An Unlikely Start to the ’11-’12 Season

By:  Allen
October 13, 2011



It was a chilly night, and I was very glad to have brought my puffy.


Let the ’11-’12 season begin!


The snow was a perfect for night skiing: soft, smooth, and consistent.


We’re so spoiled here, we don’t need much snow to start the new season, just enough to cover over last years snow.


On the way up to the snow all sorts of questions and doubts had been swirling in my head. Will this be as much fun as I remember? have I gone soft over the summer? will it be worth the hike? There is no feeling quite like the first few turns down the fresh powder where all those feelings and questions melt away into a sea of bliss.

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Read about the author:   Allen
Enjoy this TR? Read another: TR: The Labyrinth

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  6. Toast to the Season

14 Comments

  1. christian
    wrote on October 13th, 2011 at 8:52 pm  
    1

    wow. awesome headlamp streak shots! …and pow.

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  2. Sam
    wrote on October 13th, 2011 at 11:14 pm  
  3. Ben
    wrote on October 14th, 2011 at 12:38 am  
    3

    That looks awesome!!! Probably a good decision to play it safe w/ new snow, nighttime and big crevasses!

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  4. court
    wrote on October 14th, 2011 at 3:58 am  
  5. Harvey44
    wrote on October 14th, 2011 at 7:31 am  
    5

    Allen or Sam… how do you figure exposures in the dark?

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    • Sam
      wrote on October 14th, 2011 at 11:46 am  
      6

      short answer- trial and error. The light meters on our SLR’s tend to be pretty good at metering in low light though so there is a decent starting point. The focus is the more challenging problem.

  6. James Wells
    wrote on October 14th, 2011 at 12:16 pm  
    7

    Wow, I really love the moonlight shots. Day or night it’s one of the greatest places anywhere.

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  7. I'm_a_crappy_skier
    wrote on October 14th, 2011 at 4:27 pm  
  8. bushman
    wrote on October 15th, 2011 at 8:03 am  
    9

    thank you A&S for sharing. Pretty sketchy seeing that crevass, makde you pause and check out the route down as you hiked I’m sure, betcha didn’t have your “help, help, I’ve fallen in a crevass and can’t get up” buttons with you. Worth the risk no doubt. Many thousand moons ago this nut skied undermoonlight w/out headlamps on a thinly-treed slope; trees contrasting snow give depth perception that otherwise was blind for lack of light. What you guys did, even with the lamps, had to be a lot harder/sketchier than that, and phots make it appear much lighter than it was. nice opening runs with pics and story to start the season.

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  9. Allen
    wrote on October 15th, 2011 at 1:59 pm  
    10

    Honestly we just stopped when we started getting to the crevasses. We had glacier gear with us and I’m sure we could have gotten up through them but we decided that the ski down would have been too stressful. The snow on the way down was fantastically consistent which made the skiing very easy and the headlamps were really only for showing up in the pictures, since we don’t have a remote flash. On the drive up it was tempting to think we were going to go way up but once we got up there it was rather cold and also the middle of the night so we decided to keep it short and sweet. We didn’t get home until 6am even with the short ski.

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  10. Sam
    wrote on October 16th, 2011 at 4:24 am  
    11

    The further I get from this trip, the more surreal it feels. RE the crevasses, as allen said, we pretty much stopped at the danger, the drive home at 6am was WAY sketchier

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  11. Brian
    wrote on October 24th, 2011 at 1:34 pm  
    12

    Absolutely fantastic pictures!

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  12. jumpin jimmy
    wrote on October 27th, 2011 at 9:23 am  
    13

    just saw this cool TR and sweet night photos…Inspiring as usual, boys

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  13. whitewoodchuck
    wrote on October 29th, 2011 at 5:26 pm  
    14

    Just came across the TR – FKNgorgous!! Keep rackin up them fun points!

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