The title says it all. A line I have been sizing up ever since I read up on Mt Cain last year. Its the sort of line where if you watch someone ski it standing at the top, they go over, disappear from site and then only reappear at the bottom...
Dream Chute as seen from the top of the tee bar at Mt Cain.
Note - I took this picture last week when it was clear...
Its a bit of a story though. This guy named Chig with Mill Creek Pictures is shooting a documentary of the mountain. He's covering the history, the people and the skiing. My buddy Pete is Mt Cain's media guy, so he's taking care of all of the arrangements. I showed up Friday to crash at Pete's place and Chig, his partner and son, another film guy named Robert, two snow boarders who we will simply refer to as "the Princesses" were all sharing the limited accomodations. Oh, and Pete's old time buddy Craig showed up too - it was a full house.
Saturday dawned with some cloud and snow - hardly ideal conditions to shoot ski video. We headed up anyways. When all was said and done, ten of us stood at the top of the chute waiting for the weather to clear so we could drop in and get filmed.
Here's how the Dream Chute looked on Saturday when we skied it.
That's right, no vis at the top at all...
After about a half hour of standing around, drinking beer, smoking semi legal plant products, we finally had a clearing in the weather. As I'm a relative newb at Mt Cain, I was going to go near the end. In fact, I volunteered to tail gun to build some cred.
Todd dropped first, and set of a couple of small slabs but made it down safe. Pete dropped next, and nothing moved. Then, every time the clouds blew off one or two more would go down, until there were three of us. And then it got socked in. And we waited....and waited...and waited...
We waited after they called the 5 minute warning for the camera guy to leave....then we waited some more. Then I gave up and dropped in (not last). I was pretty hesitant the first couple of turns as I couldn't see very far. Then, right where you can see the rocks in the picture above, I could finally see the bottom. You can probably pick out my track - I like big turns and as soon as I was in the open I let er rip. It was sweet.
Too bad the camera guy had to leave...
I'll end this post with some numbers. So far this year I have managed to log 30 ski days! 21 at Mt Cain, 5 at Mt Washington and 4 touring Forbidden Plateau! I've had three "first descents" (for me) down some of the bigger lines at Mt Cain - the "Y" chute, the "Death" chute and last weekend the "Dream" chute. My goal is 40 ski days fro the season, which will be the first time I've gotten that many since I was 18. I already have six of the remaining ten days I need locked in, so throw in a couple overnight tours and I'm there!
On the gear review side, I'll be looking at two bikes this season (the Banshee Prime and the Opus Nelson), plus providing my feedback on the Cain Creek AngleSet. Also, once ski season is finally done, I will do a follow-up on the G3 Onyx binding, my Scarpa boots and I fully intend to write a tribute to my G3 Rapid Transit skis! I also have a new pack to talk about and will follow up on my Dakine Poacher.
Man - I'm going to be busy!!!