We had a pretty decent dawn patrol this morning, the snow wasn't great but ill get to that later.
Coby, Petro, Wade and I were joined by Richard and his Friend visiting from BC. We met up at about 615 and got out hiking around 640. We went to Scotties because it was north facing and wind sheltered (mostly) and we were hoping that the super warm spring sun didn't totally bake that face. When we got there we noticed that it was far more skied out that we had previously thought. There is an out of bounds gate at snowbird that allows you to access scotties, its only open on moderate or low avy danger days which, it turns out, was yesterday. Oh well, We thought we would give it a shot anyway. As soon as we started up the climb Petro started having problems with his gear. His bindings kept popping off and he couldn't find purchase on his edges. After a few more vain attempts, He reluctantly turned around and went on a cruise....seriously. Some consolation prize.
Anyway. About the snow. so it was so icey that none of us was having an easy time getting up the hill, Coby least of all, due to skins that were too wide for his skis and trekker ski adapters instead of real touring bindings. Trekkers are great and all, they really are, but they kind of suck at side hilling or any actually difficult climbing.
Richard, who was leading our merry band, was only going to go up for an hour to save his legs for a half marathon he is running tomorrow, but like the addict he freely admits to being, he kept going just as long as the rest of us. The trouble was that since it took us so long to gain elevation we didn't actually get that high. Check the MAP to see for yourself.
Did we have a good time? yes we did. Was it worth it? always. Honestly, the snow in bounds would have been called pretty good...not great, maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10. There was enough good stuff to make it work, even if it was a 3 or 4 of 10 on the tour scale.
Hopefully there are a few pictures coming soon, in the meantime, enjoy the movie above. Its HD. Yup.
