How not to "ski" the backcountry!

The first skin up

We hit the backcountry again today, heading on a longer route around the back side of a few mountains that involved ski downs and skin ups, and then climbing up over a ridge and back into the resort on a run called "Poop Chutes".    It took us about 5 hours - in part because we didn't take the more traditional steeper or side-sloped routes to get there because I (Jodi) don't really like things like that,  and in part because....   well, let the photos tell the story:

Climbing up thru the notch

After a fall.   This is the actual scene right after one of my falls today:  both ski  noses buried straight in.   Hard crusty stuff on top of the snow makes turning hard,  and... um,  I'm not sure what happened after that....

Pretty view from the top of the Poop Chutes. Sunny up top but the village was down under those clouds all day.

How not to ski:   the ski run was quite steep, and really icy from what we later heard was 100km/h (60 mph) winds last night that turned the top layer crusty and icy.    After several falls and being too afraid to even try any more turns (ya know, your skis have to aim downhill to turn, and with the crust I just felt like I couldn't get them to turn to slow down again),  I did some "butt-sliding" down about 1000 vertical ft of the ski run, at times using my ski pole to dig into the snow as a brake to slow down.    This was definitely not the plan,  but got me down and was actually sort of fun.   Thank you to Chris who took my skis on his pack (again!).   Needless to say I probably won't be trying this run again

Butting down a hill takes quite a bit more time than skiing, so it was starting to get a little late by the time we were skiing back home through the resort.    We actually could see ok and we were on the really easy "green" beginner hill only a few minutes from the bottom, but a nice resort guy on a snowmobile offered a ride and I took it! 

This definately was not one of my prettiest days of skiing,  but I will say that the mountains are beautiful and the skinning (sort of like cross country skiing) was nice, the sun was out....  Tomorrow:  Jodi's taking a day off, and Chris and Ryan go do what they do - "not-butt-sliding" down some nice ski runs!