Originally, we'd planned to do some alpine touring on Brown Mountain, where we'd spent several delightful days in the past, but Wayne had been experiencing vertigo lately, so we opted for a cross country off-trail adventure on Mount Ashland. The knoll likes east and a bit north of the peak and about 1000 feet below. I'd been exploring off trail on cross country skis a couple times in the past years and knew that Wayne had done extensive telemark explorations of the area, so I was more that psyched to get there with him. And, given the horrors of watching my father lose his balance in his decline with Parkinson's, I was so glad to choose the safer route.

We arrived at the parking area to the unwelcome presence of some "No parking" cones. Wayne briefly considered loading the cones into the back of this truck, but in the end we simply parked at the other end of the pullout, banking on the negligence of whatever agency had decided to place them. I broke trail much of the way up to the knoll with Wayne helping me find the route.

"So I'll just switchback up this slope," I said.

"Sure, but not too many switchbacks," he replied.

Wayne is more of a straight up the grade skiier, while I tend more toward the low angle zig zag. I love to kick turn, which brings me back to all those modern dance classes in college.

In the end, we are sometimes in eachother's tracks, sometimes not. The snow is surprisingly fluffy and we've left all the fog behind for a bluebird day