I think it’s been over a month since it started snowing, actually.  Maybe one 24 hour period in there someplace without snow.  Sure not much sun, I’ll tell you that.

Touring today with Wendy (below) and Leatherface (above).  A freekin’ comedy of errors, this one.  If we were awarding P cards ( a Sterling Lorence thing where you get awarded points for flailing), then Gary is the all time champ.  We’ll start with the climb up, where he’s already crying about the route choice.  It’s a more direct line over the top, you get a run, with the only downside being an extra 15 minutes of pretty steep uphill. 

It was worth it to me.   Couldn’t see shit from the top, but we still got a good 20 powder turns in on run #1.   Gap on the tail of the group on lap 1?  25 minutes.

So we went down along the ridge looking for some runs of the east end of the spur.  I could see where we wanted to go, but Gary got confused and insisted that we bear right.  No worries, as it was warming a lot and we didn’t really need to be on any major slide paths today.  Tele Tom agreed, and laid down some nice old school style.

Wendell and one cool dead tree.

More style from Tom.

It was at about this point that Gary decided to ski right past us.  We were standing on the traverse track to get out, and yelled repeatedly, but he kept going.  It took about 30 minutes for him to extricate from the tight trees below.

We kept ourselves amused by skiing this puglike meadow.  We’re about 3000’ below where we started, so it was getting sort of thick.  Nice, so long as nobody else had been down, but heavey.

Check out those pinwheels.

Gary decided to put a few of his own down while Wendell forged ahead.  We’d taken so long that he was worried about being late for work.

Looks almost like he’s tele-ing, doesn’t it?

Yup, that left foot is definitely dragging.  But he’s on AT gear? What gives?

Oh right, you gotta take BOTH skins off.

Anyway, the snow was so sticky you really didn’t need the skins.  I went old school Mt Seymour style and power stepped on out of the Gulch, caught up to Wendell, and managed to hop the last lift up to the Heavens in time to get into some Scotch.

Which led to a visit to the old Volly Shack.  I leave you with some vintage artworks collected at the Shack.

Aerial Apex, circa 1964?

The legendary bathroom.

…and I’ll let you figure out what’s going on in these last two.

THAT’S gonna cost you.

At least a case of beer there.  Even worse when you’re the head of ski patrol, right Paul?

Well, that was my morning.  After noon, I went for a fast lap out of bounds with Julie.

She was a bit nervous about heading out on a big ski trip that included Roger’s Pass, so she asked if I could go out for some runs with her and help her find her groove.

I think she’ll be OK.

Our apres ski scene, in another blizzard.

…and 15 minutes later, it’s clear and we’re scoping our lines from earlier in the day. 

I love this place.