On Thursday Beth and I went out backcountry snowboarding with our friends Bryn and Louis. We were ready for some cold weather, but when we drove through a valley and the temperature suddenly dropped to -14 I was thinking of calling it quits. Fortunately, the temperature rose just as quickly as we climbed up the other side of the valley, and did so before I had the chance to give voice to my cowardice.
It was still right around zero when we left the cars, and I was more worried about Bella and Dash getting cold than I was about myself, mostly because Bella has been a sissy about having cold feet recently. But they were both fine all day until the very end, when I think they were so tired that keeping warm was more of a struggle. But thats getting ahead of myself. In the morning, it was easy to stay warm, since as soon as we left the car we started skinning our way straight uphill. In fact, we'd already stopped to take off some layers before we found ourselves bathed in sunshine, and it was probably for the best that the sun wasn't really adding any heat to the mix. This time of year its so great to get out in the sun, though, so we might as well have been on a beach somewhere.
With clear skies and bright sun, the highlight of the day was probably the amazing scenery. The snowboarding was a lot of fun, of course, but the surrounding mountains were just beautiful, and I kept stopping to snap more and more photos of the same peaks and ridges all day. Of course, all day is a pretty short time frame, so with the sun setting as we started back to the cars at the end of the day there was time for one last shot and then the camera had to get put away.
But I guess I shouldn't sell the snowboarding short. After reaching the top of our ridge around noon, we took a quick lunch break before making some turns down the back side of the ridge. Despite almost 3 weeks without snow there wasn't another ski or snowboard track in sight, although moose had made a mess of the powder at the very bottom of the run. We skinned back up to the top of the ridge and took our second run down the front side, where there were a good deal of tracks but the snow was probably still as good as anything in bounds after noon on a powder day. Of all things we ran into Beth's and Bryn's boss' boss at the top of the second run. Someone in his group was impressed with the fact that we'd made a run down the back side, but I think both of the ladies were a bit disappointed to have work catch up to them in the backcountry.
On a final note, it felt really good to get out and make some turns for the first time in a year and only the second time in 2 years. I had a ton of fun with the fact that I can go out and charge pretty hard right off the bat. I also loved the fact that my split board handled the chopped up snow on the last run like a champion. It brought back the feeling of riding my first Never Summer through that sort of snow for the first time - just great control and super steady underfoot.
Anyway, I can't wait to get back out again, even though I do hope its a bit warmer the next time. And a bit of fresh snow wouldn't hurt, either. Now here's the photos:
came really close to suggesting we turn around at 10:06, but seven
minutes later it wasn't so bad.
setting out from the car before the sun rises
above the surrounding peaks
the crew breaks into the sun for the first time of the day
happy to have some sunshine on our way up
Beth drops in at the top of run #1
heading back to the top for run #2
snow-covered mountains
beautiful scenery, all day
the sun was starting to set as we got back to the top
before our second run.
and a closing shot of Bella looking dignified...
2 comments:
How long is a run, that you do two in a day? Or, how short is a day? Loved the photos!
Our day was about 5 hours long, but with gravity being what it is, we spend way more time going up than going down. Given the cold weather, all of our breaks were really short and we were probably on the move for all but 45 minutes or less. The downhills were about 800 and 1,500 vertical feet.
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