Beat

I was pretty impressed with the crowds we had this weekend, given that it was Valentine's Day. Typically we see very few people on the slopes that day. Apparently though someone managed to mix in a Presidents Day holiday and this just brought everyone out for the whole weekend.

On Sunday, after having classes from 10-3pm I took a brief break to eat something. The weather had moved from being an ugly snowy morning to a beautiful blue sky day somewhere around 1. So nice that I had to start shedding layers. At about 3:15 one of the other instructors pulled me out of my lunch stupor with the idea of getting some time in the out of bounds area before the sun set.

After two chair rides and a long hike, we found ourselves at the upper edge of the boundary line. Standing there waiting to close was Ski Patrol, looking down the same area we were thinking of hitting. Patrol looked at us, looked back down the line and calmly said "Damn, I thought I'd be the first to hit this line today."

We promptly took off down the run before he could say anymore. Steep terrain, some fresh inches, a north facing slope, and some tight trees kept this line pretty hidden from most while maintaining the snow quality. Five turns in and about 100 yards down my legs let it be known that they are tired. I realized this was going to be a rough ride when I found myself sitting back on the skis in the steeps.

A lot of washed out turns later, we reached the low slope section through thick trees before the next drop. At the next drop all adventure stopped as we realized the area had a minor slide sometime earlier in the day. Neither of us had heard of this area sliding before, nor did we have any real back country gear with us. The decision was to cut across the top on the flat-ish part, heading back towards the boundary line.

Finding a new route down, hitting a little ice, and having the first tracks through this area just made the entire weekend worth it. We then did the run two more times, with me being worse each time.