November 8, 2013, Loveland Pass, Colorado

Day 4
11.08.13
Loveland Pass, Colorado

My first ride was a brand new (still temporary tags in the window) S60 Volvo, like mine, but the SUV version.
"Drives nice, huh?", the passenger in the front seat with the laptop said.
"Eh, needs a little more juice," the driver responded.
"Must be the T5, mine is the T6 and is the BOSS in the mountains," I confess.
"Yeah, that must be it," he conceeds.

***

I walk from the parking lot out along the barren hillside following the hanging snow walkway as it curves around the first step on the North Ridge.
Below, the shelf that you must skirt to get to the goods is a far, far distance, across a grassy rock-strewn slope, wind scoured from the 70 mph ridge winds.  
Ahead, the second step, a steeper, must-climb section, looks scalloped and wind drifty.  I see a nice ribbon of untracked down the central face.
I hike to the top...shuffle over to the snow drift, jump a few grassy sections...and rip 10 S turns down the untracked ribbon.
Around the corner I drop into The Tube.
It is boney, treacherous, and magnificently untracked as I bump and bounce my way down the siren slope, hooting with abandon.

***

My driver moved his bowl, bag of green and accouterment into the console so I could sit down.
Electronic trip hop poured from the speakers at volume 8.
"Getting a couple burns in at Abasin, between work," he says, and I think I see a side ways Mona Lisa grin.
It's 2:30 in the afternoon on a Friday.
"Nice," I say, grinning back.

***

I wrap around the traverse a little farther this time and jump in amongst the boulders and undulations of the lower section.  It's a hoot, sections drifted in from the fierce wind in strange skateboard park scenes.
I pull up at the white, untracked face.
Below, between a narrow alley of jagged rocks, is an untracked ribbon of snow.
What the hell?
I drop in...sparks flying as I tap the edges and rocks...cruise across the hillside and follow the boot deep untracked Jeep trail down into the woods and the egress trail.  

***

"Hey!" Bearded Guy says from the open door.
"You want a ride?" he shouts from the parking lot across the street.
"Heck yeah," I say, having stood by the roadside perhaps 2 minutes.  My longest wait.
"This is my friends first time in the backcountry!" Bearded Guy says on the drive up.  He is elated.  His friend looks smugg.  And over his head.
"Well, this is a great place to start.  Just too bad we couldn't make the snow better for you.  But you get the idea." I say.
"Oh, man, the snow is way much better than I thought," he says.
Real or imagined, another convert is born.

***

I jump over sections of rocks and boulders and scree and crap.
And hit about every other obstacle on my rightward traverse to the white face of pleasure hidden in the trees below.
I grind my teeth.
I grind my board.
I grind out 10 pow turns.
And another 10 pow turns.
And another.