Editor: Dave Knoop is one of our Fasterskier training partners, and is famous in our group for his adventurous, high-speed, and “bonkable” outings.
I drove up to the Strawberry Reservoir area a little late on a Sunday am, about 10 am in the morning only to find it a well preserved winter wonderland everything still frozen and white as far as the eye could see even the reservoir looked mid winter frozen. Meanwhile a few thousand feet down below the day would push an easy 70F degrees in the valleys. I thought I'd ski the flats from Strawberry to Daniels Summit Lodge on groomed snowmobile trails for 10k turn around and head back to my car at an easy wandering pace. The trail had been freshly groomed, hard and fast. It was too good! Damn I felt good and I'm sure I looked good too but nobody was around to let me know of this fact. I had to let myself know.
Naturally the 10k-turnaround point came and went as I decided to do the whole 40k + loop sans water or food as I began to climb the canyon road up from the Daniels Summit lodge. The snow began to get pretty darn mushy as I climbed, realizing that the valley floor was an icebox but where I was heading 1,000 to 1500 feet up wasn't. I thought well I'll be skiing north slope in the trees surely it will be shaded there…..Yup it is in Dec. & Jan. where the sun doesn't even shine on this side but not now. Never mind the negatives,
it was too good of a day and I skied on. This former logging road turned groomed snowmobile road parallels the ridgeline above and eventually climbs to the ridgeline and that's just what I did after a few hours of cruising along. As I reached the top, the vista around me unfolded to spectacular scenery all around me. It was as good as the high plateau around Seefield, Austria that I had skied in early Febuary, WUNDERBAR!
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<p>By then the sun and lack of water had worked me over pretty good besides the long climb and<br />
being 2+ hours out. Naturally as this day had fit together all I had to do was look down and<br />
there was a new water bottle unopened burried in the snow that some snowmobiler had discarded as trash was now my treasure. I drank half of it immediately and pushed the bottle into the small of my back and in my pants. It felt real good there, yes I know…too much information!</p>
<p>I continued on climbing and descending the ridgeline in the warm spring mush at 1pm in the afternoon, the sun scorching everything including me. 30 minutes later I was now expecting to descend a groomed road and snowmobile trail down Clyde Canyon about a 1500 ft. vertical drop as a well deserved reward<br />
after a long climb and 30+k's into it. </p>
<p>Still skiing along the ridgeline up and down, I have a momentary mental lapse and reckon I've missed the turn off down Clyde Canyon. Mental things happen 2.5 hours out on a long hard ski. I certainly don't want to ski the Mud Canyon loop as this will add another 15k on top of a 40k effort. I have a lazy thought and think, I know I'll just ski down through these trees and meadow and reconnect to the Clyde Canyon Road. I ski through some incredibly beautiful Aspen groves smiling but no road is below me. I dropped a good 400 meters down off the trail with no way to get back up as the snow is well over 6 feet deep and somehow my<br />
skate ski's are still gliding on top of the crust just barely. Step out of my ski's or push down with my pole and yes it is 6ft. deep! </p>
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