waist deep in the promised land

Imagine your favorite pillow.
White and fluffy and as soft as a baby lamb’s coat. Rolling contours envelope the surface creating a personal palace for your head to sink into.

Now imagine the same landscape but instead of a pillow, it’s a wide open winter wonderland of snow covered meadows, subtle valleys and endless terrain. You are just a spec on it’s surface.

Instead of your head sinking in, you’re able to effortless glide across the terrain, riding in and out of valleys, across ridges and floating over streams below.

This is snow kiting.
No waiting in lift lines.
No over priced lift tickets.
Just you, the kite and a pair of skis or snowboard.
Happiness can be found at the end of a kite.

This years mid winter adventure took me to the Big Horn mountains of Wyoming- east of Yellowstone National Park for the 2019 Snowkite Masters. It was a gathering of like minded kiters from the Rocky Mountains & East and West coasts at North America’s premiere snow kite lodge- Wyoming High Country lodge.

Snow kiting combines the best of snowboarding, sking and kiting. It allows you to ride practically anywhere- up and down the mountain, across powder filled meadows, rolling terrain, gullies and ridges. You can glide down the face of the mountain as the updraft provides continuous lift for the kite. You can ride for miles in any direction exploring endless powder.

However, it ain’t as easy as it sounds.

Just getting there and setting up in the cold weather can be a feat

Huffing around to set up kites and snow gear with 5 layers of clothes on and an harness at 9500′ elevation takes it toll. So does postholing through the powder to get set up.

I’m not gonna lie. It was cold. -20 wind chill.
2 base layers, wool sweater, 2 downs & a shell + 2 kite mares on my first afternoon out left me wondering what the hell I was doing.

For the full adventure, check Steve’s blog here.