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Viva La Nina! This weekend brought yet another unusual snow-yielding storm. Kirsten, Andy, Mica, Marcus, Anastasia, Tundra and I headed up to ski the Kendall Chutes. We skinned up to the base of Kendall Stump, then up through Kendall Peak Lakes. It was cloudy and the light was flat, but the chutes looked like they were in good shape. The left side of Main Vein had already been skied. Kirsten, Marcus, Mica and Anastasia took that one, and Andy and I found a narrow funnel between two ribs. Between the bad lighting and the crust underneath the nine inches of new snow, it was a little tricky on the steep upper parts, trying to manage the slough and see what's below you. When the slope steepness lessened things were better and we took a nice run down to the bottom. We skinned back up, then cut over to the base of The Twins and took another run back down. The sun was out and visibility was better, so we were able to open up our speed a little more and face shots became plentiful.

At the bottom of the second run, we ran into a group of TAY-ers, John, Pico, Swooz, Clem, Silas, and Bill S. They described the route they took to the chutes via the Commonwealth and offered to let us ski out with them and drop us off at our car, which was very generous! We climbed back up to the ridge and dropped down into the Commonwealth. After the fast ski out the luge track, we popped out on Alpental Road and met them over at the Summit West parking lot. It was a much nicer descent back to the car than going out via Kendall Stump. Thanks guys!