Bluebird Pow Day

Yesterday was one of those really fun days in the mountains. It snowed 6 inches Sunday night, but high winds from the south, southwest, and west caused top and cross loading on several aspects. As a result, avalanche danger went up to high at treeline and in the alpine. So Steve, Phil, and I headed out to ski some mellow lines in the trees with plenty of pillows to throw ourselves off, while we played it safe. The views were outstanding, as the day was bluebird, and the pow was fresh.

Recently, Steve and I have been watching the fantastic ski movie "Ski Your Ass Off II." It's a movie filmed at Whitewater, the local ski hill, in the 80s and is probably the best ski movie I have ever seen. People going Mach 3 through tight trees, hucking themselves off of crazy cliffs, and all through deep, deep powder. If nothing else, it's a testament to how good the skiing is and the skiers are around Whitewater. Well, Steve and I decided to have a "Ski Your Ass Off" sort of day and plowed through as many tight trees as fast as we could and hucked ourselves off whatever we could find, without exposing ourselves to avalanche hazard of course. At the bottom of our second run we noticed this perfect pillow so we had to hit it. It tossed you into the air perfectly, and Steve and I both stomped our landings off of it first go. Ah, another great day in the Kootenays.

Here's me hitting that pillow.



Steve hitting the first of a three pillow drop line on our first run.