BACKCOUNTRY SKIING

Went up to the St Marys area backcountry skiing with Mike, Hana, and Jeff.  Had a great time but showed my age when it come to skinning up the mountain.  Oh, to have young legs and lungs again.  They were very patient waiting for the old guy to catch up.  Mike is not that much younger than I am, but in much better shape for climbing.  We got to ski some great powder, mostly tree skiing, and the powder was really sweet in there.  Mike has an old 1955 "Sno-cat" that he uses to go up to the trailhead.  What a treat it was to ride in that machine.  It was used by the soil conservation service for many years.  Anyway, sure had a great time and will be putting the skins on in the future.  As we talked about while taking a break, it is so much better up there skiing than skiing groomers at a ski resort.

The sno-cat warming up (the exhaust fog gives you an idea how cold it was).  Carries your gear and some people in the back and the skis on top.

Skinning up to ski back down - we skinned up to this area twice.  A lot of the skiing was in trees like this.

Hanna taking in the views.

This is where we started skiing back down.  St Marys Peak in the background, but you can't see the lookout because of the blowing snow.  It was 8 degrees above with a pretty good wind so the wind chill was quite cold.

A must have item (GPS) when skiing through the trees and trying to find the sno-cat at the bottom.

Some of the trees were a little tight.

If you click to enlarge, you can see Hanna and Jeff's tracks down the middle of this boulder glade.