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[Photo-John]

It's that time of year again!

For the skiers - my first turns this winter were powder turns. The left line in the second photo is my first of the season. It doesn't get any better than that

Although only a couple of Utah resorts are actually open, the season has started for some. Today was my first official day of skiing for the 2009/2010 season. Alta's lifts aren't running yet but there was 8 inches or so of snow in the past couple of days and my friend Mike and I both have new backcountry gear to try out. So we drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon, strapped our new skins on the skis, and climbed about halfway up the mountain. Climbing on skis is hard work. That's the biggest climb I've ever done on skis and although the climbing skins worked great, it was still harder than I expected. Since I plan to be doing a lot of backcountry skiing this season, I think I'm gonna get really, really strong.

Photo content? Yes, I did take a few pictures. Plus, the new ski gear should mean lots of good backcountry photography this winter. These photos were all taken with the Panasonic Lumix GH1 Micro Four Thirds camera. Panasonic sent it to me about a week ago and I'm just finishing up a little video piece on the camera, so watch for that. With the 10x image stabilized zoom lens and compact body, it's a very nice camera to carry when size and weight are critical.