Day 22 - Tuesday Jan 29 - Much Fun for Many

Jer picked me up at 4:45 this morning. We then met CJ, Bret (for his first tour on a splitboard), Dave, Luke, and Sarah at the mouth of Big Cottonwood. We were debating between skiing in Butler Fork or Mill D. We drove up to the Butler parking lot and still couldn't decide so we continued up the road to see what the Spruces lot looked like. We didn't even make it to the Spruces before we decided to go back and ski Butler. And I am glad we did. By the time we got back to the trailhead there was a dude there digging out a spot for his car. We all piled out and dug out an area for our cars. It turned out that the dude was Derek, a local backcountry skier that carries a remote control helicopter mounted with an HD camera. He and his buddy, Jon, joined us for the skintrack. And when I say joined us I mean that Jon did the majority of the trailbreaking. I really did try to help as much as I could, but he insisted on continuing. By this time we had lost Bret and CJ. I guess Bret had begun to have issues with his skins and then he was just screwed all together. There was just enough light to ski when we reached the top so we took a lap as Derek prepared his helicopter for flight. Cody and Mark caught up with us just as we reached the ridge. Isn't that just like the Codeman? Sleeping in and taking it easy just enough to take advantage of someone's hard earned skin track and poach their fresh turns? Yeah, that's about right. The turns and the snow was fantastic. This was the first day I have been out on the new Asylums - by far the longest and biggest ski I have ever been on. They are 194cm in length and 160mm wide in the tip. I was nervous that I was not going to be able to turn them in the trees. I have to say, however, that I had no problems whatsoever in this area. They turned as I wanted them to and they floated like a dream. We had to get another lap in since the skiing was so great so we quickly put our skins back on and began our ascent. By this time the sun began to rise and lent itself to some great photos - see the photo of Jer skinning and Derek with his helicopter. The second lap proved to be just as good as the first. Derek did get some heli footage of our first few runs coming off the summit. I don't know if I will ever get to see that footage, but it was cool nonetheless to see how it all worked. By the time we reached the bottom Jer and I really had to get going to school and Luke had to get to work. Unfortunately, none of the car drivers needed to go. So we made our way to the road and hitched a ride with a nice gentleman named Kenneth. The big problem was that our shoes were in CJ's car so we had to go to class with our ski boots on. I did not like this. I felt like some kind of jerk wearing them in class. The general public is not even aware that things like dawn patrols exist. I am sure they assumed I was just heading up to the hills after class and wanted everyone to know about it in some fake effort to save time. We have decided to keep some flip-flops in our cars at all times to avoid situations like that in the future. But I suppose this was just the price we had to pay for the killer turns we got this morning. Peace. Edit to add: He did get that footage put together! Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaErTDBpezc. If you want to see the HD version (107mb) go here: http://www.pitonproductions.com/SkiingVids/Jan30HDV.wmv. I can be see making the few turns he got of me on film at around 1:50 just after Jer's turns.