Valhalla mountain touring
I woke up saturday to the alarm clock & a sore knee. As I lay in bed in the blackness I thought to myself "Cold snap is over & it's warm & wet" I crwled out of bed and looked at the thermometer, 0*C. I flipped on an outside light to see if it had snowed overnight, about 1" of new snow but raining. My knee does not lie.
I threw my shit in the truck and bolted. Figuring on an hour & 15 minutes drive I would get to the rendezvous 1 minute early. Nasty roads and fog slowed me to a crawl for too long anolg slocan lake. I arrived at the bottom of the road a little late but not bad. I unloaded my sled and took off up the road towards the cabin. The road was in fine shape as it gets driven by a snow cat weekly. About 15 minutes later at 80-90 kph I round the corner and see my buddy standing on the road. I pulled up beside him and proceeded to get stuck in the soft snow at the edge of the road.
A couple minutes later he was on the sled and we were away. A couple more kM & the the road became unpassable. At least it was for me with a bad passenger on the back of the sled. We parked, puffed & skinned away from the sled.
An hour & a half later we arrived at treeline. It's snowing like mad with flat light in the bowl above. Looking down at the steep trees it was a no brainer. We launched into our first run. Mmmmmmmmmm, some air, some face shots, no other tracks. Back to the top for another & another & another. The only tracks we saw were our own.
Down the road on the sled 2 km, hung a right and went 1 km up to the lodge Beers & nachos & it was time to leave.
Almost 3 hours later crawing at 30kph through slush and thick fog I arrived home. The fastest I drove on the way home was 100kph on my sled; the truck didn't get above about 85kph.
