Cat Skiing

So i guess there is snow up here after all! Well there wasn't any doubt really!

Today i went cat skiing for the first time. There really isn't any way I can not rate that as my best ever turns on snow. The snow was deep and we got into some good terrain too. Some steep chutes, open steep faces, deep and steep trees and even some hucking!

We had a full cat and mostly they were skiers. There was one other snowboarder. Most of them would probably be faster than me although i was maybe about the same level as the snowboarder. There was also one Aussie dude there that was struggling with the pow but he only slowed the group down once, every other time we beat the cat to the bottom.

I sort of felt rushed a little all day, basically trying to keep up with everyone. It didn't matter once we were actually skiing but riding with good skiers will always give me that feeling since they are always ready before you and you are rushing to strap in and make sure you have a good run for whatever traversing you have to do. It didn't really impact much though.

The weather actually cleared up for us after initially looking like a white out. We had blue skys and great vis. It allowed us to track out some open faces whereas we otherwise woudl have been in the trees all the time.

Skiing open powder faces is so relaxing, i was going for big speedy turns rather than lots of little turns. Heaps of layback heelside "white room" turns. Most of my toeside turns usually ended up being setups for more heelside madness. I do recollect one toeside where I noticed a big roost, but you only get the faceshots on the heelside.

Since we had a big group i was crossing tracks every now and then but on the open faces especially you could find whole fresh sections.

A couple of runs really stand out. One of the first where we just all fanned out and I got 5 or 6 bouncy fresh turns. A really steep open powder face, the first few turns the guide was saying were probably 45 degrees but with all the pow it was no problem. And on of the last tree runs. The spacing was nice and the snow was really deep, amazing.

Also I probably did one of the biggest hucks I have done in a while. All the guys were rolling into this natural jump so I did too but carried in way more speed that I really wanted to and ended out launching huge. I landed but almost hit another guy who had wiped out. Crazy

So in the first two stops of the trip I've skied what might very possibly be the best days we'll get and succeeded in reaching the goals i set at the beginning of this thing. A job well done.

Heading to Big White tomorrow which will mean a change of gear, I'll be getting out the skis and trying to get some technique happening on the groomers.