1st ski of the year

Up and out at a leisurely pace today thank Dog as I was kinda worked from yesterday's tour and lack of sleep from our dog Fred's nightly steroid-induced activity. As we were having our coffee, i noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye and spotted a little juvenile bobcat headed uphill not more than 50 feet from our front door. He was so tiny compared to the other bobcats I've seen cross this property. So welcome to Siberian Valley Ranch little Bobby!

Heyride picked me up at 10 and we planned a shorter tour (or so we thought) just to the Trees of the Forest. I'm on the way to the tunnel, only a half hour from our respective houses (Yay, we live here!). The parking area was already packed, snowshoer's and dogs everywhere. As we navigated around the poop's and pee and 6-year-old snowshoer's trying to drop us, we had an urge to exit stage right. So, we did. Seemed innocuous enough at the time but soon we realized there wasn't as much snow up on this south-facing slope as would be desired to properly skin up it. Not two to turn around, we pushed on. Up thru the aspen and we suddenly were above where we should be and at the base of a rock wall of sorts. Skis off, and it was "mixed ski-bouldering" (aka. scrambling) to get up to the more continuous snow above the rocks. Skis back on and we were in unknown terrain and loving the new sights and route-finding challenges. Big old growth lodgepole that were sadly mostly dead due to the mountain pine beetle mixed in with the spruce and fir as we gained elevation. The trees were widely spaced on this SW-facing slope and I pulled out the GPS to mark a waypoint for a return trip once we get more snowfall. (Note to self: remember, there's some rock walls below these sweet trees!)

As we skinned higher and topped out enough to view the terrain, we realized we had taken a pretty serious detour and although going the right way, it was going to take us about an hour longer to get to the spot we were originally headed for than if we had stayed on the trail. Oh well, this way was way more fun than staying on the trail and there was no one to be seen but us pilots.

Once we found the trees we were looking to ski down, we were nicely surprised at the increase amount of snow that has covered up many of the sharp objects waiting to ruin one's ski bases. Still some out there, but MUCH less than two weeks ago. Three hours UP, one hour down. A mini epic of sorts and some new spots spotted that neither of us had been to before even though we've been skiing here for years!

Heyride's getting his AT on...first week or so on locked heels from tele and he's kickin ass!

Post ski carbo replacement. Bobble Jesus and the bless-ed TenFidy (it's empty).