Day 15 - Monday Dec. 25 - Merry Christmas

Cole and I made it up today for a couple hours in between Christmas family time. We listened to The Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say, That's What I Am. It was nice to get up on a day like today when virtually no one is up skiing. We were able to catch some good turns and find some decent snow. Cole was stoked to experience the magic carpet for the first time. He is really improving this year. Even though this photo is from a distance you can see that he is really getting better as a skier. His fundamentals have come a long way in just the few times we have been up together (as was expected with althetic as he is). I was kind of bummed out to not see anyone in any animal print suits today, but we can't have everything we want. Merry Christmas and may God bless us, everyone!

Day 14 - Saturday Dec. 23 - Christmas Eve Eve

I made it up to the Bird today with my two brother-in-laws on my wife's side. It was a nice day to be out and with family that I don't spend too much time with, but with all else said the skiing wasn't that great. I did ride the magic carpet in the "Basshole" for the first time today - and yes, it is as great as everyone was anticipating. Jeff and I were able to catch one run down lower Tigertail late in the day and find some soft snow (we lost Jay in the traverse over to it), and the three of us did make one trek across the Cirque ridge and caught some good turns over there. Other than those two runs there is not much else to report. Oh yeah! Check out this European couple that were sporting the best ski suits I have ever seen today. He was in the cheetah print suit and she was sporting the zebra. And yes, that is a cheetah print cape he is wearing. Peace out!

Day 13 - Friday Dec. 22 - Patsy at Dawn

At 5:00 am there was no snow at my home in Sugarhouse. I was somewhat disappointed. I was hoping for the storm to hit overnight and Jer and I would be able to reap the benefits before anyone else got around to it. This did not seem to be the case as I got in my car to go pick up Jer. We thought amongst ourselves that Patsy Marley would have a good amount of snow and quick access for a dawn patrol such as today. We listened to The White Stripes - White Blood Cells as we were lightly snow on during the drive up. The snow was a welcome guest, but we had hoped for it just a few hours earlier. It was nice to see the only other people headed up were on snow shoes and probably weren't going as far as we were. We made the trek up Patsy only to find that the snow remained from last week's storm and was surprisingly soft! We were able to grab three laps before Jer got tired and wimped out. We did cross a track here and there from others over the week (all of which were dusted over by wind blown snow and the whopping inch we received by the time we got there), but it wasn't bad by any means. The snow was super soft and enjoyable. The visability was high as were our spirits this morning. It was nice to get out with just Jer again as this was basically the story of my touring experience last season. We went to a gift shop up at Alta after the turns and I bought a vintage ski poster of a super sweet photo of Alf Engen standing in front of Mt. Superior. I want to use this sort of idea for the skis I am building. I think they could turn out to be super cool. We cooled down on the drive out of the canyon to the sounds of Joanna Newsom - Ys. I know I have listened to her already this year (although it was a different album), but let's be serious - she is amazing. Have you listened to this new album of hers? If your answer was no then you seriously need to check it out. Peace out.

Day 12 - Tuesday Dec. 19 - Suicide Chute

I met CJ at the Wasatch Dan's parking lot this morning at 5:30. We drove up in his FJ40 on our way to Wolverine. We listened to a mix he had in his car which included tunes from Medeski, Martin, and Wood; Mason Jennings; and Ray Lamontagne. When we began unloading our gear from the cruiser CJ seemed a bit dissheveled. He had forgotten something but he would not tell me what. It was not until he was sure they were not in the car that I was told he had forgotten his skins. It was here that we had to make a decision. Was it worth it to keep going without them? And where would we go? We decided it was worth it and that Suicide Chute on Mt. Superior would be a good choice since you boot a good amount of that anyway. This brought back so many memories of when I as young and I used to boot pack Alta before it opened. This also brought a new love in my heart for climbing skins and how much more pleasant they make the ascent. This was tiring. Lucky for us there had been a big slide in the Superior bowl recently making the snow pack hard and easy to boot across, but the soft stuff was a nightmare. This was my first time up Suicide Chute (the name of which did not exactly give comforting feelings) and I got to say that there were times where I was a little nervous. Never times where I was in any danger, but times where had I lost my balance I would have lost a lot of ground on the climb. By the time we reached the summit my entire body was exhausted. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to now ski down this skinny couloir. But I did it. It wasn't my prettiest skiing of the season, but it was a lot of fun. The snow was a little more dense than usual and my body was so tired that it was difficult to power through, but fun none the less. The exit out of the chute and into Superior Bowl was cool - it becomes really narrow and you have to eventually just shoot straight out of it in order to fit. We skied to the side of the recent slide and found some decent turns there. By the time I got to the road I had just enough left in me to walk to the car. It was an adventure today - a rude awakening of how out of shape I really am. I probably would not have chosen Suicide had someone asked me, but now that I have done it I will totally do it again. This post is heavy on the pictures because I thought so many of them were cool (check out the steam coming from my boots in the picture of our gear). I hope you enjoy. See you soon!

