Todays ski was awesome. Everything about it.

I rolled into the Aspen Grove parking lot a little bit before noon and started skinning up towards Bob’s. I wasn’t sure what I was going to ski today. My plan was to get a feel for stability while I was out, and make decisions from there.

I started with skiing the East face off of Bob’s, on the more northern side. Several people had skied here, at least that was how it looked. But once I was at the top, I realized that they were actually tracks from the weekend, and it snowed 6 to 8 inches last night, so there was still a lot of fresh on them.

My first lap was fun, but the snow had been affected by the sun and wind and so I tried the North ridge on Bob’s. It was my first time skiing all the down the North side, and it was really fun! the snow as soft, and deep and made for some really great skiing!

Then I transitioned and headed to the top of Betty’s bump to ski the North East face. A few people had been up there, but it was the best run yet. From there I could also get a good look into the UFO bowls. They were probably the most beautiful I have ever seen them. They’re long, consistent, and majestic. And they were wide open. Like a blank canvas screaming to be painted, I couldn’t resist.

After the fun skiing down the NE fast of Betty’s I headed to go ski the lower part of UFO 2. I would have loved to go to the top, but with the current conditions, I thought it would be smarter to just ski the lower part which is all low angle. It has been a couple of months since I’ve been in the UFO’s and it’s unbelievable how much is covered. We skied it a lot early this season, but now it was completely filled in, in a way that I’ve never seen before.

I had to break trail from the top of Bob’s into the UFO’s, which was easier than I thought it would be considering the deep heavy snow. It was really satisfying to put a super clean long line down UFO 2. I felt like a human sized paint brush. Usually snowmobiles would have been up in there, so that was pretty special too. One single track. Beautiful.

When I got to the bottom there was a group of three breaking trail up the UFO 3 ridge, and I had about 30 more minutes I could ski, so I started hiking up. The progress was quick with a nice skin track, so I was able to make it about halfway up, before transitioning for another fantastic lap. Also, a wide open first track in a big area.

I felt like a true back country skier today. Today was how I imagined backcountry skiing would be when I first got into it six years ago. Endless terrain, with endless powder. Setting first tracks in big beautiful areas.

From the bottom of the UFO’s it’s a quick skin back up and over to Betty’s to ski the North East face again. It was so great.

I loaded up and started heading down to try to make it on time to my 5:00 class. I was on track, but then a little below Sundance the traffic was stopped due to an Avalanche. A plow was clearing the road from a slide that had completely covered it. And while we were sitting there waiting another slide came down and covered the entire uphill lane right next to my car almost hitting me. Had it been just a little bigger I would’ve been caught in my first avalanche!! In my car, haha!

Who knew that the most dangerous avalanche danger was while driving? It’s not actually, but maybe that’s what I’ll tell my Mom ;). If you read this Mom, I love you!