Powder Sunday with the C Team

Yesterday the self-named "C Team" (Dave, Amber and I) went out for a ski tour/powder day in the "Middle Fork."  Avalanche danger was high due to weird weather we've had, but we promised ourselves we would be careful and pay attention and not take risks.  The snow we found was pretty stable except for a little fracture and it was perfect skiing.  There was a skintrack set already and we ran into the folks who set it (including a guy I know - how cool to run into people you know in the backcountry) -- they were doing laps on the mountain we went up once and skied down in powdery bliss.  However, getting up was frustrating as I was forced to learn kick-turns pretty quickly on the go.  At one point I informed Amber that "I just want off this mountain" which she found entertaining.  However, forced to do many more kick turns, suck it up and just keep going, I improved in a short period of time and gained confidence on the side of that silly mountain.  However, I didn't actually take pictures due to my level of "worked up-ness" which is a shame since it was so beautiful.  Dave took some and I lifted these from him.

Amber doing something



Amber doing her tele turns

My ski down and out was pretty ridiculous as I was fatigued after the emotional drain of kick-turn central.  However, it was still fun and a great powder run.  The sun was out and it was a beautiful day.  Getting all the way back to the car involved going through relatively tight trees on a slick skin track but I managed to make it home in one piece, though with a lot more bruises than I care to admit... all in all a fantastic day but I really need to improve every single aspect of my backcountry skiing.  Practice... Regardless, I got in 6 solid hours of "training" for Susitna :-)