When I got home from Jay, I dejectedly flopped down into my chair and started flipping through trip reports. I quickly found myself at the NY Ski Blog reading Harvey’s latest post on ski touring right outside his backdoor. And the thought occurred to me that I could keep reading about other people skiing or I could head outside my own backdoor and earn some turns myself. There was only an hour and a half of daylight left but I could just barely squeeze it in.

I quickly ran through the house and gathered up my touring gear. Much to my chagrin, I later discovered that I had been too hasty in gathering my gear. While applying my skins in the howling wind, I cried out in dismay as I realized that I had the wrong pair of skins! I applied a quick fix that worked and commenced skinning on skins that were 3cm short of full width coverage and 10cm short in the tail.

I skinned as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast at all. Light was already fading and I needed to move to keep warm due to the cold and wind. Thankfully, a skin track had already been set and up I went. This particular lost area is protractorly challenged so the skin lasts longer than the short 1400 vertical feet might suggest.

As I neared the summit, a fine pink alpenglow lit up the clouds. Light was fading and the wind was honking, so I made a quick transition and began the best part of tour: the down.

The lack of pitch and deep powder made for challenging skiing, especially when combined with the deteriorating condition of the lost area’s trails. Saplings varied from insignificant to taller than I am and they grew both in isolation and as a forest. I tried to find the steepest lines possible but the boot to knee deep powder made for slow going.

Happenstance would have it that the steepest lines coincided with were the saplings were the thickest. So I raised two poles and cross blocked vigorously while exclaiming verbal praise and approval for the deep and untracked powder.

Who would have thunk that I would drive four hours round trip for less than satisfactory skiing at Jay when superb boot to knee deep untracked was lurking in my own backyard. I’m reminded again to never cut your loses.

Thanks for the inspiration, Harv.