With the day off we decided to go explore a new part of our state. Andy arranged snow mobile rental and we left his house at 4:30AM Saturday. The sled was due back at 4:30PM so we figured we'd just head over, ski what we could and be done early. With no definite plan we decided on Red Castle as we were driving. Spotty Internet told us we'd be able to ride the sled in for about 8 mile and then we would need to skin another 8 flat miles. Given our 4:30 deadline we thought this might not be the wisest plan but were all psyched on the Castle so we decided to give it a go.
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| Andy embracing his redneck |
Turns out the 8 mile skin was more like 11 and it took a bit longer than anticipated. Once we were nearing our turn around time we realized wouldn't even make it to the base of the Castle if we wanted to get the sled back on time. We debated for a second and then Andy made the decision to just keep the machine and deal with late fees when the time came. This breathed a little life into the group but once we got a solid look at our lines our motivation wavered.
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| Option #1 |
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| Option #2 |
At this point we figured we might as well just head up have a look around and be happy we were in a new spot. The chute we decided to head up (option #2) was boney. Maybe enough snow for half a dozen turns. Being pessimistic at the moment my vote was to ski it and get the hell out. Luckily Andy had a little more vision and talked us into skiing a south facing aspect to the back side of Red Castle.
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| Andy |
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| Lars |
The skiing was great and once back there a whole new world of chutes and cliffs opened up. Apart from the snow mobile timeline, everyone had family obligations. Instead of staying all night we decided to just ski one of the lines and try to make it back at a reasonable hour. Four hours late is reasonable.
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| Lars in chute #2 |
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