a play-by-play. Maybe just maybe I'll stop it throughout and we'll just kind of get kind of a play-by-play. So this is down at the bottom right now, right? You've just kind of started heading up.

Yep.

Right here and you guys are sitting on a lake, right? Is that right? Did I hear that right?

Yeah, so yeah, the lake's down below. Now it's just starting into the mouth of the chute.

Into the mouth of the chute here. So we're you're cruising, right? At this moment are you thinking I've got this easy? Like no like this is in the books, man. Like I'm going to I got good speed. Is that kind of what you feel like? What's What are you thinking right now?

Yeah, until the until I come around the final corner in the S bend there I wasn't sure. As soon as I came around that final bend though when it was straight up I felt like I had enough track speed and I was going.

So right there. Okay, so right here you're pretty much straight up. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. That's

Okay. Did you see any of Were you When before you got here, you got a crowd. Can you Do you remember any specific faces that you saw or was it Were you going too fast?

Going too fast to make out a who's who, for sure.

When you get to the top here, is there a kind of Is it kind of choose your own adventure or is there like, “Hey, you've got to exit. It's clear I need to exit right here.”

Yeah, so there is You don't want to go too far to the left. There's a bit of a cornice wall there. And then on the right-hand side, you can see there's a bunch of trees and it gets pretty steep there.

There's some people racing on the right. Yep.

Yeah, so like central all those other tracks are is where I should have stayed, but they're pretty big trenches. So, I kind of went to the left there a little bit more under that cornice wall. And the fresh

Right here. So, you're wheelie mode right now. Yep.

Yeah, full-on wheelie mode straight up and down. And then I come up pretty hot and I get a really bad bounce right there.

And it kind of sends you to the right sends you right there. Okay.

And I'm moving fast at this point and tons of snow and I can't see anything. I know I'm going towards the cliff. Finally the snow clears and I just bail. Bail instantly. A lot of people on the internet are saying, “Oh, why didn't he bail? Why didn't he jump?” Well, I did. Things happen pretty quick up there though. By the time I bailed, it was it's too late. The snow just took me. I just started sliding super fast.

So, that's I think the perspective with the camera that we don't see is we look here and it almost it doesn't look like it's very steep, you know, in this area. And so, like you said, when you kind of pop up and you hit right here, it's like, “Okay. You know, how come like you said you knew you were heading towards the cliff.” So, did you have kind of like that bird's eye view in your mind of like, “Hey, like too far to the right and I'm in some trouble here with this cliff.” Was that

Yeah.

Registering or do were you like, “No, I've got space and time to kind of figure this one out.”

Yeah, like I didn't really realize how close I was until I took that bad bounce. At that point it was kind of it was too late. I like when I popped out on top of the chute there on the flat, I thought maybe you know I'd land wasn't going to bounce that way and I was going to ride it out, but took that bounce and it just sent me flying to the right.

Okay, so right there boom, it looks like you were kind of going in like a downhill almost elevator, so much powder. It looked like in this moment is kind of when you decided to bail. Does that seem right or were you still holding on right at this point?

No, I bailed immediately as soon as it kind of went sideways. It might look like I was holding on, but I'd let go.

So, there we are. We can see I don't know how good like I can see on my screen like there you are above and then there's your snowmobile in front of you. Does that seem right? Your snowmobile was leading and you were behind.

Yeah.

So, at this point you are off your sled. You're on a fairly steep hillside. What is the first thought you have in this moment?

First thought you know I was sliding pretty fast. I thought I was going to hit the trees. I was kind of tumbling. I was thinking, “All right, I might break my back here you know something I'm going to get hung up on these trees. This might be bad.” Then I continued sliding and I can't see anything at this point either. It's full on whiteout.

Oh, full on whiteout. It looks like it's kind of like a little almost like another little mini chute right there. Did you kind of like suck into a little chute or was it just flat up there?

It's hard to say like it's not flat. It's definitely very steep. But I don't know. I like I said, I couldn't see anything. Snow is coming over top of me. It felt like I was in a mini avalanche.

Uh-huh. Okay, so here you are. You're now you're lost in these trees here and this is this just kind of like a very steep water slide like at this point? Are you kind of just cruising down it in the powder as if you're like you said in a mini avalanche right here or are you able to is can you is there any inputs you can make at this point that might determine an outcome here?

No, I tried digging my feet but I was just flying way too fast. And I end up blowing like right through all the trees. Somehow did not hit any of them except for some branches.

