Skyline Peak - Idaho

Wow, what a day in Idaho. After driving through a harrowing blizzard on Friday night from Utah to Idaho I hooked up with my travel and ski buddy Casey to go to Pebble Creek on Saturday morning. As we were walking from the parking lot to the chair lift we met up with my former next door neighbors Scott Burnham and his son Mark. We skied with them all day. Mark is an expert back country skier and has worked professionally as a guide in Utah and around Sun Valley. We skied 3 runs on the front side traversing north slightly out of bounds to catch some nice powder shots then traversing back into the resort. Then we grabbed our climbing gear and rode the chair to the top and transitioned. We hiked up a skin track right by the ski patrol lodge to a point between Skyline Peak and Bonneville Peak. Mark had skied the back side the day before and knew of an excellent run of about 1,800 feet of vertical with untracked, deep powder. Wow, what a treat. We enjoyed beautiful sunny skies and uncharacteristically light winds. After our killer ski run we hiked back up without gloves and hats. Mark even shared some of his home made power bars - yummy. We could see the Grand Teton from the backside. Casey and I hiked back to the top and skied back into South Bowl. Scott and Mark did another lap on the backside. We got more excellent powder after we got down a bit from the super icy and wind scoured top. We were skiing through the trees back to the resort. The South Bowl powder was skied out but we still had fun cutting through the chop. This was the best snow and conditions skiing this year. The smile on my face will last for a week I'm sure.