Cody was at my house a little before 9:00am this morning. We wanted to get a little later start because we simply have not been receiving precipitation lately so we wanted what was up there to warm up a little. I received a phone call around 9:10 from Jer saying his car had been broken into over night so he was going to be a little late. Being the understanding soul that I am, I told him it was no big deal and we could wait. When he arri
ved he was still determined to drive the three of us up to the hill so we threw a towel over the glass where Cody was going to sit and we were on our way. I suppose I should have expected Jer to have deliberately wasted some time this morning... after dealing with the cops and everything with his car, he then took the time to find his old stereo and (somewhat) install it. We had to play around with it for a while in order to get any sort of reception, but once we did it was pure gold! Notice the radio station on the screen - that's right,
Movin' 100.7. We were especially pleased to hear the soothing sounds of
Milli Vanilli - Girl You Know It's True on our journey (follow link to get the full effect). We decided to once again just skin Alta in order to actually be able to ski on snow. This time, however, we skinned up to the top of Collins instead of Wildcat.
Jer and I were both happy to have Cody out on telemark gear today. He bought some boots a little while ago at a ski swap and I was more than happ
y to lend him a pair of skis and skins. He did quite well. We were all very impressed. I think even he was impressed and he wants to definitely do this again. (You know what I think? I think he is converting. He is too stubborn to say it himself, but I think he will fully come to the tele side of things by the end of the sesason.) We were able to find some soft spots up top which took a couple turns to get used to, but once you got in a rhythm it was actually pretty good skiing. We pretty
much just skied all the way down while trying to traverse or whatever else in order to get the best turns. It really was a pretty good day out there. I need to start finding opportunities to do it more often so I can get back into shape. I hope you all recognize me in the final photo on this post. Yes, that is me. I have gone green (my coat has, at least). But don't think you will only see me in this jacket from now on. Th
ose of you that are keen watchers of the backcountry scene may just see me in a certain December issue of Backcountry Magazine in a full page ad for Voile. Just watch for it.
Well, it finally snowed. I wasn't going to pass this up. Unfortunately, the people that would go with me (myself included) could not spend too much time out today so we had to figure out a way to get some turns in early and fast. We figured one more time skinning Alta would satisfy these requirements.
When we arrived at Alta around 5:30am we discovered that beginning today they were closed to uphill traffic. We did not have time to go anywhere else... so we went to the side. We skinned and skied through the trees. It wasn't as good as it could have been had we been able to go up into 
Ballroom or something, but it was good nonetheless. I enjoyed the company of three fine skiers: Has, Luke, Sarah, and CJ. The new snow was about 12" deep in spots on top of an icy crust (and a few rocks that Has was kind enough to uncover for us). We were quick to make a few laps before it got too late and before anyone from Alta could give us a hard time. It was a lot of fun, though. Can we just talk about how great it is to be skiing pow
der again? It feels like it has been so long! Looking back it was Friday, April 20th that was my last powder day. Yes, it has been a while. I look forward to a few more like this soon.
