I went out to the Lockett Meadow road, and there was still enough snow to at least go up a bit. I put together my pack and threw my skins on, and started up following this snowmobile track. Used that to get up past the locked gate, and then just went up the road itself. It took me about 5 minutes for my foot to start killing. I don't know whether it is just that the boots are new, or the new bindings, or the boots are just plain too small (maybe too narrow). Anyway... I stopped, sat on a rock and pulled them off, tried to loosen some of the laces a bit on the inside and out. After putting them back on it seemed a little bit better.
Back onto my skis and onward up the road. When I got to the first sharp right turn, I noticed a little bit of a problem... there was no longer snow on the road up there. This caused a dilemma... I was trying to get to Lockett Meadow which was W-SW of me, and the dirt road goes around this hill North then West then South... so the shortest path as the crow flies would be straight over the mountain. And right where I was, there was a gully that had good snow right in that direction. So I decided to try to make my way up this.
Was pretty easy going at first, but then I had to work my way around a fallen tree... my first kick-turn (I think). As I got higher up the gully, it got steeper, so I had to start doing switchbacks instead of just going straight up. Then I got a little too aggressive with even the switchbacks, and managed to fall backwards a couple times, losing traction with my skins. After managing to extract myself from the snow a few times, and a lot of work... I got to a point where it seemed like I couldn't keep skinning... just got frustrated and decided to post hole up a bit. Got up to where it started to level off, and put my skis back on.
Now I was on top of this knoll kinda thing to the south of the mountain I was trying to get over, and to the north of this bigger mountain I wanted to skirt. But looking that direction, everything was melted and thickly forested. I went down and around a little to the northeast, but same deal there... didn't look promising for getting down that way... and I was probably too tired to continue all the way to the meadow anyway.
So, I said to hell with it, and un-split my board. I still haven't rigged a nice way to hold my poles (I got 2 piece telescopers when I probably should've gotten the 3 piece ones). So I just rode down holding them in both hands like a paddle. It was actually pretty fun going down the little gully, even though it wasn't terribly long vertically. Made a few jumping turns and busted through some branches, then back over that fallen tree, and I was back to the bottom of the gully and out onto the road. I managed to carry speed pretty well and rode just about all the way down to the gate. I was already pretty beat, so I just packed up and headed home. I think I was out about 1:40 total... which is not very long.
When I got home I fired up Google Earth to see how far I had gone... and it was a whopping .5 miles...haha. Took about 1:20-1:30 skinning up those .5 miles, and maybe 10 minutes riding back down :). Overall it was pretty fun, and I'm looking forward to going again, but I'm not sure when I'll have time really.
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