My one day off

Today I had a day off of being on call. Unfortunately, that's not enough time to get home to the Mrs. in Minnesota. So I went skiing.

People here, ski-people that is, recommended that I go to Flat-top trail head and head up to the Powerline trail.

Today was the first time since I've owned a truck (1995) that I was frustrated by not having 4WD. I couldn't get up the hill to Flat-top with my front wheel drive Saturn. I tried 3 times, and after some scary slides back down the hill I chose to go elsewhere.

I wound up at the Upper Huffman trail head instead and skied to the powerline trail from there. Here is a shot looking back at Anchorage from some off trail skiing I did:

I ran into a snow-shoer and told him where I was going. He asked if I was a good skier. I said I thought so, but what made my route difficult? Turns out it's difficult to turn and slow down when you are back-country skiing through these forests:

So I developed a technique of getting down the hills amongst the trees: sit down. I became a human sled, or at least one with skinny skis underneath me. It was fun until I stretched my knee oddly standing back up.

It was really windy out of the trees. It made me wish I had brought my pair of choppers. My camel back line actually started to freeze up, so it must have been around 10F or less with the wind (versus 35F in the trees).

The wind was so strong that here are what's left of my tracks (sideways) after 30 minutes: