March 1st

Wow…day one over with. And hopefully the worst skiing for the month. It being Saturday and my kids with the weekend off I wondered how I could tie in my goal with their weekend. I woke up to minus 19’C and toured up for hours in the cold. I could not decide if it made sense to have the kids join me or not but I knew that I could not return another day so I had to try. I did a few fast runs in Kokanee bowl and had 10 000 feet in by noon. I toured back in bounds and met the family.

We have skied off the sub summit a few times and always talked about going to the main mackenzie summit. It wasn’t really the ideal day but I really wanted to start this month of madness off with a summit with my family. So with clif bar treats and some energy drink we boot packed to the summit. Many breaks, stops and crawling but finally we summitted. Charley had lagged behind for most of the climb but at the last step she rushed past and was first on top. Aiden at 7 and Charley 8, these kids are so lucky. It did stress Tracey out a little as she was slightly uncomfortable which made her even more hyper tuned into the slightly sketchy boot packI was 19 when I stood on my first summit. While lying starfished on the peak Charley asked me why I was rushing, why not hang out on the summit for awhile. Yah Charley enjoy the peak experience! photo by Bruno Long

It was cold and I wanted to get back at it so the sketchy south face side slip began. It was suncrusted, skied to shit and all around terrible skiing. But the experience of getting my kids to their first summit and then skiing off of it was priceless.

They headed home and I went up for another 2000 foot run.

As for how I did in terms of my goal, well 4220m, or 13900 ft, over 4% of the way there. It was an ok day but it will only get harder.

this is the day http://www.movescount.com/moves/move26776320