Day 23-24 -- 5/14-15/2011

WELL, THE WORLD WAS SUPPOSED TO END on May 21st, according to one evangelist's exhaustive decoding of the scriptures.  But for me, my ski season rapture happened over the weekend of May 14th and 15th, back with Brad in the Carson Pass area of the Northern Sierras.

[dogs allowed]

On Saturday we got to climb the eponymous Stevens Peak, dogs included, for a great plunge about 3,000 feet to the highway, with an preliminary lap thrown in on the ascent.
The second day arrived with a foot of new, light snow and the choice of many lines on either side of the highway.  But, poetically, we ended the day as I had begun it almost six months earlier -- in bounds at a ski area, taking advantage of the abandoned terrain with stilled chairs overhead and huge, untouched powder fields in every direction.

[the storms kept coming into June]

At the top of the liftline we got to ski the best lines at Kirkwood, then cruised back to the car, without ceremony, thinking surely that we would be back for at least one more trip or two before quitting on a season that didn't showed any signs of quitting on us.
But for me, the season was done, coming up short on my goal of 100k of vertical, though slightly exceeding my total of 70,000 feet from the previous season.
As I write this, it is almost 90 degrees with high humidity in New York City.  It's hard to say what the off-season will bring in terms of changes to my conditioning, ambitions, and access to the mountains, vastly reset with Brad moving far from our so convenient access to the Wasatch in Sandy, Utah.

[spring skiing -- not!!!!]

It was a truly amazing year, starting with unrelenting blasts of wind nearly every day that pushes back against every uphill stride, with the season finally settling into a stretch of voluptuous deep-falls of consistent powder, fresh and ever-renewing.  A record snowfall of 750 inches recorded at Snowbird.  And as the jewel of the season, the opportunity to shoot the steep channels of Mt. Superior, peak to highway.
All I know is that just this past week, while working on a writing project, I found myself drifting to Backcountry.com, browsing the overstock and off-season deals.  All I can say is that those Dynafit Stokes look like one fine ride.

Days' Vertical: 5,800                                                Season to Date: 72,300