Wow. So we see that takes a minute. Okay. Okay, so now we get a different view. This is from across the Well, this is still the drone but he's right

Yeah, this is a drone footage still.

Okay, right there. So I think we just saw Let me back up. We just saw the first like tumble, right? There in the screen. This is when the first air happens. Does that seem right?

It's hard to say. It's either that or my sled.

So that's your sled right there.

Yeah.

You can see a ski. And then it that feels like that's where a cliff starts. Like at this point there's no you're free falling. From this point on. Does that seem right?

That's correct. Yeah.

So okay, so you're just shooting down this slide. Are you assuming are you just waiting for that stomach you know that feeling in your stomach when you know, when you're on a roller coaster or something and you kind of lose your stomach? Are you anticipating that and that's how you're going to know you're like free falling or do you already think you're free falling or what's going on in your head right now?

Yeah, I was definitely waiting for that feeling. You know, once I blew past the trees, I knew the next thing was a cliff. And didn't really have much time to think about it. Everything happened so fast. Next thing you know, I was full on free falling out of there.

And was it still just dust, you know, snow dust, whiteout for you or once you hit that cliff line, did it kind of open up and you're like, “Oh okay, this is it.”

No, yeah, I it was still full on whiteout. Couldn't see anything. It's probably a good thing cuz I didn't exactly tense up, which might have helped with the impact for sure.

Oh boy. Okay, here we go. So, there you just see what looks like an avalanche is right there. I've got you paused. Now, here's the crazy thing is it looks like you're almost turned sideways. Like you kind of like when you were sliding, you did you maybe turn towards your stomach area or as soon as you caught air, did you kind of turn? Am I seeing that right or

Yeah, my orientation was all I was kind of all over the place. Like I was tumbling with the snow. Like so, I when I came off the cliff, I really didn't know which way I was coming off at all.

It's safe to say if you were headfirst off this, it'd be a bad deal, right?

Guaranteed, yeah.

Bad deal. Okay, so you've kind of spun a little bit. Orientation's off. Now we're falling Oh, right at the end. I didn't even notice that watching it all the other times. You twisted there again. I don't know if you can see that in the video, but right there it's kind of like you swung around like this. Was that just natural movements of the body as it's, you know, free falling in the air or was that deliberate?

Definitely not deliberate. I'd say it was definitely natural. Just body instinct.

Just body instinct? Okay, and then at that point we lose you for a while, you and the sled. When you hit do you remember the moment you made impact?

Yeah, I remember. So, you can see there's that one ledge there. A lot of us think that I hit that ledge and bounced off. I don't exactly remember.

Yes.

I didn't lose consciousness, but everything just happened so fast. But when I made impact to the bottom there, I landed and I was like essentially sitting like I would be in a chair. Like in a sofa chair.

You landed just exactly like that.

Exactly sitting like perfectly like you would just sitting in a La-Z-Boy.

Did When you were free falling, did you feel like you had speed, like a lot of speed? Or was it kind of like I don't know. I guess in my mind I'm thinking if I'm if I feel like I'm going down really fast that my impact is going to be pretty catastrophic.

Yeah, I was definitely moving pretty fast. The best way I can kind of describe it is, you know, have you ever had a bad dream and you feel like you're falling and you wake up kind of suddenly from that? That really is what it feels like to fall out of the sky. Like

So that is exactly Okay, that's a great way to put it. And you kind of usually wake up right before you know you're going to make impact.

Yeah.

As you prepare yourself for impact here, maybe give us a percentage. Like real talk here, are you thinking, “Oh, I've made it this far. I think I might have a chance.” or are you like, “This when I hit when I make impact here, this is going to be it. Like this is I'm in big trouble when I make impact here.”

I thought for sure it was going to be it. I knew how big that cliff was from starting at the bottom and staring at it. I thought for sure I was done. I thought the boys were going to be getting me out of there in body bags for sure.

Sheesh. So when you and obviously from the video, you know, that instantly people are called for, “Hey, we got to get a helicopter here.” This you know, everyone knew this was not good. When you make contact with the ground, was there a sound? Was Do you remember any sounds?

Yeah, the sled starting up coming towards me.

So that's the That was like the first sound you could recall hearing is snowmobiles. Was it Do you recall hard time breathing? Were you just like tapping yourself? You know, I know the video you said you were moving your fingers and your toes. When you made that thud, were you kind of surprised? Like was there some a surprise level there of like man, like did you really feel like the snow provided a really soft landing for you?

