Me and this Winter are best buds

Just keeps getting better.  I am getting pretty deep into the red as far as the lead level in my legs but it is hard to care right now.  This is one of those seasons well be talking about at least for the next few.

Took some vacay on Thurs to try and get some of the leftovers from Wednesday.  We found out that it was very windy up at Cannon during the event so a lot of the snow got blown around quite a bit and it wasn't quite as big of a day as we were hoping for.  But it was far from crap thats for sure.  We got into some of the easier reached lines and there were still some goods to be had.  Got a few runs over at Mittersill that were decent.

Here is a clip from one of our earlier runs in Snowmaker's:



Highlight of the day for sure were our two laps out to Stinger.  I had been jonesing to get out that way as I had not been off that side all season.  Snow over that way was the best we had found all day and we traversed over far enough on the lower pitch to find what ended up being one of my best runs this year.  I knew I really liked Stinger but I did not know I loved it.  Not sure what it was, maybe the new powder boards, maybe it was just the right amount of snow to float but not get bogged down, or maybe I just lucked out and found a good flowy line but that run was basically perfect.  East Coast tree skiing at its very best.

I believe Joe got some pics and vids, hopefully I can get some of that stuff up soon.

Saturday Joe and I were still a bit sluggish from our plethora of shred, Bill called it due to some issues with his back so we had to figure out how to best use our time and our heavy legs.  Obviously we decided to take a few warm up runs and then get seriously after it.  First order of business was finally acting on some beta I gathered two seasons ago...Bear Gut.

BG is a big scary line with some serious cliffs you need to be mindful of.  I had only hiked up the line in the off season so I knew where we needed to go but not what things looked like in the winter.  I knew how to avoid the big (30ft+) cliff band and I knew there was some "interesting" terrain just above those cliffs but I wasn't 100% sure what we were in for.  Turns out we were in for some sweet mandatory drops and some tight sketchy side slipping.  First hairy section was a fairly large 10(ish)ft drop with a slightly smaller 6-8ft option to skiers right.  We are pansies so we opted for the smaller but in retrospect I think throwing the bigger drop might actually be a tad safer due to a much more manageable landing.

 sussing...

and hucking 

We got through there without much issue, and by that I mean I booted out of a ski trying to scrub speed after landing, fell down slope a bit and came to rest with my head against a tree and then upon trying to get up, rolled over and fell head first and flipped off a 5ft rock.  Good thing the snow was DEEP.

standing next to my idiot trophy

 

We picked our way down some little mini drops and choke points and eventually popped out just below the cliff band to our reward...a well manicured double wide line with deep snow and plenty of sweet features to shred.  Towards the bottom the line chokes in a bit into a steep natural half pipe, probably some of the coolest stuff I have ever been on.  Again I think Joe has lots of pics and vids...coming soon.

 terrain was le'technical

 maybe next time you'll see an impact crater behind me?

no, no you will not.

Here is the bottom of the line:



We then immediately got on the Tram and went straight for Saddlesore, another line I haven't been on in years.  Its been getting decent traffic so the snow wasn't amazing but it has been cleaned up a bit in there since my last time and its riding great now.  I think it will have to enter our normal rotation more frequently especially right after some snow.

Joe and I were in the zone and decided we needed to continue increasing our local knowledge base and went after some lines easily visible from the Peabody and accessed via Bunny.  Not sure what those lines are called but our terrain awareness was (sort of) spot on and we found one of probably several lines in there.  It was decently fun and the snow was good but I'm not sure if it is a line I would want to go after frequently.  The out wasn't awesome and it wasn't really super easy to link more than one or two turns for basically the entire line.  But I'm glad we found it for no other reason than it verified that we are getting pretty good at terrain assessment and line finding.

aaaaaand now as I write this it is DUMPING out and I have to figure out if my legs are going to work for some more ridiculousness tomorrow...