Battle Abbey 2010

I'm blessed to have an opportunity to get to such a special place from time to time, with such great friends. Attributes of this years Geriatric Telemark Society outing to the wilds outside of Golden, BC.

• No Snow! Well, aside from 3 meters on the ground. We got perhaps 10 centimeters of snow over the week. A pittance compared to normal, when we regularly get 10 cm overnight, with storms mixed in. So no bottomless pow..but
• We skied good places every day. Spring skiing. We hit the sunny slopes before they got baked and sun crusted. Saved some sweeeet northern aspects for later in the week. By the time our group of 14 got done, well just say that the folks that came in after us needed a big storm or lots of liquor and cards. We did leave them some wine.
• Touchy avalanche conditions. Thank goodness for guides. Multiple delicate sliding layers, the first at 30 cm. No aspect was immune. Lots of pits, stay on the gentler slopes (my specialty anyway) and keep your wits about you. We only had one run (with a  very limited runout) that was sliding, sliding, sliding. You could kick off a little slide at will. Kind of fun as long as it only gets a meter deep.
• Lots of comraderie, cribbage, acquire. Great food. Home-spun limericks.