The day before Christmas, my brother and I headed up to the summit of Kootenay Pass for some victory turns after another semester of uni. I've been on the telemarks for several years, but Graeme was out for his first day minus a couple runs on the backyard – he is more in it for the joy of getting to the top; I'm there to go down. 

We stuck to the safer, south side of the highway due to our limited backcountry snow experience and broke our own more-direct trail rather than following the long road around. It took not much more than half an hour to get to the base of the cliffs and we decided that we were happy to ski some short laps from there. The snow was stable, the sun was out and there were only a few other slashes in the snow, which had been already snowed on.

First run was through the trees to the west of the open face when you look up from the parking lot. It got us stoked and we rushed up the next couple tours much faster. A couple more runs on the open slope and a great finish in the trees. 

Can't wait to go back.