Line Poaching

A recent 3 day storm brought us a ton of fresh snow. The kind of snow that makes one giddy with excitement and anticipation to play in it's light, dry, fluffy pillows laying about the mountain. Unfortunately the snow came on days that were extremely busy for us class wise, and left me with little opportunities to get some fresh tracks in.

At the end of each day, the mountain had for the most part been tracked out leaving a collection of chop to ride through. Most of my coworkers left for home, their legs exhausted and patience for the snow gone. I took off to the upper mountain with the sun rapidly setting over the horizon, and was able to get about 4 very good runs in. I did two with a gentleman I met on the slopes who was skiing amazing well (better than me) but had exhausted himself on the steeps. I took him for a run through the trees with me later.

Thinking my night was done, two snowboarding instructors called out from the lift for me to join them on a run. They were both dressed down from their uniforms while I wasn't. I get to the top and join them just as the clouds settle in making the visibility poor. They tell me to follow them, and take off skiers left towards the closed territory for the day. 10 minutes later, we're on the top of side of the area that had an avy slide earlier in the day with 4 patrollers standing watch.

I hear the radio beep and next thing I know they're yelling "fire in the hole". Four blasts fill the silence of the night, followed shortly by the smell of gun powder. The patrollers all look at us, expecting something to happen before one of them finally says "It's open" and waves at the entire opposite side of the ridge line that slid earlier.

The three of us start heading down, getting about two or three turns into some massively waist deep pillows of fresh un-tracked powder. We were dancing through the glades, the snowboarders loving it and me struggling a bit. Someone yelled "closing" from behind let me in on the secret of what just happened. Patrol just opened and closed the best powder run on the mountain in less than 5 minutes, and I got a good first tracks on it... at 6:15 pm.