sunday we took off for a skin, an exploratory mission. it was overcast weather. there was going to be no new snow, no sunshine either. we skinned crunch and all the way up I wondered how painful the way down might be.

we reached the summit and the ridge in about four hours. slow, seeing that our passion was not driven by the thought of soft, smooth, fluffy powder turns.

we had scoped a north facing slope about 400 yards to our left and determined to ski it, we pushed on along the ridge until we found it. we dropped into the mist and after Ben disappeared I could hear him hooting somewhere a few, fifty yards below. I dropped into the trees and came out on a large meadow. I could hear Ben, but saw nothing. I glided along through amazing smooth powder turns to reach the bottom of the meadow. the snow was soft and quiet.

the amazing soft snow continued all the way to the bottom of the hill, all 1600 feet of it in the trees. mmmm. I was so happy to be out, wishing we had left earlier so we could do another lap! we were all taken back by the unexpected powder turns and were amazed by the ski hill we had just found.

Moose sticks to me like glue when we are skiing down. he whines a little too, but he keeps up just fine and is starting to learn to stay back from the skis when I am moving.