Yesterday we decided to head into the backcountry, since the weather was supposed to be nice for a change.  And it was... sort of.  We planned to meet at the parking lot right by a Mine at 9 am.  I left at 7 because I-70 traffic sucks.  Somehow I made it there in an hour, and nobody else made it until 9:30.  Oh well.  While waiting, I took some photos of the mine.  I'm sure Myers could tell you all about what they mine here, but this is a skiing update.

So finally everyone made it, and we were off.  We had a pretty small crew, consisting of Chris and Steph Myers, Mike Broadbent, Josh Bishop, Nevill Wilder, and myself.  Schmitty and Ian were unavailable this weekend, so I ended up being the photographer.  Sorry if the shots aren't up to the usual standards.

Mike in some new Helly Hansen gear.

After Chris got Mike, Nevill and I up to a good spot, we dug a snow pit to check the layers while Chris went back for Josh and Steph.

Nevill gave it his approval, and then we talked to some slednecks who gave us their insider knowledge on the fun spots to hit.  They led Chris around on some gnarly terrain, and he ended up jumping a sick rock garden on his sled.

After that, Chris pulled us even higher, and found a good spot to ski some powder. 

We're really high up here.

And really cold

From here you can see where we started.

On Nevill's first line of the day he dropped in switch.

One by one, everyone dropped in for some super fun pow turns.

Mike's riding his custom pair of rockered P4's.  Sure looks fun.

And he loves to do tail butters on them.

After that we moved over to another slope and Chris and Steph did some tandem pow riding.

Then Bishop tried to air off this little cornice, which didn't go so well.

Then over to the left Nevill did this:

Bishop finally found all his gear, and continued on...

So Mike could get a shot

After that we made our way back to the trail, and started going down.  On our way down we found a jump so the guys decided to give it a shot.  Bishop was the first to hit it.  Here he is getting a feel for it.

After everyone got a feel for the jump, they went back up and threw some much more impressive airs.

Mike coming out of a backflip

Nevill mid rodeo 7.

Nevill is stoked he landed.

Then Bishop went a little too fast and went a lot higher than anyone expected.

Bishop cork 7.

Killing it this year.

After that we decided to call it a day.  If you get the chance, definitely go ski some pow, but be safe out there.  Big thanks to Chris for killing it on the sled and getting us up there.

GO SKIING!