By: Drew Billington

boots, blisters, new knees, and the best turns of 2007
Current mood: satisfied

So today was a good day.  First off, it is always fun jamming feet back in boots and remembering the wonderful pain that is skiing.  And, of course, my baby-soft heels have quarter sized blisters from skinning for an hour and a half... but in the end I am just getting the first pains out of the way until we get the shred on all day every day. Regardless, we arrived at the top of baldy shoulder at Alta to about three feet of freshies - sweet! after dropping in off a lil' cornice I proceeded to dig my tips in and then time stopped for a sec as I was weighted on my right ski, all my body weight going forward and the tip diving... this of course is my first fun test with my new knee and ACL. This thought passed through my head for a second, and then I simply rolled over my head and ended up laughing in the snow - the knee felt great and held up to a ski hyper extension!!!  After this we proceeded to rally down the rest of baldy shoulder, getting about 3 or 4 legit face shots (for my first time since last December). When we arrived at the bottom I declared the pow of October 18th the best pow I've skied in 2007 - this, of course, considering that the three weeks I didn't ski after blowing my ACL mid February were the only couple of weeks it really snowed in Utah last year...
There was a point on the hike when a song came on my shuffle, and I was looking up the skin track into some freshies and trees covered in snow and it hit me that everything I have been stressed about lately just didn't matter... the winter vibe was pulsating through my being and I became stoked that the best time of the year, ski time, is here, and that nothing else matters when I'm in the cold mountain air shredding pow... and on that note, the coverage is already better than I remember it being last year in mid-November, so here's to an epic, 1200 inch year yo!!!