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While it's a shame that the early snow has made the hiking and biking trails a bit muddy, the skiing up high has been fantastic.  As Megan reported, several Ute employees and friends went up to Montezuma Basin on Sunday, October 22.  Max, Mark, Heidi, and I met up with Brian, Kristina, and Megan for the long skin up to the Basin.
 
We parked about one mile past the end of the pavement.  The road was so slippery that we had trouble standing around to get our skins on, let alone driving farther up the road.
 
We caught up to Megan and Kristina doing the skin the hard way on tele gear.  "It's not how fast you go, it's how good you look doing it."  It was a cold morning, but sunshine and blue skies waited for us around the corner.
 

There was barely enough snow down low.  We even had to take our skis off to cross a stream at one point.
 
Max is waiting for us again and checking out his line on the distant peak that we would ski in a week's time.
 
Tracks made on Saturday were visible across the valley.  We passed their skin track knowing that it would be better up in Montezuma Basin.
 

These snowmobiles passed us about half way up to the Basin.  They were stopped about a mile from the end of the road for some reason.  We eventually met up with the four skiers from the snowmobiles as they whooped and hollered while making turns down from Castle Peak.
 

The line we were planning on skiing is on the near side of the ridge on the left.
 
Despite the bright sun, a stiff wind on the ridge made it cold.  Despite the chill, Heidi and Max are smiling after seeing the slope that we get to ski down.
 
The first few turns were dicey, over wind-packed snow and some rocks.  But the conditions below were impeccable.
 

The powder was knee deep and the snow was fluffy.  After Max skied the entire 1000+ feet of vertical without stopping, the rest of us decided that that was the goal.  You can tell which tracks belong to the tele skier.  After an earlier run on the upper snowfield and this run, we were tired and grateful that all we had left was a mellow downhill back to our cars.
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