A Christmas Eve SnowCat Adventure at Keystone

I did it.  I broke the seal.  I finally got my ass out of the office and up into the mountains for some snow sliding!  I almost didn’t think I was going to make it before the new year.  But I did.  It was a Christmas Eve solo mission.  With complete confidence in my abilities, I brought a D700, 14-24, and the 45 tilt shift.  But with a complete underestimation of my eroding fitness, that backpack put a hurtin’ on the ol’ quads.  Note to myself: “you really need to get out of the office chair more, Dude.”

The mountain was pleasantly uncrowded.  I was finding stashes of powder in the trees on every run from the previous day’s snowfall.  Despite this I took a $5 snowcat ride out to the top of Wapiti Peak and South Bowl.  It really isn’t that long of a hike, but I did mention my lack of fitness, right?  Right. Here you go, five dollars, Mr. Snowcat Man.   I followed the skiers about out to the Tele Trees.  Those are the runs of Breckenridge in the distance.

I made the most of my high altitude location and took some scenery shots.  I didn’t have a model so the Burton Fish would have to do.   In the top photo you can see a run off of North Peak.  The crown of the bowl in the lower photo is the top of the Outback lift, where the snowcat departs.

I spent around 20 minutes climbing around the rocks, getting wind blasted, and generally freezing my hands.  OK, enough work, time to play!  I rode the top portion of the bowl down to the trees shooting the 14 mm in my left hand for some action self portraits.  Oh yeah, lift served backcountry runs . . . my FAVORITE!

This was the last shot I got before I completely snowed the front of the lens with snow!

It was a really sweet run.  Light and fluffy powder goodness.  I stopped in the trees to clean the snow out of the lens, and was really taken by the still beauty of the forest.

I’ve really been loving the 14mm lens.  The tilt shift didn’t get too much use since is such a PIA to use, manual focusing and all.  So I snapped a picture on the lift ride back up.  I like the two different colors of the trees, in the sun and in the shade.   Overall, it was a great day, a good reminder that I need to get in shape and start hittin’ it more!