Pick up lines

"This is the end of the skintrack, eh?" I say as I come upon a stranger whose skintrack I had been following for the last couple miles. I think I startled him.

The stranger was also skiing by himself. I don't mind skiing by myself, but I prefer to use the buddy system. "Do you mind if I ski with you?" For better or worse, I've never been too shy about asking to tag along. Like that time that I took the Amtrak to Yosemite by myself, or the time I went to Indian Creek by myself to climb with previously unknown people. Or the time I asked a couple strangers if I could carpool to a rando race. There are dozens of such instances. Is that bad? I dunno. I just figure that if I never ask, then the answer is always no anyway. Usually people are pretty cool and happy to have someone to ski with, so it usually works out for them too. Usually.

Me and the stranger made several laps of awesome north-facing 35 degree goodness. I'd never skied in this sector before and it was fantastic. He was the only other skier I saw all day. Try and ski on a Saturday in the tri-canyons and say that. Hopefully he enjoyed my company as I did his. Thanks for the good tour Owen.