at the time I wrote;
Last run of the day, as the light began to fail, I climbed a knoll on the divide a couple hundred yards inside the Wilderness Area, to find a snowmobile parked there and snowboard tracks heading out of sight towards the cliff band where I had seen some particularly reckless tracks the week prior on a bare minimum of snow. I sighed, rolling my eyes as I ripped skins, only to hear the sound of a sled approaching.
They motored right up and I was like, ‘hey guys, you realize you are in the Wilderness Area here? It’d be nice if you’d play by the rules. We work really hard to come ski here.’ and he said, ‘I got no time for that now. My buddy just broke his leg.’ and they grabbed the other sled and roared away.
Oh shit. Part way down my run I got to where I could look back up and saw where there were a few sleds congregated and I watched as they shuttled back up to the roadcut with a guy bundled up on the back, and slowly started down the road out.
I skied down the creek the few miles to the trail head without seeing any sleds, making it just at twilight and there was a beeler there looking like he was waiting anxiously, and I asked him if they were making it out o’kay. And he said that it was real slow going for them on the bumpy road. Poor guy was in a lot of pain. Sounds like he was having quite the epic. Scary. Gives me pause. I dont take these early season conditions lightly, and try hard to avoid that feeling of just rolling the dice. Sucks his number came up, hucking onto rocks.
Lowtide snowpack calls for a whole different approach, cautious and measured, but anymore folks only seem to have one speed, full on fat ski Gopro headlong charging, approaching terrain out of rote, with no consideration given to conditions.
The hippie wiggle is totally old school, never mind that it’s a relatively safe controlled mountaineers’ method of negotiating unknown terrain and conditions, tried and true, it’s just hopelessly out of fashion, too meager a rush, not sexy enough for their secondhand corporate stamped hero cosplay persona. sigh. Kids bring out the curmudgeon in me. Sure hope he’s ok