Yeah, it did. It might It was definitely a natural cushion for sure. When I first landed, I was just in like immediate shock. I honestly didn't feel any pain when I first landed. I mean, to be expected with some kind of adrenaline rush and shock like that. But yeah, I just heard the sleds fire up and kind of snow dust cleared and within like under a minute, you know, the first guys I saw was Gord and Greg, couple buddies that we ride with, and then Court from Creekwerx as well, and couple other guys that I didn't catch their names, but they were on me like then I'd say like

45

45 seconds, under a minute, easily.

So, how did you get ahead of your snowmobile? Any idea? Cuz your sled was kind of leading you down at the beginning, but here it looks like your snowmobile is still kind of rolling and you're below it. Do you remember passing the snowmobile at all through all that commotion?

I remember seeing like a glimpse of the track at one point, but like before we went off the cliff, but other than that, I'm not sure exactly at what point. Like I said, everything was just a whiteout.

You know, just like the thought of even just landing on the snowmobile or the snowmobile landing on you, like vice versa. So many there's so many ways where this could have gone so bad, right? Okay, now you're sitting there. You slowly see out of the corner of your eye your snowmobile just rolling right past you, slowly.

Yeah.

Okay, I want to know, right there when you see this snowmobile just slowly rolling and it's not in pieces. Like it doesn't look like it's in pieces, right? What's going through your head?

To be honest, I barely saw it. I was still so stunned and shocked. I didn't even know where the sled was until after I stood up. I didn't even see it roll past me.

Uh-huh. So, there's kind of the I mean look at that. That's drone shot. I want to go back to this. Oops. Let's see if we can get this. Okay. Can you see my cursor on the screen?

Yeah, I can see it.

Too small?

It's pretty small, but

Like in the general area where you came down through this? Do you know if it was more here, if it was more here, if it was more over here?

I think it was kind of where you first were pointing first. Kind of came through the middle.

Center?

Yeah.

Right here, boom. And down. Okay.

I have a good photo overview of post incident that I can send you after this.

Oh, cool. Yeah, maybe we can kind of overlay that with this. So, here's the guys they got up There's your sled. Damage to the sled. I mean, you rode it out.

Yeah. So, we did a little overview on it last night. A lot less damage than I expected. The nose cone's broken. Somehow the kit is still intact. The pipe's destroyed. My air fuel gauge is destroyed. My rear bumper I'm actually pretty impressed. The tunnel stayed straight. I had one of those old style bumpers on and it did its part. It broke on the weak part of the weld at the end of the bumper and the bracing kept my tunnel completely straight. Skid looks good. So, pretty minor, really, considering.

Wow.

I mean, we couldn't get the sled started at first, but Dave from Redline was actually there. He was kind of laughing cuz he just helped me service it not long ago. But him and buddy Mark and Troy there, they got it running. That was just enough to ride me out like it didn't run very well, but we got it lean and yeah, it made it out of the Monster Bowl.

How long did you stay, I guess, in like shock mode? Were you Did you pop out of it pretty soon or you kind of just like “My gosh, I can't believe.” Like were you kind of in this daze for a while?

Yeah, definitely quite some time. I mean, the pain started kind of setting in maybe, I don't know, 15 minutes after. It was pretty slight. So, right in the shock really hit like started wearing off by the time we got back to the Boulder cabin. And that's when the pain definitely started kicking in.

There was one of the videos you showed there was a little bit of blood. Was that like nose, like shins? Like was that some from I'm assuming that was your blood?

It was. It was actually from my tongue. I bit my tongue. I guess there's a

Oh.

Tongue. I guess there is some rumors going around the rest of the day that I bit my tongue clean off. But that is not what happened.

Can you prove that? Can we make sure there's still a tongue there? There we go. There they go. So, we put those rumors to bed right there. Yeah, I can imagine probably when you landed like boom, not being able to tell the depth and when you're going to hit that there'd be some impact there for sure obviously. Extent of your injuries? What did they find when you went to get it checked out?

Yeah, so pretty much we got off the mountain, went to the Revelstoke hospital there, ran a bunch of x-rays and everything checked out. Needed to get a CT scan though, so they ended up around 2:00 a.m. They ended up shipping me in an ambulance 2 and 1/2 hour drive to Kamloops hospital. And where they ran a bunch more tests there and they found out my T7 vertebra in my spine there is slightly crushed. And other than that, just super sore everywhere else. Like nothing else is broken. It's like really the only main big injury there.

When you crushed that T7, is it surgery or is it just rest and heal? How do you recoup from that?

