My Journey Into The Backcountry

This year I am working on crossing an item of my bucket list - Backcountry Snowboarding.  I have lived in Bozeman for over 10 years, and have gotten to  snowboard a fair amount each winter since I got here.   There's something about snowboarding that melts stress away, makes the world more clear, and overall makes me feel great.  I have wanted to get in the backcountry for awhile.  Problem is it takes a lot of gear, alot of knowledge and you need to go back there with someone who knows what they are doing.
Enter my boyfriend Ross.  Ross and I have been dating for about 8 months and he has done a ton of backcountry skiing.  After talking with him a ton about it, I decided this was the year.  But to do this, it was going to take some work. Task list - get a new snowboard, get it split, hardware, bindings, skins, probe, shovel, avalanche class.

You can buy an actual backcountry snowboard set up from a company called Voile.  Problem is they just started making the woman's version and the cost is about 1500 by the time you are done.  Looks like I was going to do it the more traditional way.  I needed to find a snowboard, and I did at the Ski Swap.  It was a little bigger than I normally ride, and it had a wood core.   It was perfect.  At this point none of this seems real, but  STEP ONE, DONE!