2017 - September ski - we're not proud, we hit St. Mary's again

Our ski oracle said to rejoice - new snow had already hit the Northern Rockies and even graced Steamboat and A-Basin with some skiable (for us) snow. Our oracle said: wait and yee shall be rewarded with convenient, though, thin, fresh pow. Believe! Have faith!

HA! Our oracle is always saying things like that. We know it's always better to not wait until the end of the month and stress over what's supposed to be a fun outing. We took a school holiday and tagged our September ski at St. Mary's Glacier. Again. When you're hungry, even a fast-food burger tastes good and St. Mary's did not disappoint: lumpy and dirty on a lovely warm Fall day. Bonus: Fall colors!

our new BFF secret parking spot

we ski up the gully around the corner

We had a great ski.

The drive back, however, was just horribly, painfully, slow owing to a car ahead of us on 93 bursting into flames. Road closed. Go back, go around Rocky Flats (we were almost to 128 - it would have save an hour), wait in line at every light. Countless light cycles before getting to turn...ouch!

2017 August ski - St. Mary's Glacier once again provides

A ski rack on the car in August — we're legit.

it was busy

I imagine that if St. Mary's Glacier had a voice it would sound like Quasimodo: "Do you find me REPULSIVE?"

pleasant skiing

N is loving it!

T hams it up with a slushy last slide in

Put a fork in it! August, done, uuh!

September Ski - done!

Technically speaking, this was probably the worst "snow" I've ever skied. I'm not saying it couldn't have been worse. Frozen solid, it would have been so much worse, even dangerous. And I'm not saying it was the roughest snow I've ever seen — some "snow" above Tunemaha lake in the Sierra takes that honor (1986, horribly worse: hard frozen, bathtub sized suncups with wickedly sharp rims). But these were memorable...

Despite snow in the forecast for the weekend, we had to take our shot at our September ski before heading out on a raft trip. Like a fast-food burger, Saint Mary's Glacier wasn't particularly tasty but it was quick.

We leaf-peeped on the drive in. Fall River Road had great Fall colors.

TWO mine openings I never noticed before

By far the best way I've found to carry skis in wooded terrain:

my favorite way to carry skis in wooded areas: Voilé strap + biner. it keeps the tips out of the trees and away from your heels and calfs. the one downside is that you do have to keep a hand on them so they don't wag. using 2 biners separated can solve that but for short hikes like this one, why bother

balance is important

a balancing trick: angle the strap and catch the strap on either side of the binding hinges.

up the Elevator. at first N didn't want the poles shortened...

kinnikinnick

really lovely. carrying O, the Boba proved its worth once again

St. Mary's glacier greeted us a little further up the hill than last month. and boy was it worse for wear.

panorama of St. Mary's Glacier. we ski up toward that v on the upper right

How rough was it? Let's try something different: look at the photo below with crossed eyes. Make it so there is one overlapped image in the middle. Voilá: 3D view! Did it work for you? It's a little exaggerated but it gives you some idea of how rough the snow was.

look at this photo with crossed eyes. make it so there is one overlapped image in the middle. voilá: 3D view! did it work for you? iIt's a little exaggerated but it gives you some idea of how rough the snow was. those are pretty dang deep runnels there!

the Lucky Bums + skins made it easy to get around. these poles are the beefy helinox GL145 - just 15.8 oz/pair (448g/pair)

O gets his September ski. note that the Helinox poles actually adjust small enough. their adjustment mechanism is so easy that we adjust the poles all the time and they never slip

T! I tried the digital zoom for the photo - ugh!

And so another notch in the belt...

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)