This is Pierce Fachini in his song, until silence reads the lines, a Patagonia Music benefit track for the Environmental Justice Foundation.

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The dog leg shoe. It's a steep, narrow kulaar, sitting a short scan from Crystal Mountain's groomed runs.

I've ridden it maybe a dozen times, but the approach of the backside always kind of makes me nervous, when loads huge amount of snow into the small bowl and there are limited zones of safety.

In the last 30 feet, give me the most pause. Last winter I watched as Becca ripped a small slab off this final pitch, grabbed a tree in desperation, and hung on as the ensuing slab ripped out the skin track below.

We collected ourselves in a slender ridge just beneath the summit. There was meager space, a cornice to one side, and an unsupported slab on the other.

I carved a small platform on the steep slope for us to make the transition from uphill to down.

I spotted her as she stepped into her ski bindings. She stepped gingerly up the hill to the ridge's very spine, and I took her place and quickly assembled my split board, booting onto the cornice.

With no room to sit, I lay the board on the slope. I put the first foot in, strapped it. I stood balancing on one foot as I swung the other into the binding. My core held me steady.

When there's no room to sit, you have to stand to strap in. It's a trick I've mastered through the years. It's never come in handier. I balanced on the narrow ridge and watched Becca drop into the peak's safest aspect.

Transitions make or break us. In climbing, quick blade turnarounds are the difference between headlamps and walking out in perfect even light.

In skiing, it can mean another 1,500 foot lap or heading home. They can be awkward, chiming through snowmodes between glacier and an alpine rock face has never been much fun.

But like all things, there are beautifully designed systems thought up by generations of climbers and skiers before that make it easier. Each is a small ode to speed, so that we can spend more time doing what we love.

Eight years ago, Becca and I started exploring Tahoe's backcountry.

Ahead of me, Becca would stride evenly on skins and skis. I would wallow behind her on snowshoes with my board strapped my back.

I'd lumber upward in a swearing mess of sweat and a gear to find Becca patiently waiting on the summit.

I would explode my backpack and snowshoes across a small snow platform. Watch and then curse as the wind would tug an empty granola bar wrapper from my open pack into the rich tops circular wind currents.

Transitions were a haphazard cacophony of buckle snaps and reorganization that I completed with bare hands. Then I'd have to warm my hands in a different set of gloves.

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