Non-crappy ski tour

[mattb]

Ski touring can be a hit and miss endeavor as John showed us in his recent post. To do this sport you need to accept that there will be some terrible skiing (or boarding) and that is just part of the game. I have also gone back down the skin track I came up because conditions were dangerous. But those misses just make the good days that much better. Although I was bracing myself for some bad skiing yesterday was one of those days that makes the bad ones worth it.

I met my friend at his cabin in the morning and we called another friend (who also has a nearby cabin) to join us. We rode snowmobiles a few Miles to a meadow with a wooded ridge overlooking it. It's great my friend has a loaner for me and he even helps me get it going again when I inevitably get stuck!
My friend Keith is a builder and he had built a cabin on top of the ridge for someone a few years ago. He's currently working on a garage for the guy and has permission and access to this cabin.
There was about a 600' climb from where we parked to the top and the first ascent was really hard because we had to break trail.

Lunch on the cabin deck


Then we headed down. The snow was variable but we quickly figured out where the good stuff was.




We found some really fun pillow drop lines. Here Keith bounces down one of the lines.




I'm a little bolder than these guys so when we started finding a little bigger/steeper lines I handed the camera off and tested them myself. Yup, pretty nice!


I plan to ski that pillow line in the background on a future visit to this area.




Sooo fun!


We wound up doing three laps of this zone until we were too pooped to go on. Great day! I'd like to return and hit some of the bigger drops after the next snow cycle if it's looking good. Weee!

Edit to add: all photos shot with a Pentax K-5 & Pentax DA 18-135 zoom