A Confession

People who know me pretty much expect to only see me in the mountains only on powder mornings. If there is no new snow, or still soft, untracked snow in the backcountry, I’m generally hitting the nordic trails, leaving my car happily in the garage, keeping my money out of the oil companies’ coffers.

This week I blame my youngest son for corrupting me. Monday’s windy weather curtailed his skiing and dashed his hopes for powder on his spring break from college. With no morning reports of fresh snow to motivate him to roll out of bed this week  I decided I wanted to see him at least get some more value out of his investment in his Targhee pass so I offered to go ski with him in the afternoons, allowing him time to prove he can still sleep half the day away.

Skiing in the afternoon in the sunshine! What a novel concept. It was actually fun! Monday’s impersonation of a snowstorm did smooth out the old snow and cover it with a nice little layer of very skier friendly sugar snow. Targhee’s broad Fred’s mountain was Mother Nature groomed to be soft and smooth everywhere. There was hardly a scrapping sound to be heard of steel edges on frozen snow even in the southfacing, sun gathering chutes.

Two days of playful sugar snow and one of nice corn have succeeded in rebooting my appreciation for snow surfaces other than powder. It’s hard to remember the last time I was one of the last people off a mountain at the end of the day, instead of one of the first on it in the morning. Old dogs don’t need to learn new tricks, we just need to remember how much more interesting life was when we were puppies and everything was to be explored.

Tags: backcountry, Grand Targhee, mountain weather, powder
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