Skiing at least once a month, year-round, really makes you grateful for Winter. No matter how skimpy or late or icy or crusty a Winter season's snow might be, it's WAY better than late Summer "snow." Whoo-boy can it get bad!

Still, it gets us out.

We called on MAX, our '98 Toyota 4Runner (256k) to get us to a trailhead less traveled.

When we go to St. Mary's Glacier we park in a secret location and take a route that I call the "Elevator" up to the snow.  It's peaceful and quiet, has few boulders and no dog poop or broken glass. note the way the skis are carried: there's a single Voilé strap around the bindings with a carabiner holding it on the pack. this is a great way to carry skis when there're a lot of trees to go under. I've never seen anyone else carry skis like this so I'm going to claim first-inventor dibs on it

the Elevator is a charming little path. this is one of the few leisurely sections. some of our favorite hiking gear: Boba kid carrier, Patagonia puffy jacket, OR puffy hat, ThinkTank camera bag (Mirrorless Mover 25i),  Helinox adjustable poles

At Saint Mary's "glacier" most of the skiing is above and out of sight. For steeps one could ski the bottom edges but it's rough, icy, and if you fall you will get very hurt (at the least). So we stay above. It's always better to live to ski another day...plus that's where we can bring the kids, of course.

icy lumpy goodness looms behind us 

It's a short trip but you can see the gear piles up quickly.

N hangs out (in a Chair Zero, of course) while O explores. Behold our pile of ski equipment goodness: thrashed Black Diamond Kilowatts and Joules (way behind the performance of modern skis but solid performers), Scarpa T2 and T2X boots (still THE tele boots I recommend; their flax ergonomics are exceptional), Helinox poles (ultralight and have a fantastic adjustment system). kids got whatever we found that was small enough. looks like the Lucky Bums skis (the little wood ones) are almost ready for hanging on the wall. the white pack is a custom Spectra pack I made for my 1996 Denali trip while I was at Kelty. lightweight, huge and handy - just how I like my packs. lest I forget to mention: the best wax for Summer snow is red glide wax ironed in and thoroughly scraped clean

I thought to myself: hey this isn't so bad this year...

we use the Boulder Ski Deals trade-in program for N's ski gear

...spoke too soon. the sun-cupped roughness of it all is one of Summer skiing's great joys. dirt that can stop your skis dead is another. together, they let us cross off yet another August ski. teamwork!

a connoisseur's take on this year's dirt: less sandy than usual, making this a more supple, smoother vintage. strong notes of detritus from the tundra above dominate the visual palette but the spatial multi wavelength character of the the suncups and ruts kept one's attention. the verdict: we've skied worse

oddly enough, conditions were like rail-riding in a terrain park; first one way, then the other

T: "what the hell was that?"

N get's a spin (no pics of O doing his obligatorys) 

Our tallies of months-in-a-row skiing:
M: 371
T: 59

We still need to sit down and figure our sons' official tallies. They're going to look something like this:
N: XX (+ X carried + 9 in utero)
O: X (+ X carried + 9 in utero)