We skied some amazing backcountry today. I was a bit tired from running the Race to Robie Creek the day before. We met at Don Jeffery’s house at 6:00 in the morning for an early start to make sure the snow didn’t get too warm and turn to slush before we got there. A woman named Anne met us at Don’s house too, and we drove her up to meet some of our other friends that were going to run the South Fork of the Payette today. We dropped her off at our friend’s house on the banks of the South Fork. When we arrived, JT More was wearing shorts and river sandals and standing around a raging fire. We visited for a while and then headed up the road to Banner Summit. We were on the snow by about 9:45, but even then the rays of the sun were very intense and the temperature was rising quickly. The snow crust we were skinning across soon turned to slush and we worked our way up a ridge south of Lola Creek.

From the top of the ridge we had an excellent view of the Sawtooth Range. Copper Mountain, where we had considered skiing was also in view and we could see many chutes on the north side of the mountain.

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