Mark Renson
New member
After botching a reservation at the bunkhouse, I decided to spend the night at the pullout at the top of App Gap in my bivy sack and new winter sleeping bag. I had a very pleasant and warm sleep last night. <BR> In the morning, up the Double I went and I was assigned to check the gnarly Gazelle with it's scratchy headwall. The snow was soft and the bumps were user friendly which all made for a great run. Afterwards, I was surprised to find patches of knee deep untracked in the right jug handle of Slalom Hill and also in a tree shot that Jay, OTH Mike and I cut a while back. Bumps everywhere were nice and soft - great skiing, especially off of the Double; good skier packed snow as I avoided the groomed stuff that I am afraid of. <BR> I made my way to the Single for sled training from the top. Down Fall Line's nice snow. On Creamery, it was my turn to man the tail and I was able to do so with much improvement over my first efforts from last year. <BR> On Lower Glade, it was my turn to run the sled. I grunted and strained, but passed the grade - Penny's training obviously has paid off for me. I <BR>was a bit fried from the training. <BR> After lunch, I ran into Ben Bloom. He had those Paradise eyes, but we changed aganda en route. My skiing was a bit ragged, but it was great adventure as we went down the middle of Stark Mountain, including a new woods shot and then finishing with a shot I had helped on. We darn near did the whole vertical hill out of bounds. Ben really ripped on telemark gear which is even more remarkable considering he has only been on 'em for a year. <BR> Next, we headed up The Single and Ben suggested *** *** ******** . I suggested doing a crusier to get there in order to save energy. It paid off as I felt much better in the chute. Ben found a great new (apparently new) variation to the left that he sampled. Near the bottom, Ben gets this idea and heads right where he proceeded to find a great untracked line. <BR> Green with envy, I did the obvious which was NOT to follow his tracks, but go for the equally fine line to the right, bagging the knee deep. We then <BR>shuffled to the right and was blown away by what we saw - a luscious obvious cut line with just a few faded tracks that we knew just had to <BR>originate way uphill. Ben had to leave and I was getting fried, so we left it on the "hit list". Some nice powder tracks were made before getting <BR>back on-piste. <BR> I went on a critical reconnaissance mission after Ben left. Carefully picking my way down the soft bumps, I was able to find it where I had never thought to have looked before .... I'm drooling. I even found another nasty steep elevator shot further downhill. <BR> End of day sweep was down Panther. The Patrol Director challenged me to sweep Periwinkle without any direction. I handled it with no problem, avoiding a 12-pack penalty, restoring my patrolling confidence.