Backcountry Skiing

We decided to try our new skis out this weekend at Proctor and Ruud Mt. area. Daycare was offering a weekend ski day to watch Bridger. We decided for cost reasons we would backcountry ski this time. It was something that would be a new challenge and also an experience that we wanted to try.



The climb up was exerting, but actually went pretty well. It was about 45 min to an hour of constant climbing a steep grade. There was about 3' of base snow and every now and then we punched through and had to use extra energy climbing out. We wore our ski boots for the hike up- which if you know the way alpine boots feel walking for any kind of distance you can imagine what that is like. Once Holly was following Eric a little too closely. He feel backwards a little and the bottom edge of his ski hit her in the eye/cheek hard enough to knock her down and leave a mark. The brunt of the impact was luckily guarded by her sunglasses, which now has a mark in the middle of the lens and on the frame.





Once we made it to the top we had a picnic lunch right next to the world's first chair lift. The views were great, and it was exciting to see the distance and height that we had achieved.

As difficult as the climb up was, I think the ski down was more frustrating for us. There was so much powder that we had a lot of trouble keeping our skis from being buried under the snow. It was a slow time down. I know, we shouldn't complain about fresh powder or first tracks. Our bodies were already hurting from the climb and our legs were already tired, so trying to direct the skis in that amount of snow was challenging.

It was nice have the mountain to ourselves. If anyone was watching they would be amused at our pace down the mountain. We haven't skied in 4 years, so I think we were a little over enthusiastic about how easy it was going to be to jump back into skiing. I don't think our skills are quite what they were before. Hopefully we can regain muscle memory and skill in the next couple of weeks, because we are planning to go skiing on Baldy then. We have decided that backcountry skiing will be something we will not attempt again until we are more comfortable skiing. All in all it was definitely a memorable day and an achievement we are both proud of. :)