It is kind of a tradition for me to ride on Thanksgiving.  It started back east riding what ever patch we could find.  Moving west this tradition turned from “getting your legs back in shape,” to often times legit A-grade riding.

Recently this tradition has been a hard one to keep up with do to the late starts winter seems to get these days.  This year it was looking like my snowboard was going to be traded in for a mountain bike but the day before Thanksgiving a low pressure came in and sat on us for the day.  Steady rain turned to snow and I went to bed with visions of cold smoke.

It was far from cold smoke today and my “8 to 10 inches in spots” that I had predicted the night before, was more like 2 to 3 inches.  Knowing conditions may be a little bit dismal I picked my riding partners accordingly.  The first call was to Darren Rahlves, who despite living in ski boots 3 sizes too small for over twenty five years, loves to ski on anything.  Scott, always stoked, Tenyike rounded out the crew.

Looking better then we thought.

The Lurch, Daaron, and Scotty giving thanks.

Daron is the fastest skier in the world.  Check out www.daronrahlves.com for proof.

We had to hike down one section but amazingly we did not hit any rocks today even thought the base ranged from 3″ to 20″.