Day 11 - Saturday Dec. 16 - Stacy and Bowie's First Tour

I figure all you need is one day out on Chickadee then you are ready for the backcountry, right? Stacy, Bowie, and I got packed up and made our way up to Millcreek canyon this morning at about 7:30. We were feeling festive as we drove today so we listened to The Best Damn Christmas Mix Ever (no link available) that we put together and gave out as gifts last year. We parked across from the Porter Fork trail at about the same time a 65ish year old man did as well. He put on his Voile 3 pins as we did the same (except without the pins), but it wasn't long before he left us in the dust. The trail follows a stream and passes several cabins and Bowie was having the time of his life. Our purpose today was more to get out, get some exercise, get the dog some exercise, and to have some good family time together. This is exactly what we did. The trail is merely a road that has a slight incline that has been snowed over. We made it up maybe a mile or a mile and a half, then skied down and went back home. Stacy's turns are looking great, and Bowie's frolicking in the snow has never looked better. This is one of the biggest reasons we chose him as our dog - because we wanted him to be able to go touring with us - and he really had a good time. As we got back to the car there were a couple of groups just arriving that had dogs as well (Bowie was in heaven), but they weren't the most congenial people I have ever run into back there. We were finished before 10 o'clock and made our way back to real life with all its responsibilities. I can only wait until we get the chance to do it again.

Day 10 - Tuesday Dec. 12 - Back to SilverFork

5:30 at the mouth of Little once again. I pickup up Kai and we met up with CJ and a friend of his, James (AT Skier). CJ drove up and we listened to something I do not own, but have admired for some time: John Prine - John Prine. It is a classic album from a classic artist. Especially check out the tune "Sam Stone" - my favorite from the album. I had decided since our Pink Pine debacle that I was going to really start pushing myself on the ascent. I had taken it too easy and wasted a lot of my time that day. So I did my best to keep up with CJ today, but still to no avail. With this being Kai's second tour ever (see day 3 for his first) he was not exactly keeping up either so I had some sort of excuse for going slow. I have decided to buy Kai's bike for my birthday (anyone reading this that is wondering what to get me on March 29th - all I want is money to go towards the bike) so I can keep up my aerobic exercise during the summer months. I am just hammered everytime we go right now. I need to get to the point where I can really start hard charging these skin tracks and get more and more skiing in less and less time. We got to the summit of the East Bowl of SilverFork around 8:00 (like I said, we weren't moving at the speed I would like to). The turns were great back in there - much better than we had anticipated. When we got to the bottom we immediately began putting our skins back on (which I can do without taking my skis off now-a-days) for another lap. With it being finals week, none of us had class and I was the only one who needed to be at work (but not until 11:30 or so). We made a loop and a second lap. Then we climbed for the final time of the day in order to be able to descend the South side. This was not as pleasant as we would have liked. There were about 3 inches of new snow on top of absolute hard pack and ice. We were able to make a few turns down, but most of the time puncuated with the ear piercing sound to a skier where you are not totally sure if that was a rock you just uncovered or if it was simply ice. All in all it was a good day. I do need to start really focusing on my endurance and stamina. Perhaps I need to do some exercise outside of skiing as well - Bowie (my dog) always likes it when we go for a jog.
On a side note go ahead and check out: http://www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=29213
They are saying that I am the best thing to hit telemark skiing since plastic boots (or at least since the announcement of BD's Holy Grail binding last weekend).

