... and so it begins, 2018

Well, after a short fall I guess ski season is here.  I don't remember a good early season in years, and if the snowpack can continue to grow without structural setbacks, we could be in for a very good year.

Bring it on, winter!

My first day out was a random day in October, but the motivation was more avoiding stressing an injured achilles than actually skiing.  We did the best we could with the day, skiing five Green Room runs in the Tobacco Roots from a point a few hundred feet below the top due to avalanche danger.  Inge Perkins was killed in an avalanche the same day in the adjacent Madison range.  Thinking about her and Hayden's unreached potential as human beings and climbers is honestly too sad for me to contemplate.

Jeffrey walking to snow in the Tobacco Roots.

With reports of great skiing up high, Jeffrey and I bumbled around above Heart lake in the Great Burn in early November.  There wasn't as much snow as we had hoped for, and visibility was too poor to take any pictures, but we did manage five good runs off the Stateline directly above the lake.  The following day, Leah and I did an impromptu 10k vertcial foot relay ski at Snowbowl. I spent the morning skiing five very good powder LeVelle laps, and she closed out the day doing the same.

I took a day off work in mid-November and just hammered LeVelle laps at Snowbowl.  Mike Foote was kind enough to take a few morning laps at my all day pace, and Ned joined for three runs in the afternoon.  The day sort of of flowed by with ease, and I ended up taking eleven runs on LeVelle for over 13,000 vertical feet of climbing in just under 8 hours car to car.  It was a little silly to ski the same run so many times, but the skiing was good enough that Mike and I ended all of our runs giggling like little kids, and leaving was hard even after my legs were thoroughly thrashed from all of the uphill.  It has been my experience that just one or two long slogging days like this coupled with shorter intensity efforts are sufficient to be able to jump right into long ski tours and racing as the winter progresses.

Climb five of twelve.

Here's to a long, safe 2018 ski season...