Rustled myself off the couch for a late afternoon session at the venerable "Patches" off of Hwy 88. It was an interesting trip in that I spaced on my fuel and was driving on "Empty" when I got to the entrance just off of Red Lake. Too far to turn around and make it to the nearest gas, I crossed my fingers and drove up to the middle patch (the left patch was getting kind of wonky and is almost 2 patches; I walked up to the main patch and it was crowded with a crew sessioning their make-shift park). I geared up in my boots (the walk wasn't worth donning hiking boots and switching), strapped the skis in the pack and hit the snow. I banged out 5 laps. The first was 5 turns. The second 10 limp-wristed hop turns. The third = 5 turns. The fourth, yet another set of 10 hop turns. The fifth lap was back to 5 turns. My boot-pack up was roughly 175 steps. There were tracks present, which I assume were leftover from my buddy Stev's jaunt there on Wednesday. The snow was summer corn. I broke out the Magnum 8.0 Ca's for the day, too.
“The best place in the world to ski is where you’re skiing that day.” — Warren Miller
