Hi All, OK here we go. Winter is here, and my thoughts turn to back-country telemark. To me, its just the snow version of mountain biking. Same thing, different footwear. I could post my tele-adventures on some boring granola site, but I would rather do it here. So unless I get a huge ``don't post that snow-cra p here!'', I'm going to post some pics. The way I think of it, my posts are not about rad air, fancy parts, eXtreme stuff. Its about being there and doing it. That's all. Tuesday October 31, 2001, 6:15am: Aaron is at my door. The sky is a dark grey, and there are rumors that the snow has been dumping at Alta. The plan is to skin up Alta for some pre-season turns. The mountain is not open, but mother nature does not care. 6:45 am, and we are here

7:00 am and we are here

and by 8 am we are approaching the top of the run...

as you can see, we actually had a pretty big group! In fact, there were crazies all over the place seeking out some early season turns. In a month or so, this will be a groomed run with a zillion skiers. But this morning, it is all ours. Here's a shot of Karen at the last part of the time

And then after all that, we had one glorious run on white singletrack. Here's me trying to remember how to crank tele turns in knee deep pow-pow

Ok I think I remember...

And here's a shot of Karen making it look easy...

We were down at the bottom by 10, so that we could each scoot back to work and pretend that we didn't spend our morning in glorious Utahn powder. Hmmm.. Aaron and Karen aren't here... Sometimes it's best not to pretend.... cheers! g