So I broke my promise, but let's be honest. I'm ok with it, and so are you.

After one of my longest fun-droughts ever, getting a flat tire, and working full time at a real job, I was pretty sure the apocalypse was actually just around the corner.

Despite these conditions, morale was high, and there was just enough snow to convince us to strap the skis and snowboard to our backs and begin hiking up. That's when we discovered we were way out of shape.

Fun-droughts will do that to you. At some point we started questioning whether the shredding would be worth the hike, and I think that's something we always do, but this time was way worse. We were hiking in t-shirts and still sweating, and the snow was crunchier than the girls in the Rubenstein School at UVM. Not a good sign...

Then again, maybe I was the only one focused enough on the snow to worry about the hiking.

After several breaks and much complaining, we reached the top, which isn't actually the top. An extra 5 minutes of hiking along the ridge followed before we finally switched over to descend mode. That's kind of like when Optimus Prime transforms, except less noisy, quickly, and not cool at all. After nearly descending into super dense spruce hell, we cut out into some open glades and had a generally fantastic time.

Since the slope was north facing, the snow was significantly less crunchy, and in some cases even powdery.

There was a heavy (if thin) base beneath the fluffy stuff that kept things covered well enough, and I didn't even fall. Well, not on my first lap. Stepping into the backcountry in uh, variable snow conditions is always a little sketchy, at least for me, since I'm not any of these people. I took a few diggers on the second lap, but nothing consequential.

After a long hike back to the top, we began hiking along the ridge towards our initial trail up, but soon realized we were very, very far away.

I'm not exactly sure how we did it, but things got very strange, very quickly

Taylor saved the day, spotting a nice cut line that we followed down straight to the cars. And by straight I mean traversing for a long ways and then kind of zig zagging for a while. The snow was super fast, crusty, and hard to carve into. There were also bare spots, which are not to be confused with bear spots.

"Guys, I spotted Bear Grylls and he's drinking his own.. Don't make eye contact!"

So overall, conditions weren't great, but I'm just glad I made it out this winter with some good friends.
(Even if my snowboard's base hates me for it)


Shred on my friends!