Cats, snow, and lots of sun.

I made it back from cat skiing this last weekend. We left late Wednesday evening, much to my :[, and finally pulled into the house we rented at about 11:30pm. It was a nice old house really close to the resort and was cozy. We all got up early the next morning and I made a point of getting to the shower right away. After everyone was ready we all piled into the truck and headed up the mountain. As we bounded down the road we came across several massive bumps(frost heaves) that literally bounced the truck. Those slowed our fearless driver(my sister) down a bit, but we continued on.

The day was already pretty sunny and the road was good on the drive up, making it easy for us to get up to the resort in good time, but we were still a bit later than I'd have liked. We all piled out of the truck and began gearing up. Some of us went to the back of the truck only to discover that the tailgate was down; it had probably been down since we first hit the frost heaves. As we began to unload our gear we quickly realized that one of the ski's was missing. There was a bit of a panic and all of us grabbed our gear so my sister could take the truck back to see if the missing ski could be found. We asked a few people that drove up if they had seen one, but they hadn't.

While we were in the lodge getting our breakfast and generally getting ready, I was fretting over us actually getting out on the cat in time. We had already been later than I'd have liked and with part of the group off searching for a ski, there was no telling how long that was going to take. I was anxious to get on the Cat, and as the departure time approached I headed down to sit in it. There were a couple other people, not from our group, already in the cat, and I just grabbed a seat thinking how aggravated they must feel having to wait for us. The operator didn't actually wait that long and pretty soon most of us were in the cat, apart from the 3 who went after the ski, so we started out.

I was surprised at how slow the cat actually was. I guess I was expecting something pretty speedy, like a snowmobile. I was wrong about that. It was faster than walking, and did cover ground pretty fast, but just not what I was expecting. We go to the top of the mountain when the call came in that the ski had been found and they were on their way up. the decision was made to wait for one of them there. Kev, rode up on a snowmobile, with his missing ski, and we took off, still missing two people.

When the cat got to the first drop off point we all got out and got ready. The left us there to go to the first pick up point and we all kind of milled about as we waited for the last couple of people who were being brought up on snowmobiles. Finally we got our first run in. Unfortunately the weather had not given us any new snow for several days. The snow was mostly untracked, but it was also crusted in some places, hard in others, but also there were some powder stashes. The first run was decent, I stayed close to the trees to try and get more of the softer snow, and we came out right at the cat. It was a decent run and everyone was good skiers, so that made it a good experience.

Unfortunately there were no real epic runs in this instance, but the sun shown for the whole day, so it soften up the snow a bit and we covered quite a bit of ground. With such a sunny day it made it a really nice time, and I see a lot of potential for skiing like that, but, considering the speed of the cat, I think it would be best to do an over night in the back country with a cat pick-up so you end up skiing for a couple of days...

It was a good trip and I'll do it again, I hope! A big thanks to my sister for the invite!
Best,
Adam