Future Backcountry Efficianado

The other day Morgan called and asked "now that it almost summer, when are we going to start doing our morning hikes?" Well, Morg doesn't really like the cold, so he hasn't been coming along on our morning skis. But I know he would love it if he just got a good first experience skiing in the backcountry. So I tricked him. I said "sure thing Morg, lets go to a little hike called Patsey Marley"... hehehe. We got there and it actually took him awhile to figure out that he had been had. We loaded the skis on our backs and headed up Grizzly Gulch. We put the skis and skins on once we passed the cabins and Morg got his first lesson in skinning. The snow was still rock hard from the refreeze so it wasn't the best learning conditions. We nailed the approach without too much trouble and got to the bottom of the run when Morg asked "ok we are not going to climb that are we?" I just laughed and headed up the hill. Morg was a quick learner of the art of the kick-turn. As we switched up the run I was hoping that the sun would soften the snow, to my disappointment there was only about 2 inches of corn snow on top of rock-hard. Again, not the best conditions to be re-learning to down-hill ski (Morg is a boarder and hadn't been on skis in about 20 years.) However, between my excellent coaching (uhem) and Morg's natural ability we enjoyed not only the run down, but made the transition and had a second go. I think I may have done just enough to plant the good seed into another future backcountry efficianado.