Back from the yurt. We made it a short trip to keep our wives happy or at least closer to happy that if we had been gone early Saturday to late Sunday. Oh yeah, I guess I have a super bowl party to go to, too.
Swam Saturday morning before the yurt trip. About 2,400 yards. Lots of breast-stroke, which I'm not a fan of but it's still swimming. So, the swim workout wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.
Home at 9:15 from swimming. Out the door to the yurt trip at 10:55.
AWESOME weather for the trip! Sunny and no wind. It was like a nice spring day instead of early February when it is normally blowing snow and cold and generally really crappy weather. Hike up to the top from the lift was good. Saw the guys who had the yurt the night before; thanked them ahead of time for shovelling all the snow that I thought (and was confirmed) probably hit the area in the last week or so.
Ski'd down with our packs on. I kept my pack light this time. Snow was ok, but there was still some rocky areas that we had to look out for, and this was at 7,500 - 8,000 ft! Beautiful day though!
We found the yurt, if only by following the tracks of the guys there the night before. Finding the yurt can always be tricky if you haven't been there before. The backup plan was to use a GPS, of course. No need for that this time.
We took a break and then climbed up to nearly the top of the mountain again for nice run in the afternoon. This was about 1,600 vertical feet. Not alot by some standards but a nice rise for sure. That took an hour. We took our time on the way down and got in some nice turns.
Dinner and relaxation, then night ops! We did four runs on a nice little stretch of open area. The 75% illumination from the moon lit the place up like the night time! Quite awesome, and that's what I love about yurting. Crisp and cold in the moonlight with nobody but the Yetis within many miles.
Sunday morning we woke up and got going right after 9:00am. I figured it would take one hour twenty minutes to get to the ridgeline 1,900 ft above us, and that's what it took me. The wind picked up near the top and cooled it off, but before that the early morning sun in the still air felt hot while skinning up the hill. Then we skied down through the trees to link up with the lift-served side, which we bombed down. My legs were fried when we got down. Cheeseburger and fries before heading home!
AWESOME skiing! Not as out of shape as I thought! Looking forward to a couple more yurt nights. I'm taking Paul to a yurt with cross-country skis in early March.