Day 52 - Thursday May 1 - Spring (?) Skiing

Things have been busy lately. I had my very last final of my undergraduate degree on Tuesday night. I quickly thereafter started a book I have been wanting to read for some time, The Zombie Survival Guide. I was offered a job doing marketing at Petzl America so today I went in to Voile early so I could take off in the afternoon to meet with Petzl. I knew my meeting wasn't going to take long, so I called Jer. Amidst all this business going on all around us, it could have been easy to neglect the snow storm that was happening right before our eyes. It is May. You don't pass up powder days in May. It is in the code. So I hurried back from my meeting with all my gear in the car. I had to wait for Jer a little at our meeting spot since he was running a little behind (not his first time running behind). It was about 3:30 when we began our drive up Little Cottonwood. Alta has been closed for a couple weeks now so it was the obvious answer to where to ski today. It is just so darn convenient. You just skin up and ski down. So we did it. We skinned up and our first descent was down Gunsight. The snow was a bit heavier than midseason, but just as much fun. There was at least 14" of new snow and we very rarely hit bottom while skiing. We met some dude out there by himself while skinning and he took his line while Jer was still fidgeting with his gear. I was a little worried that I wasn't going to remember how to ski since I have not done so since the 10th of April! I was relieved when I began my first line and my turns were totally sweet. Not only did I remember how to ski, but I felt really good. I was even getting face shots... in May! We skinned back up and took another line in that same bowl. This line was equally as good as the first. Seriously, though, this is what skiing in May should be like. We made one final ascent and then skied down all the way to the base of Alta. We would occasionally get thrown out of our turns on this line since there were a number of tracks we were crossing and we would catch that lower layer with our skis. This did not dampen our spirits, however. The skiing was great and it was a wonderful evening. It was different to see the sun go down as we were out as opposed to come up, but it was a nice change of pace. Skiing can still be done out there folks. Yes, and it can totally rock. On ski.