This morning encompassed everything that makes dawn patrols so great. Jen and I were joined by Alex and Jamon, so we had the good-friend’s angle covered. It was -1F when we got out of the truck, which did a really good job of completely eliminating any bit of sleepiness that the morning espresso hadn’t already taken care of. Then, only a short bit into the tour, the sun started hitting the high peaks before the moon had completely set, and our 5:00 wakeup was awarded with an absolutely incredible landscape.
About 45 minutes after leaving the car we were nice and warm from skinning and found ourselves on top of a sunny ridge with nothing but completely untracked powder below us. We pitched out the first few hundred feet, but when the angle kicked back to below anything that could slide we just turned to group-shread tactics and skied side by side, laughing like idiots and loving the fact that we live in a place where you can get out and ride a couple thousand feet of powder before work. I actually felt sorry for the people pulling into the Solitude parking lot for first chair.
