Today I went skiing again. This time it was more than a few okay turns. My dad and I went up a forest service road on truck and snowmobile until we hit the microwave tower. The sun was out and it made me smile, all the rain in Pemberton has made my mood plummet. Being surrounded by white again was amazing. We brought my chocolate lab and she was almost as excited as me. Our first run was right from the sled, something that I wasn’t sure I liked because I would end the day with a hike. The first run was about 200 meters and not too steep (though much better than at Joffre). There was a layer of 25 centimeters of soft semi-fresh snow, under that a hard crust. It was awesome to be out there again. Once the terrain flattened out we headed to the top of a run called “Baked Fresh Daily”. This is a run that my dad had guided and it was much longer than our first. In the middle was a patch of trees, the top and bottom steeper than the middle. This felt like a real run, longer than 30 seconds. It felt endless, I was the happiest I had been in a very long time. We were then in a different mini-valley. We stopped when it became flat and prepared to climb up again. We reached a ridge and the light became flat. We stopped just under a small cliff and got ready for our last descent of the day. This run was shorter than the second but longer than the first. It was also steeper than both.
I started down and loved the grade of it with the conditions. Soon the light became too flat and my dad lead. Close to the bottom it became a bit steeper and my dad fell head over heels. I heard him laughing so I knew he was okay and joined in. It was funny to see his skis up in the air like that. At the bottom of the run I was joyful but sad because that was all the turns until next time. We went up to the top of “Baked Fresh Daily” and started down the ridge to our sled. Once at the microwave tower we loaded up our sled and started the descent. We saw that there had been one person come up and go down while we were skiing, we also saw that they should have removed their skis sooner. They would have scrapes to the core of their skis. We reached our truck and my dog fell asleep instantly. The drive down was filled with smiles from a successful day. When we were again surrounded by mud and cloud I was dreaming of our next adventure.