snow dreams

Beyond cutting my hair, I've also been reading about ski touring. I've been jealous of people on Turns All Year for ages, and I think this year I'm finally gonna do it. Since I'm not that great a skier, and refuse to learn telemark, I'm going to stick with a cross country system, although maybe with a slightly fatter ski than they tend to recommend. Sites on the internet sell XC touring setups for around $300 including boots, poles, skis and bindings - right now they run a bit cheaper since it's off-season, naturally, but I gotta talk to a real person to make sure this is what I want.

The new ski-snowshoe hybrids are interesting too, but I think that can wait till I get more skillz. As can a Dynafit boot, since they tend to be 5x more expensive than a XC boot. Yes, AT stuff is better for downhill control, but I'm not going to be going downhill at more than say resort-rated blue run angles. I actually bought two out-of-print books about places to do this kind of stuff, and a cursory Google shows that the places I'm interested in still exist. How cool would it be to do the Hog Loppet, or the Mt. Tahoma huts? I always thought it would be super expensive to get into, but for under $300 (not counting lessons, sigh) I'm down. Cheaper than replacing Reg's downhill ski boots!