Backcountry skiing: The first run of the year

Okay, I know I’m not going to win any photography awards for this one — aside from my inexplicably stunned expression and golden retriever Mona facing the wrong way, Peach (a yellow lab/golden mix) didn’t even care enough to pose. Heck, if either of them had opposable thumbs we might have got a better shot.

The important thing is that it was documented. After all, it was my first ski outing of the year, albeit an inauspicious one. As you can see, there’s not much snow at the old Bear Canyon ski hill. It’s second week of December, and Bridger Bowl’s still not opened.

When I was in Sonoma I bought a pair of really nice Volkl skis from the old Goodwill store for $17, having in mind moving my randonée (also known as alpine touring) bindings on to them. Which I did about a month ago, and I’ve been anxious to try them out ever since. Well, okay, not that anxious – there’s been snow on the hills for a while now, but I’m just getting around to it.

Anyway, I got my climbing skins (for the uninitiated, these are fabric sheaths affixed to the bottom of skis so that you can ski uphill – yes!) sized up with the shorter Volkl shaped skis, and I took them and Mary Anne and Craig’s dogs out to the Bear Canyon/New World Gulch trailhead. Going up wasn’t bad at all, although I was truly out of shape – huffing and puffing all the way up, and I didn’t even go up that far. Strangely, the snow seemed to be getting softer and more scarce the higher up I went, so I called it good about halfway up the hill, then bushwhacked (not easy to do with skis on!) across the hillside till I got to this, the main slope.

This is an old ski hill that isn’t really operational anymore, except for the occasional private chartering. There was only a few inches of soft snow on it, so getting down could hardly even be called skiing. It was ugly – I was paranoid about rocks, so I made big traverses, and then had barely enough speed to make a turn. Extremely inelegant, but somehow I made it down. The dogs had a great time chasing me down.

Hopefully we’ll get some real snow soon so I can do this sport properly!