Day 9 - Saturday Dec. 9 - Back to the Bird

I went with Cole and Ty (my brother-in-law) up to Snowbird today. We made it up around nine and were able to catch a few runs on Gad 2 before we got stuck on the lift towards the top only to have the wind give us quite the chill. It was then that we made our way into the Mid-Gad Lodge to get some hot cocoa. We saw some friends of Cole's in there, but he was not terribly excited about skiing with them so we didn't. The snow has softened up a bit, but everything is still so boney and hard-packed in most places that it makes it difficult to really drive an edge. We made turns until about 1:30 or so. It was a nice way to start off the day (especially since upon coming home Stacy had a good sized list of chores for me to accomplish).

Day 8 - Friday Dec. 8 - Pink Pine Adventures

Jer drove from the mouth of Little this morning as CJ and I were able to sit back and enjoy the sounds of the Two Gallants - The Throes. We met a little later (6:30) and took things a little slower today seeing that we didn't have class. This turned out to not have been the best of decisions because of all the situations we found ourselves in later that slowed us down quite a bit. We thought we would go up Pink Pine because fewer people would have gone up there at this point and it stays well in the shade (a necessity due to the lack of snow fall lately). The skin up was not bad. Like I said, we took it easy. We did reach a point where CJ informed us normally you can skin up, but today we had to boot it. We got to the top of that and put our skis back on only to find out that on one of my bindings the screws had come loose (I was lucky I did not lose them). We got back going and reached the end of our ascent. After a quick compression test we began to ski down, but we soon found out that there wasn't that much snow. In fact, there was very little coverage at all. We scooted down until a time when we had to completely remove our skis again to get past a few rock bands (I thought the downhill was the fun part). We did finally catch a few nice turns in a little meadow, but by the time we had made it down once we needed to get going. We continued on the way out and headed down. So maybe it wasn't the best day for skiing, but the weather was beautiful, the hike was enjoyable, and the company was all a guy could ask for.

Day 7 - Saturday Dec. 2 - Tele Babes Do It...

...On Chickadee. I went up with Stacy and Cole this morning. We were inspired by the soothing music of Arcarde Fire - Funeral on the drive up. This was Stacy's first day with a free heel. It was a very special day for both of us. I was quite impressed with her today. She seemed to pick it up very fast (much faster than I did). We only had a few hours so we stayed on Chickadee to practice the turn. I did leave her on her own for a short while when I met Cole on the other side of the mountain and caught a few turns with him (still imprisoned with a fixed heel). It was a beautiful day out and the snow was a lot softer at the resort than it has been. We all had a good time, and Stacy is now a bonafide Tele Babe (about which you will not hear me complaining). We cooled down on the drive out of the canyon to Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress.

Day 6 - Thursday Nov. 30 - Dawn Patrol

This was a morning not soon to be forgotten. I met Jer, CJ, and David at the base of Little Cottonwood at 5:30. We enjoyed the sounds of Antony and the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now on the drive up the canyon. We parked at the Grizzly parking lot (this time without having to dig any vehicles out of ditches). It was extremely cold as we prepared our gear for the skin up. By the time I even thought of trying to get a drink from my camelpak the tube was frozen solid. The ascent was long and tiresome. I still am not in the shape I need to be. The sun began to show as we reached the summit. It was beautiful. The exercise and the view alone made it worth the early alarm this morning. I was on my boss's skis today. Mark allowed me to use his 171 Insanes with Hardwire 3-Pins on them. My first excuse was that my Havocs were at the shop, but in all seriousness I really wanted to ski this ski - especially on all this snow. We descended in the Silver Fork East Bowl. The turns were phenomenal. The skis were a dream. The snow was deep and light. There was nothing you were going to find me complaining about this morning. David did find a nice little rock band that met quite firmly with his skis, though. We reattached our skins (my first time without taking my skis off first), and again began to ascend to the top. This turned out to be a little more difficult. Here we were breaking our own trail, I had to get back for class, and Jer's skins were not staying on (he hasn't put a tail kit on them yet). After a number of switchbacks and a few choice words coming from the ever clean Jer, we again reached the summit and began our descent on the South facing side of the hill. These turns were equally as great! The snow was deep and the rocks were few. We all had several lines that just seemed to really work out for us. When we reached the parking lot I hurriedly gathered up my gear and left for school as I was encouraged by the sounds of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. I was able to make it nearly on time and have no problems there (although I did get a few funny looks at my mode of dress). All in all it was a great day with only one or two hitches that slowed us down. One thing that I found out today was that I NEED a pair of Insanes. That ski was a blast. I also really enjoyed the binding. It skied just as aggressively as I pushed it. I am not so sure Stacy is happy about these findings, but she will just have to learn to cope.

