After some discussion, I went up to Butler Gulch yesterday morning for a quick tour. The cast of characters included the following:

Larry, tele-skier extraordinaire

Travice:

Lindsay (red) and Bella (dog) (Larry is in Orange):

And Hans:

The plan was to go up a little ways, do a little exploration, and get a few nice turns in. Beautiful.

A couple hours later, we topped out for the day. We didn’t go much higher due to time and also avalanche risks. Any higher and the slope steepened up, and the trees cleared out. Given October’s avalanche record, I’m very cautious right now. We de-skinned, and I took off to enjoy some turns and get set up for taking some shots. Unfortunately, there was a tele-binding issue which held things up a bit.

Finally, everything was set. Larry killing it:

Travice ripping:

Lindsay and Bella having a blast:

And Hans loving life:

Coverage wasn’t awesome. I sustained a little bit of damage, Hans took nothing, and Travice had a nice big core shot from it all. Oops.

And here are a couple artsy-style photos, since it was just so damn beautiful up there.

Yesterday was my second day skiing, and first day in the backcountry for the year. And it was a blast.