New Year’s Day 2015 Ski Tour

View back up our playground. Carly and I made the two rightmost tracks. Adam and Stephie the matching turns in the center.

January 1, 2015

Today Carly and I headed out for a tour with Adam from work and his girlfriend, Stephie. We headed to Porter Fork off of Millcreek Canyon, a place none of us had visited before. The weather was bluebird but cold, similar to the last day Carly and I went out. We got a good start for New Year’s Day, leaving my house around 9:15. The first leg of the skin was easy and up a road that has had some snowmobile traffic. The second section was a bit more technical and primarily involved Adam breaking trail to gain a ridge below Gobbler’s Knob which we figured was Cabin Run. Carly and I were tuckered from the 5 mile and almost 3900 foot skin so we dropped in a little farther down the face than Adam and Stephie.

The snow was pretty good. Not quite as soft as the last day we were out, but still pretty good in spots. There was a bit of a sun crust in spots so it required a little more backseat style. I have to say that during those turns down untracked snow makes all the time spent getting there go away. The next section brought us through some great trees, nicely spaced and good snow. At the bottom of the trees we entered the survival ski portion of the tour. Pole Canyon was a heinous death march through bushes and downed trees across the drainage. Definitely the worst ski out I’ve had as in addition to the schwack it also had a couple steep sections that were a bit technical. We eventually all persevered and made it back to the snowmobile road and out to the car 5 hours and 45 minutes after we started. Garmin track here.