Day 5 - Thursday Nov. 23 - I Am Thankful For...

...the Bird. Cole and I made it up for some early morning turns today before we had Thanksgiving "Dinner" (it was actually at noon). After listening to The Flaming Lips - At War With the Mystics on the way up we made it there just before they started loading people on the chairs. On our way up GadZoom we noticed that Gad2 was running so we made our way over there. We just shot the groomers off that for the next couple of hours before we needed to leave in order to get home in time for the food. It is nice to be able to get out and just make a lot of turns in a short amount of time even when the snow is subpar and there is the occasional goober in your way.

Day 4 - Saturday Nov. 18 - Snowbird Opening Day

It was opening day at the Bird today so we decided to head up and catch some turns. I went up with Cole (my brother) and Kai. We left early for a resort day, but what seemed like late for a ski day with as early as we have been going lately. We listened to David Gray - Life in Slow Motion on the way up. I haven't listened to him in a long time. It was a good reminder of how much I like him. We got there early enough so I could try to get my employee pass to ski that day, but Snowbird wouldn't give it to me. They said they were not giving employee passes today or tomorrow. I had to come back some other time to get it. So I bought a half day pass and we went out to the hill. We had a good time. It was fun to get our turns dialed in a little more since we were able to make so many of them. The snowpack totally sucked. The top of Emma was horrible seeing how there were a ton of people on it each time you came down and it was all hard as ice. But we still had fun. This is Cole's first year with a ski pass so he is pretty stoked. He got all his gear for Christmas (a little early) this year - I have tried my best to get him on tele gear, but that just may be another season or two before he figures it out. I ran into a few people I knew up there including my boss from the Aerie (at which I will be working on call over the season). My pass ran out at 1 o'clock. We were tired by then anyway. We listened to Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy as we descended and made our way to Lone Star Taqueria on the way out. It was a fun day, but I can't wait for a little more snow to get back out and do some major touring.

Day 3 - Tuesday Nov. 14 - Dawn Patrol

This was an interesting day. A lot of things went wrong, but a lot of other things went right. We had a bigger group today - CJ, David, Luke, Kai, and me. We tried to meet at the mouth of Little by 5:30, but it was closer to 6:00 by the time we all arrived. Kai drove Cj and I up in his Subaru (while listening to Sufjan Stevens - Illinois) and David and Luke went in the Tahoe. The storm was pretty wicked on the drive up - the only times we knew where we were in the canyon was at the White Pine signs and the Snowbird signs. We arrived to find the Grizzly parking lot covered in snow. We quickly parked the Subaru and began getting our gear together. We were already running a little late (I had class to go to at 9:10) so we wanted to hurry it up, but then we were slowed down again by the fact that the Tahoe had been driven a little too far into the parking spot and gone into the ditch that is at the end of the pavement (which we couldn't see because of all the snow). We spent some time trying to dig it out and drive it out, but to no avail, so we decided to deal with it after skiing. We then began to make the trek up Grizzly to Patsy Marley. We were anticipating some unstable snow conditions so we stayed low angle and in the trees to avoid any possible mishaps. This was Kai's first time ever touring and only his second time freeheeling. Needless to say this was a little new to him. By the time he and I reached the top CJ and David had already skiied down and begun their second lap. We made some turns - on a whole lot of new snow, it was heavy snow, but still fun at the same time - then I started up for a second with Luke as Kai waited behind for us. CJ joined us for his third lap and David stayed down low to catch a few pictures (mostly of all of us falling unable to move in all this heavy snow). When we did make some turns they weren't too bad though. We skiied out and too my surprise didn't hit any rocks. We began again trying to get the Tahoe unstuck but were still not very successful. CJ went and talked to a dude in a Suburban that was just leaving that was nice enough to pull us out - which worked like a dream. Then we began our drive down. It was just me and Kai in the Subaru on the drive down. We listened to a Phish recording of "Theme From the Bottom" from the same show that Slip, Stich, and Pass was pulled. On the way down the weather was much better and visability was high, but the road was covered in snow and ice. A little past the Bird we hit a slick spot on the road and spun to the side. A nice canyon police officer pulled us out (I am sure he is used to that) and we made it the rest of the way. I hurried home and then to school to get to class with about 5 minutes left. This was not such a good thing seeing how it was a test day. My professor was understanding and is going to let me take the test today (Wednesday), but maybe next time I have a test a dawn patrol isn't the best idea, but sometimes it's just a matter of priorities. I have a lack of pictures today because my camera batteries died half-way through. Oh, well. Until next time...

