Left early this morning by myself to skin up and take a run on baldy today. It was Wilde's rest day so she could tobaggan in Oliver. I drove up getting first tracks in. The van was the first car in the parking lot at 830. The locals are pretty relaxed given that it snowed all night. I guess first tracks happen at noon as much as any other time of day. I wanted to test out my skins for my main set of skis. So I headed up to the top of Sugar Lump in time to say good morning to the lifty as he opened the hut on top.
From there I blundered through the woods and up the glades wondering if enough skiers reached the area each season to scare off cougars. I didn't see any tracks bigger than a lot of rabbits and one other old ski track. I thought the ski track might be a good route to the ridge so I followed it for a while until a second thought arrived - what if the track actually headed out to some far off base camp on the next mountain?
So I doubled back and kept the lift in sight. Three hours after starting I took off the skins on the south ridge, checked in with home and then buckled down for some fresh tracks through the glades in another twenty minutes at the van again I called it a day. I did see two other skiers a boarder and one lifty on my adventure but bu must have missed a few since the parking lot was full (50 cars at least in the not to big lot). I won't edit since the screen is covered in snow and the track ball is wet now. Later Rod
While Wilde was getting a helmut at Sport Chek I popped in to Sport Junkies and found that they sell Coll Tex skins by the roll. Never having made up skins before didn't stop me from buying the clips and 80mm wide bulk skins. Now my favourite Telemark skis (The Atomic TMX) are set for climbing and the test run is complete.
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