Backcountry

Christine, Kuzca and I went up to Cameron Pass with one of her coworkers for some backcountry skiing. I rented a pair of backcountry AT skis so I wouldn't have to fumble with a split board, and I must say it was kind of strange. First of all, I'm not used to have skis on in general, but what was really odd at first was having my feet only attached at the toes.
There were quite a few people up there, but compared to resort skiing on President's Day weekend, this was nothing. There were plenty of dogs too, a couple of which Kuzca decided to scuffle with. She has a bad habit of doing that these days. Eventually, we got to a spot on the trail where we could go a different direction than everyone else, and it seemed like nobody else went the way we chose. It was awesome. We did a couple runs through the trees in some really nice powder. Even my lameness on skis couldn't keep me from having fun in this stuff. Kuzca had a blast running behind us too. In the powder she sunk in and had to keep jumping/swimming out of the snow. That's a great way to tire out a dog. :)
On our way back to the car we skied down the same packed down trail we hiked up, but we were able to frequently sneak away in the trees for some more powder turns. I left the heels of my skis unlocked the whole way down and played with some telemark turns. It really stink, but it was kind of fun. It'd be fun to try that at a resort sometime on some nice wide green runs.
All in all, it was an awesome way to spend a Saturday. I think next year I'll skip the season resort pass and try to do some more backcountry stuff. There's less people, less traffic, and my dog can come along and have a smashing time.