Yeah, so it's just rest and heal and then next week I'll do a consultation, do some physio, and maybe look at some chiro, but other than that it should heal on its own. I'll be a little bit shorter. The spine will stay that way, but it will heal and expect to make a full recovery, so hopefully that's the case. Get back on riding.

Who was the first person you called?

Well, my phone is ringing off the hook once I got to the Boulder cabin. Guys had Starlink up there, so the video was already posted before I got off the mountain.

Oh, no way.

My first phone call

Posted and tagged.

Yeah, but I made it to the cabin, which is, I think, still another 14 or 15 K down the Boulder trail. So, they have their Starlink at the cabin as well, so my phone started freaking out by the time we got there. So, my good buddy Dane LaForest called me to make sure I was still breathing. Then yeah, I saw the video was posted. Figured might go viral, so called my mother there. She'd be the only one truly freaking out. Gave her a little heads-up that she might see something online. She's out on vacation in Mexico for a month.

Oh, jeez. Was mom very happy with you?

No, not happy at all. To be expected though.

Probably happy that she's having a phone call with you, but Wow, okay. So, this video there's been a couple of them. Last time I checked, man, like multiple millions of views. So, obviously something like this as crazy as this was is you know, going to get shared, going to go going to hit the algorithms all over the place. Have there been any crazy like DMs? Have you been able to keep up with it like everything?

Are you kind of surprised that like or you more is maybe there's not a lot of DMs and you're more surprised about that like kind of for those of us who haven't had a video go off like this kind of give us paint us a picture, you know, is it anything crazy happened from it?

Yeah, definitely overwhelming. Like I didn't expect that many people to message me and reach out. I haven't replied to everything yet. It's impossible, honestly. One thing I got to say though like the snowmobile community is awesome. Like the amount of guys that have reached out to me, check up on me, you know, they're like want to go out riding in the future. That was pretty cool. There was a couple pretty wild DMs I got from girls that I'm not going to repeat, but Yeah, there's Yeah, definitely overwhelming. Like didn't did not expect it to blow up like that.

What's the what's like the most asked question you get?

Did I buy a lottery ticket? And the answer to that question is no because I think I used up all my luck that day.

Oh, that's funny. That's I actually asked the guys here at the shop. Like what questions would you ask? That was one of them. Has he gone and bought a lottery ticket yet? That's funny. To kind of close it out here Taylor. Having experienced something like this and survived, does it change the way you look at risk? Or is or are you wired a certain way where you're just like I'm going to just keep sending it?

Yeah, I don't think it really changed the way I look at risk. You know, every time in the backcountry, you know, we take on risk and you evaluate it before you do it, you know, are you with the right crew, are the conditions right? Do we have the support if something goes wrong? That day we did. You know, definitely didn't expect for that to go wrong. But yeah, I don't think it changed anything. Next season I'm healthy. Definitely looking to go and get redemption on that one, for sure. A lot of people say, “Yeah, you made it

The cameras will be rolling, bro.

A lot of people are saying, “Yeah, like you made it to the top.” But like in my books it doesn't count. So. That's something that I need to definitely knock off the list next year.

Yeah, that'll be cool to kind of get that redemption. Kind of a redemption story there.

For sure.

Well, cool, Taylor. Any Anything else that's you know, you're like, “Man, I get asked this question a lot.” And Trevor didn't hasn't asked me it yet. Is there anything we're missing from the experience that you'd like to add? Or did we kind of do pretty good job of kind of summing up the It's funny like we've been talking for what? 30 something minutes. And really the whole you know, the totality of that event was like 60 seconds or less, right? So

For sure.

We really stretched it out here. But yeah, is there anything that we missed that maybe you'd like to add? Or did we do a good job

No, I think you knocked it out there. A lot of the questions are the questions I've been getting and you know, I don't have the time to answer every single one and repeat the same questions. So this will be good.

Awesome. Okay. Well, once again, appreciate you, Taylor, for hopping on. Carving out a little bit of time today to kind of walk through this. I know it might be, you know, for some people it can be a little hard, a little challenging to kind of walk kind of relive that. So I'm sure when you open up your Instagram social media, you're probably reminded of it pretty regularly. And you probably will be for the next little while. But thanks again.

Obviously stoked that you lived to tell the story and that you had awesome dudes up there ready to rock and roll to help in recovery and help assist and probably provide a ton of comfort to you after you just had something extreme like that happen. So, that's super rad.

For sure. Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Awesome. All right, thanks everybody. We'll see you later.