January 15th: I'll go ahead and say it- the best day I've had snowboarding so far this season. Coincidentally, (or perhaps not) I had my camera with me to get a smidgen of photographic evidence to support my enthusiasm.

We got a slightly delayed start due to the now routine; wait for cody session, but no one was too stressed because the mountain had only received a measly 7 inches of new snow...certainly nothing unique amongst this seasons many 2 and 3 foot dumps. hah. Anyway, we were all somewhat shocked to see the above scene as we came up chair 6- the shit was DRY.

(Kev on Q.P.)

(Smooth slashin' Aus-10)

As I mentioned, I had my camera and some mighty interested subjects (wish I could somehow convey a thick, dense layer of sarcasm here). They did humor my photo interests for the first run, which is where I got these two photos, but after that, it was clear that the hold-up was not worth the fruits. Can't say I can necessarily blame the boyz, as conditions were nothing short of epic.


After an early lunch, I ditched the camera gear and we hiked the arm. The below photo is not mine to claim credit for, but it illustrates the hellofmad beauty that one is surrounded by as they venture out the arm. We dropped into "Safety," the aptly named shallowest gradient route down the arm. As it happens, safety has some wicked wind-lips and cornices, both of which I totally LAUNCHED over! Actually, no, I didn't launch over anything. Keving, however, did probably the most explosive backside slash-carve I've ever witnessed on one such wind-lip- totally annihilated the thing into a massive cloud of dusty white smoke. Oh the glory! Definitely the S.J.S.O.T.D.