Copper Mountain

It's been an awfully sparse snow year in Idaho.

I had hoped to do a lot of back country skiing this year. Not only do I love being out in the winter, but skiing has proven to be excellent therapy for my bad leg.

We skied Copper last weekend as well, but it looked like this time we might get some fresh snow. Sure enough!

Overnight, the area had received around 4" of fresh snow. It wasn't superlight powder, but it was untracked and soft. We pulled into the unplowed lot at about 8:30, skinned and packed, and headed out for an hour and a half plod up the mountain.

This was true spring weather: not too cold, and very changeable. One moment it was sunny, the next it was snowing hard. Really beautiful light as the sun and clouds played tag over the virgin slopes. Unfortunately, there was sage brush poking out of the snow on Copper's south face, leaving it unskiable. But the slopes below that had reasonable cover- as long as you paid attention to where the thin spots were. On the ridge we climbed, the sunny side was too thin to ski, and there were pine needles showing under the trees.

We made the most of what there was. And then we did it again. Here I link turns. The snow was so dreamy, and the light so flat, that I had a brief dizzy spell, sort of an out-of-body thing.

Cool! Let's do that again!

Bob the knuckle-dragger catches a little sun on his run.