Tim, Gary and Dean
Tim and Dean
Our place more-or-less backs up to Ovando Mountain, and on a nice day in winter it's pretty hard to just look at it if you're a skiier. There are some pretty nice wide open slopes up there, if you can just get to them. It's about a six mile ski over to the base of the mountain from our place, assuming the river is frozen and you can get across it to start with.
But one of my neighbors, Dean Bennett, has a snow machine, which can shorten the time needed to get to the bottom of the mountain, and if you start from his place you don't have to cross the river. Dean was an Olympic class skiier and instructor for the Tenth Mountain Division. Another neighbor, Tim Swanberg, is a pretty mean skiier too. So one day in 2002 when it was cold and snowing, we decided the time was right.
We met at Dean's house at what seemed like an early enough hour, and zipped over to the base of the mountain. It was slightly overcast, which was good, but as we started up the mountain the sun started to break through.
Our side of the mountain faces south, so while the snow may be good when you go to bed or first get up, if the sun comes out it can turn to mush pretty quickly. It's a long slog to the top of the mountain, about 3000 vertical feet.
Unfortunately for us, the sun started poking through just as we headed up.
We made it about half way up the mountain, but it was getting pretty warm and the snow was turning to mush. So we turned around and skiied what we had. A good day, just to be outside with great companions in a big wonderful world... even if the skiing could have been better.