Things I don't do when skiing

I spend a lot of time doing things that I do do, and not a lot of time doing things that I see others doing that I typically don't do.  I've been seeing some good examples of that lately out skiing. 

Example 1:  Putting in a skin track directly across a steep, exposed line on a due north facing, leeward side - like these guys inexplicably did:

when there's a nice, unexposed ridge with a treed slope on the windward side. 

Example 2:
I also don't typically whizz RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SKIN TRACK! 

Come come now, People!  I'm not that psyched to skin through your piss, and it's not that hard to move ever-so-slightly off the track and punch a small hole with your pole basket!  I know, it's just urine, but....right in the track!?!? 

As Ash memorably said upon seeing skin track whizz one too many times:  "What are you, a f*#king horse?!!?"  (note that the esteemed Friends of the Utah Avalanche Director sporting the custom UAC graphics on his Black Diamond Drift skis was NOT the horse in this particular incident......he just kindly posed for effect...)

Even this guy knows to whizz on the side of the trail:

Example 3:  Put in a 30 degree skin track:

I'd love to say that I'm all burly Wasatch skimo guy and it's so efficient to put in steep skinnners because you get there faster and who gives a shit about the people coming up behind you when it gets slicker and maybe it'll weed out the riffraff and if you can't hang on the skin track bro well maybe you should just stay at the resort....but I am not, and I don't say any of that.    Putting in a thoughtful, elegant, and efficient skin track is an art, and since none of those words really apply to me in any other aspect of my life, I try to embrace the concepts when marching uphill.  And we seem to get up the hills just fine without a 30 degree pitch. 

Example 4:
Dunder down steep, wind-loaded committing lines that are known frequent fliers when the snowpack is just barely coming off a wild and wacky week of big changes:

That said, good-on these folks for getting first tracks on these high-value lines without getting avalanched. 

But people will do what they do, and undoubtedly when I do what I do some people complain about it and probably spray on their own blogs about what I do!