"Were Just Gonna Take a Short Cut Guys"

says jim...........


Smooth sailin after that little grunt- i think he was just checking the fitness and to see what his climbing mates had in the tank.

Nice gentle climb in the trees- calm morning.......too calm


Once out of the bowl and across the edge of the lake and the recent avalanche deposits. We lifted the risers again and began the climb.......Jim and his dog(bad memory forgot his name) kept the pace and waited on their companions. Noting mark

This is the point where the wind turned down right brutal- and you'd better not have any skin exposed. I had forgot a couple key items today that would have my skin screaming a bit later. My layers were spot on wool base, wool biking jersey, and my REI Element shell, gloves flylow. My face however only had my jacket zipped up- no balaclava!


Todd emerging from the winds.



IT was somewhere near this point that we were at our time limit and getting down safely and making it back to denver- since we were out with the coach- it would be bad if he did not make it back to the game on time.

We drove our skis into the snow carefully stripping skins and tightening up for our survival turns back down. Along came another BIG gust that knocked 3 grown men down to the snow- just to reassure us who is really in charge on the mountain. One of my skis flipped over and made two rolls and luckily did not take a one way path down the mountain! Todd had a slight hitch with his binding and was forced to nurse it back down the mountain. i made two pretty shitty turns with a slight bent knee and went down pretty hard as i gained speed and bounced off the hard snow i self arrested with one pole and manged to stop myself. whew that could have been bad.


more survival turns with windcrusted snow and bad lighting- threw in two turns with a dropped knee and snow got worse- ok alpine turns arent so bad!



This was the last skiable area with somewhat soft snow so we went down one by one staying off the steeper slope to the skiers right. I chose to "get my money's worth" and linked up some tighter turns (far right in pic) and we are back down to the main trail that had been groomed by the snowshoers out on a beautiful morning.


Back down to safety of the trees and the warm sun. Was it really as brutal as it felt- did i only slide for maybe 10 feet. Not sure but this was a tough morning and experiences like this reassure me of why i am alive and the beauty god surrounds us with.

To Jim it is a typical Saturday morning going to james peak as he casually mentions each weekend.........