Sunny and Empty

Me, with the Rock Garden to my right

Today I almost didn't ride. I woke up and thought about doing stupid things like laundry and errands. Then I remembered that I had recently skipped a few days that turned out to be amazing to accomplish the same tasks, so I ate breakfast and headed out.

I met up with Matt and Jeff and a few others from work who were testing boards. I took a fun, fast run with them, but as they were somewhat limited in what they could do by the testing, I decided to head out solo towards the Bench and see how the snow was in the woods.

For the first time that I can remember this season the traverse out was well filled in and fast. It was a breeze getting out to Angel Food. The snow was perfect for quick laps The wet foot that fell on Monday bonded with the ice below it and created a very manageable base. The snow was so nice, and the traffic was so thin, I decided to start exploring around Angel Food instead of heading out to the Planets. I consistently found untouched lines all day.

I took a handful of solo runs until Evan showed up around noon. I showed him some of the spots that were new to me, and we continued to do laps until 2 or so. Lured by the blue sky and bright sun, we then decided to head up to the Rock Garden. Another excellent choice.

It was sunny, clear, and almost windless at the top. When we were strapping in, we were a bit skeptical of our choice. It looked as though the Rock Garden had seen some traffic, and the first hundred feet were pretty manked up. 1/4 of the way down, we made the correct directional course change and found ourselves bombing wide-open and completely fresh snow.

We followed the traverse at the bottom out to the Kitchen Wall and down through the woods to Cliff Trail. I have never been a big fan of the Kitchen Wall, and this experience did nothing to change my opinion. After a few laps on the Quad, we headed to Piecasso and called it a day.














-Austin