Sometimes the back-up plan ain't so bad.

The Wife and I had grand plans to ski Arctic Valley yesterday with a bunch of friends.  Arctic Valley is closed during the week so Saturday would have been the first day open since all of our new snow from the past week.  Five of us were planning to ski, but by 8:15am two had bailed out.  By 8:30 another one canceled.  And around 8:35, The Wife mentioned that she had ordered a bunch of tomato plants that needed to be picked up around 10:30.  It was becoming painfully obvious that Arctic Valley was going to have to wait.

However, with recent snows and blue bird skies, my friend Evan and I got to talking and decided to meet up for an afternoon skin and ski.  The Wife was game, so, after she collected her plants, we all met up around 12:30 and were geared up at the trail head by 1:00.

We had to skin up a snowed-in road that was guarded by a young bull moose before getting to the real skin track.  Here's Evan leading the charge.

The Wife, after gaining around 2,000 of vertical.

Getting ready for the turn around.

The Wife and I.

Evan on the descent.

The Wife getting her turns in . . .

. . . and stoked back at the bottom.

We had skied down from a saddle just out of view to the right of peak in the back-center of the picture above.  The snow was variable, with some wind crust near the top, turning into three-day-old powder for the majority of the down, and cut-up powder near the bottom.  Pretty good day for having to settle for the back-up plan.