Dodge's Drop -1/30/25

Jan 30, 2025

Gearing up in the parking lot Adam, Brent and I had quite the day ahead of us. With the snow fall well below what was predicted and winds seemingly calm in the parking lot, we held onto hope. We skied out the Sherburne trail and headed over to Hillman's Highway. With visibility increasing we saw our A objective, Dodge's. We began the bootpack and suffered pretty hard. Thigh deep drifts from time to time slowed our progress. Checking the snow intermittently, our smiles grew. We checked each others faces, monitoring signs of frostbite. We were dressed for the weather but we had a small margin for error with high winds and snow blowing in our faces. Crossing over to Dodge's we hurried to spend as little time as we could in the wind. We down climbed about 25 feet into the line to sheltered from the wind. Out of the wind, we dawned skis and prepared for the real mission. Dodge's was in prime shape, soft and powdery snow the whole way. Our group managed the terrain and took our time, skiing cautiously and keeping our speed in check. A small choke near the bottom of the line made me take my skis off to do a short down climb, but the rest of our group was able to side step down it. We skied out the lower tree section, onto the runout of Hillman's. Our hands and face frozen we quickly made our way down the Sherburne and into the heat of our cars. An intense morning skiing a proud line. Now to come back for it in better style...... and a few less slide slips on my part :).