backcountry skiing with the foothill freak

 

Monitor Bowl Dawn Patrol Suffering and Fetid Sunscreen Adventure

Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

Finally, I found another sucker to go verting and snowboarding with me: Helmut, a ski buddy who continually reminded me, "if we were on skis, we'd be there by now", then later in the day, "we'd of had 2 more runs by now if we were on skis!".

I don't mind tho, as I believe that in early season it's best to go slow and suffer. I figure that the slower I go up a thin snowpack, the fewer runs I'll take, avoiding certain potential for injury on the way down. Early season suffering is like a tribute to my early years of learning to backcountry ski in painfully unflexing leather boots and masochistically long skis. So by flailing about early season on snowshoes that fall off and a delaminated snowboard from the early 90's, I'll really appreciate my holy and beloved AT setup when I start to use them, hopefully sometime very soon...

Although the riding was quite good, the most noteworthy event of the day was the sunscreen.

Discovered in the bottom of Helmut's ancient russack was an equally ancient, sorry little tube of sunscreen. We had to squeeze like hell to get the only remaining dregs out to protectively smear all over our noses, which we instantly regretted. Once rubbed in, the cream began to eminate a most hideous stench, and we simultaneously realized that it had gone completely rancid.

If you're ever find yourself backcountry skiing with sunscreen smeared all over your face, and for some reason you suddenly want to take the sunscreen off, here's a little tip: you can't.

And if you ever find your face smeared with rotten sun cream that smells remarkably like somebodies neglected gym shorts post eliptical training marathon, you have two options: either wait it out, or start hiking like a mad man in the full blazing sun with all your clothes on in attempt to create your own funk in hopes of drowning out the fetid cloud of moldy sunscreen off-gass. I tried both of these options, yet it was still about an hour and a half until I found some sort of reprieve.

Too bad we completely used up the last drops as that sunscreen would have really come in handy on a bright and sunny April 1st ski tour...

 

Helmut Drops into Monitor Bowl
"This would be a lot easier on skis."