Making the Most of Every Opportunity

Building snow walls to shield tents from the wind

The Riders are Ruff. The Riders are TOUGH!

Given their unlucky stretch of weather thus far, they aren't letting any skiing opportunities pass them by. Today they were only able to complete one march of roughly one hour, and they ticked off another 2 miles of progress, into 30 mph headwinds by the way! Not wanting to get caught out in anything stronger than that, they made the wise decision to throw on the brakes for the day.

Keith reports that they spent about 6 hours building up a secure campsite. They pitched both of their tents, but will sleep in just one of them as another powerful windstorm approaches their location. They piled all their gear in the other tent.

Why not leave the gear outside? They could, but it would get buried deep underneath wind driven snow drifts. Digging everything out would take a lot of time and energy.

Even though they haven't been able to ski as much as they'd like to over the past two weeks, they're still making great strides as a team. They work very well together, and have gotten quite efficient at pitching storm camps. Building snow walls is a big process, but they've become well oiled machine.

In all likelihood they won't be able to travel tomorrow, but you never know. One thing is certain. If there's an opportunity, the Riders will jump right on it.