Day 2 - Saturday Nov. 11 - "Don" Patrol

Not the best day as far as snow and weather goes, but we had a good time. I met Don, a dude I work with and a splitboarder, at the mouth of Little at 6:30. I listened Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on the drive up (and down). Neither of us were expecting much as far as snow goes so when we got there it wasn't much of a surprise. Don moved a little slower on the uphill than others I have toured with, but he was always steady. We headed up Alta ski resort to Catherine's. By the time we got to the top the weather was getting worse and the snow wasn't getting any better. We made our first turns pretty much just following the ridge we had skinned up. The snow was very inconsistent - you would hit a patch of nice snow and have what would seem like a good turn then you would hit snow hard snow pack and that turn would get totally screwed up. It had been a long skin up and it just wasn't worth going back up for more turns like that. We decided we had other things to do that day and we headed down. We hit a few spots that were uncovered (and Alta plans to open on the 16th - I wonder how that's going to work), but we made it out relatively unscathed. It was my first day out with Don, and my first day out with a splitter for that matter. We had a good time. I was glad to get out and get some exercise. Next week we should have a couple of storms that could get some things going around here.

Day 1 - Friday Oct. 27 - Dawn Patrol

This was my first day out for the season. I got a call from my buddy Jeremy (from here on he will be known as Jer) saying a friend of his, CJ, was looking for a touring partner for the morning and Jer would be unable to go. I quickly made the decision that class was worth skipping in order to get some early season turns in. I called CJ and we met the next morning at the mouth of Little Cottonwood at 6 am. It was the first time I had done a dawn patrol. All of my previous tours have been very relaxed afternoon tours where I had all the time I wanted. On this particular day I had to be to work at a reasonable hour so we had to go early. We drove up Little together in my Honda Civic as we listened to Radiohead: Kid A. I figured this would be a great way to start off the season. Nothing like an epic album to really get things going. We decided that Silver Fork would be a good tour at this time with fewer tracks than across the street at Alta. We began the ascent via headlamp since the sun had not even begun to appear at this point. The ascent sucked. On the south facing side here there was minimal coverage and what little there was happened to be frozen over. I came to find out very quickly that I was out of shape. I had not done anything this aerobic for some time and it was showing. I was just doing my best to keep up with CJ. We reached the summit just as dawn was occuring. It was a beautiful site. As my first dawn patrol this was something I realized I had been missing. CJ quickly got to it and dug a snow pit to assess the avalanche danger. We decided it was acceptable and prepared to make our turns. My first line was pitiful. I had not skied since May or June of last year and you could tell. I struggled putting my turns together with clean, solid lead changes. We skinned back up for another go (which was quite difficult breaking trail seeing that the snow was quite deep). My second line was solid. I felt really good about my turns and was very glad we had decided to go a second time. CJ is an impressive skier. He was a lot of fun to watch. I am looking forward to skiing with him again in the near future. It was then a little after 9 am at this point and we decided to start heading out. We skinned back up and began our descent down the south facing slope. This was the most unpleasant part of the morning. It was so bad that we ended up just booting down about 3/4ths of the entire mountain (which took quite a while) because of the lack of coverage. We arrived at the car around 10:30 and headed home. For the ride down the canyon I played Joanna Newsom: Milk-Eyed Mender - a beautiful album from a beautiful vocalist for those of you who are unfamiliar. It was a good way to slow things down for the rest of the day. All in all this was a great way to start off the touring season.

Welcome

Welcome to my first blog. I have wanted to do this for some time, but have not been doing anything interesting enough to warrant it. This blog will serve as a means to document my ski tours for the winter of 2006-2007. I will attempt to post pictures as well as descriptions of my tours. In doing so I will usually include the music that I listened to on the way to and from the trailhead. I figure music is a big part of my life and it always seems to affect my tours just a little bit. I hope you enjoy.