It's hard to express how great it feels to be back into the winter season. Actions speak louder than words as my fellow ski partners and I have been trying to get out and enjoy it as much as we can and what a great week it has been. We had 3 waves of snow make their way across the state dropping over two feet in some places. A lot of wind came with it and the past couple of days the visibility has kept our tours short. Before this week we literally had no base besides some Northerly aspects so we have still been having to keep most of the skiing above treeline. By next week that will hopefully change as we are now starting to get a nice base in lower elevations.
The forecast for yesterday showed a break in the system for the first half of the day and so Gary Fondl and I decided to head to a local zone in the Gore in search of some fresh snow. Its always nice when you can drive 5 minutes from your house to the TH. Skinning from the truck we found ourselves grinning as we make our way through all the fresh new snow. Winter sure came fast.
We were just ahead of the third wave of snow and found ourselves in a perfect donut hole. The winds though kept ripping throughout the day with gusts up to 40mph.
A little over 4 hours from the TH we find ourselves on our summit and atop of our line. We didn't hang out up there long due to the howling winds and the next front nipping at our heels. A quick summit register sign-in and transition and we enjoyed over 1500ft of excellent turns.
As we made our way back down valley the everything got socked in and the flakes started falling. Great timing. We were able to ski/skin all the way back to the truck. It felt pretty damn good to put a decent day in again. 3000ft a day keeps the doctor away!