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Our second day on the mountains comes as early as the first. Again we rejoice in blue skies, not a cloud to be seen. Today’s weather brings very warm temperatures, our guide informs us that this will create some dangerous circumstances in the backcountry. As he continues his warning, a slab of snow peels from a peak across the road from the heli-camp and down about a 1/4 mile. Silence overcomes everyone as all twenty or so people watch the river of snow tumble toward the valley. We later see that the snow comes right to the road, leaving a blocky, icy wall thirty feet high and two hundred feet in length, enough to bury anything in it’s path. We are very responsive at this point to the guides’ warnings, and his game plan for a mellow day. We spend a slower day, digging several pits, avoiding the sun and cruising slopes of enormous magnitude. We won’t salivate over anything steep today, so we devote our efforts to a bit of picturesque airtime. Six men with sticky powder can build one fatty ten-foot kicker in no time. The pro riders spend an hour catching hundred foot airs with multiple spins, flips and whatever comes out of the boarder bag of tricks. We ride until sunset and enjoy a hairy, fast, surreal ride back to camp by our excellent, and maybe crazy pilot. The warm evening holds more fun, good, well, ok beer and interesting tales of avalanches, cliff drops and what to do tomorrow. |