Thursday, May 7, 2009

Boulder on Wednesday, Seattle on the weekend (the weather, that is)

The tough thing about snow is that, even though you want it, you still need it to clear out so you can go have your adventures in the mountains. April's massive upslope storm in Boulder was great for filling in the routes (North Face of Longs skied several times), but there hasn't been a clear weekend for skiing them. A lot of folks are griping about every weekend in April (and the first one in May) being rainy/snowy. Still, I had one chance and made the most of it. I was in NY, looking at the weather forecast for the weekend back in CO. Thursday looked pretty good, before a system came in over the weekend. I called my buddy Jason, who is currently unemployed and game for anything, and we hatched a plan to ski Shit for Brains. I had spotted a line to gaper's left of S4B that would go with all the snow blessings of late, making west-facing lines like this possible:
Jason drove my truck to the airport, met me at 11am and we headed straight up to Loveland Pass. I changed in the parking lot and we headed out to the line, me savoring the adventure I was about to drop into with only a line drawn on a picture as a guide, and Jason puckering at the exposed sections of steep snow and rock scrambling just before S4B. Jason also descended the S4B by himself, which made me extra proud of my little billy goat pal. The next day, rain and snow came to the mountains. Without Jason motivating to get his butt in gear, get my gear to the airport and coordinate for a DIA to S4B commute, it would not have happened. It was a great day out, made possible by commitment, planning and thorough execution

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