peak 4, 50 days

     So today random meetup person, Speedy Gonzales, 2 dogs and myself headed up peak 4 area for some spring skiing.  The weather was perfect.  We started a bit early to hit prime conditions, peaking out around 1:30pm.  The more shadowed sides of the gullies were still crusty as were the upper elevations.  The aspects with direct sun lower down were OK for softness though.  We ran that down and as we got lower......softer snow....alder dodging.....drift jumping.....I wanted to ski it all the way down to the creek and got a little carried away.  Nothing a bit of traversing and skinning can't fix though. 
     After fixing my over-zealousness for the good conditions lower down I reigned it in and headed back up for the gully off the back of peak 3.  Speedy and I headed up there, skinning up what would be some fabulous spring snow on the way down.  Random person hung behind and later got cut off by a group of black bears and turned back to the vehicle.  She was tired anyway.  We skied that run and didn't see any bears, but some doo-dodging was in order.  After that, we headed to the car to return to the real world obligations, savoring the high of the mornings' outing.  The parking lot was filling up, I was stoked for what they were about to do.  Ski on people, ski on.
     Today marks 50 backcountry days for me.  Despite the weak beginning to the winter, it has been great getting out so much.  It is crazy how therapeutic it is, how good I feel while out and after coming back, and how restless I get when I can't get out.  The season is not over for me, but will be soon.  I will likely call it after our Denali attempt and transition to running, biking, hiking, camping, etc.  I also won't be counting my ski days again.  It was just one of those things on my list, checked off, now on to the next.
     I gave Lucy some freezer-burned salmon tonight as a reward for putting in the miles with me this winter, especially the past 3 days. Note from the pic, people might start paying me to cut their dogs' hair.