As I drove up Bogus Basin road this morning, I was expecting very poor snow conditions, especially since it was so disappointing two weeks ago with Frankensteve on Mores Mountain. As I closed in on the last couple of miles to the parking lot, and there was still only a hint of snow along the roadside, my expectations dipped even lower. Seeing the empty parking lot, and still lower they slipped. I slowly geared up and walked to the lift.
Lester and Brianna were going to meet me there, but were probably just leaving Boise, so on my first ride up the lift, I decided to run a little experiment that I’d been mulling around. I know I have a tendency to lean too far back in my boots. A fact made embarrassingly clear every time I forget to lock my boots into ski mode and fall on my butt on the first baby downhill that comes along. When in walking mode, I can’t lean back at all because the boots just rock back along with my leg.
So, my experiment was to take a few runs, intentionally leaving my boots in walking mode. This would force me to stay on top of the skis or leaning forward on them. I cautiously took my first turn off the chair, and headed down hill. I immediately realized my mistake. Not about my boots, or anything about the experiment, but about the snow conditions. The slope was in perfect shape (for a groomer). I made several runs in walking mode, which felt really strange and probably wasn’t all that safe, but then switched back to downhill just so I could crank some turns. Hardly anybody was there and the groomers had done an excellent job keeping the snow on the runs.
When Lester an Brianna showed up, we headed straight to the back side and were delighted by the conditions on Upper and Lower Nugget. We turned on our GPS trackers and hit nearly 60 MPH on Upper Nugget. It was amazing! Finally, we decided to head down mountain for an afternoon of mountain biking, but ended up making “one last run” down Night Hawk and it was even better!
Instead of calling it a day, we stayed and took several more Superior runs. We were having a blast and didn’t want to quit, but our legs were giving out and by 1:00pm the snow was finally turning slushy, so we turned down hill and headed back to Boise where the temperature was about to reach the low 70s on this beautiful pre-spring day.
I made a quick lunch stop and another at Idaho Mountain Touring for new inner tubes for my bike, while Lester and Brianna made a quick dash home to pick up their bikes. We met again at Camel’s Back park and took our 2014 inaugural ride up Hulls and down Red Rocks. This was Brianna’s first hill ride on her new Mountain bike. We told her we’d take her on the easy loop (which we did) but I think she was a little shocked just how hard the easy loop was.
She pushed hard though and made it around the loop, and had fun doing it (at least it sure seemed that way).
All in all, a fantastic Idaho day!