May 1, 2011, Front Range Colorado

Day 37
5.1.2011

Front Range, Colorado

5 am.  O'dark thirty and away we go... 

It is 14 degrees F with no wind.  2 degrees colder than yesterday.  But yesterday there was 4" - 8" of new and untracked powder on the drive into the parking lot.  Today only drifts across the asphalt.  But it is after all May.  May!  Ha!  I have my full-on winter regalia and my cold wax on the board.  May!  Ha!

I leave the lot and plod up the track from yesterday.  I can tell there was a small group who sampled the goods in the afternoon, otherwise, there are few signs of visitors.   

The snowpack is ENORMOUS.  200% of normal - so everything looks...well, smooth.  Fences are covered.  Trees are covered.  Everything looks lower than usual.   

Toward the top of my line, the reddish orange blaze of cloud-reflected sunlight splashes the snowscene around me.  As I climb, the colors change to pink and then to yellow.  I turn to face the sun as it crests over the plains, a narrow window of light under a thick blanket of clouds that blots the rest of the sky. 

Now is my time.  I drop the board, take nurishments of all kinds, and don my sunglasses.

It's been years since I've skied the Lost Trail, but today is the day.  I drop the upper bowl and dance down the boot deep powder, traversing into the secret line.

I find untracked powder all the way back to the car. 

May!  Ha!