Friday

           Today was a good day.  I woke up to Woody pecking for his morning meal and the noiseless fall of snow.  I like to move camp every three days and today seemed to be the day.  Not any distance mind you, just thirty or forty feet, just to get things cleaned up, reorganized, and to establish a new floor.  First, I decide to see if I can locate the lake basin in Jefferson Park Wilderness Area.  Leaving camp with sparsely fall8ing flakes of snow and wisps of cottony clouds settling between the treed ridges, I track deep snow.

          The park is about three miles north east of my camp and about two thousand feet lower.  The mountain itself is buttressed by many steep ridges which makes progress arduous.  It is difficult to know whether one should drop lower to the valley or stay higher up and then drop down.  Dropping down early may mean easier skiing but commits to a long uphill retreat if time should run short.

          Deciding to keep my elevation for as long as possible, I ski under towering stony cliffs etched with pummeled whiteness.  The difficulty of the terrain eats up my time; and, within shouting distance of my destination, I decide to turn back.  The clouds are thickening rapidly, boiling up from the valley below like puffs of vapor.  Visibility is becoming poor and by the time I reach camp, I am in a major winter storm.