Yesterday, local PRO SKIER/BIKER Mike Hopkins and I went for a late afternoon skin up Granite with Mike's aunt's new dog who's name is either Arrow, John, Paul, Ringo, George, or 2PAC.
After a fun skin up, periodically interupted by trekker related troubles, we arrived at the top of Main Run. Because of an inversion yesterday, Main Run, which we were planning on skiing had a delightful sun crust on it from about 1600m up so we looked on over the other side of Buffalo Ridge and decided to ski Short Squaw which was protected from the sun's harsh rays. With the sun already below the mountains, I started down the first window ahead of Mike and waited below the main steep pitch at a safe spot in the trees... Half an hour passed with no Mike, no 2PAC, and no sun. I knew that it would take a bit longer for Mike to get 2PAC to come down but apparently 2PAC straight up refused to run down to Mike, coercing him to bootpack a couple hundred feet of chest deep snow back up to 2PAC. Finally, Mike called down to me, telling me to keep on shredding and that he would take 2PAC down crusty, rocky Main Run. I got to the bottom after a couple minutes of skiing blind, in the dark on track packed, death cookied, creek riddled Long Squaw. 45 minutes later when it was pitch black... headlamp laden Mike and 2PAC showed up. Casual afternoon walk.
Sunset on Short Squaw - December 6th from Jeff Amantea on Vimeo.
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