Dec 18 Bullion Basin

I picked up MW at six today and we thought we would seek out some better snow at Crystal, or if anything, take advantage of the sunny weather and look around. We had a good rest and our skis with us today. Unfortunately MW arrived home to find the power out and spent the night reading by headlamp at home much like we would have been had we camped as planned.
The resort was waking up to the persistent harsh winds we had gotten to know all too well yesterday. We took advantage of the heated bathrooms and coffee stand. MW got a cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven. I swooped in like a buzzard and beaked a good chunk of it before he swatted me away.  I could get used to these later starts at the resorts.
We enjoyed the easy skin up the road to Bullion, mostly sheltered from the wind, taking in the views. As predicted, those N facing slopes held, while not quite powder, definitely soft tunable snow. We gained the ridge and for novelties sake traveled in the harsh gale to the peak climber’s right that sits about 5400’. There was a snow shelter waiting for us so we kicked back and watched the people skiing at the resort. It looked like only the lower mtn was open today. The face of that peak was pretty wind battered but still fun to ski. We did find our way over to some of the softer stuff in the trees close to the bottom. We put the skins back on and headed up to get a run in the soft snow. A group of four was now in front of us and they headed down in one of the more inviting glades. We exchanged hellos and I watched one of them make nice turns down to the basin.
MW and I sat up on the ridge for a bit drinking his coffee and cracking jokes then scouted along the ridge for less tracked snow. We found good turns through the trees.
The way out was a fun careening barrel race down the hard packed trail. We came up on a more cautious group of four people; hopefully they were not too annoyed with us barreling down on them. They let us pass when we got out to the road which was like skiing corduroy groomers at a resort all the way back to car.
On the drive back to so called civilization Mother Nature was blowing her hardest, she even threw a good size tree branch at the windshield which I blocked with my power squint.
I can’t wait to see what this week’s weather brings us.