Day 6 - Friday Dec 7 - Negativity is For the Birds

I must apologize now for the lack of photos in this post. I was just too far from home this morning when I realized I had forgotten my camera. I understand what a disappointment this may be for some of you, and I sincerely apologize. I will do my best to have extra cool photos from tomorrow's tour.
Anyway, I had difficulty getting partners for this morning's tour. Has responded immediatley that he was in, but CJ, Luke, and Jer were all slugish and eventually said no. They were all negative about the conditions and they are total suckers for it. I met Has at the canyon at 5:15am. I was surprised to see two other groups of dudes arrive at the same time once we arrived at the Grizzly Gulch parking lot, but we did end up going to different places so it didn't matter. We made our way up through the cabins and onto the Patsy Marley ridge. It wasn't until we were finally reaching our destination that we began to see enough light to be able to ski. The first run down was a good one for me. Some snow was moving, but nothing major. It was just the new snow that was moving and it was going so slow it was unlikely even to mess up my sweet turns. The snow was surprisingly deep. Has followed and we made our way back to where you either head back up the ridge or back down to the car. We looked at the time and at the snow and made an executive decision to put our skins back on and get another run in. This one was even better. It was really good out there today! We were very close to heading up for one more run, but Has had to be to work by 9. Instead, we just skied out and back to the car. This morning was good enough to convince me that doing a dawn patrol before I had to be anywhere tomorrow was totally worth it. I will see you then.

Day 5 - Saturday Dec 1 - A Day To Be Remembered

After the storm in the middle of this week Jer and I decided we would head out today. We then saw last night's storm coming and there was no way we were going to miss it. The avalanche forecast done by the Utah Avalanche Center that was posted yesterday afternoon was very mild. Bruce Tremper called for low danger with some spots of moderate on certain aspects particularly in wind affected areas. This was promising, but I knew better. I knew that the layer beneath this week's snow was week and was not likely to hold the new stuff very well. I had this premonition confirmed when reading what the Wizard of the Wasatch had to say so we made sure to be very careful out there. We tried to get out a little earlier than we suspected everyone else would so Jer picked me up at 6:30. The only problem was that neither of us have a car that is four-wheel drive and his Jetta was not doing super great even on the flat roads in the city in the new snow. We took a little detour over to Jer's parents' house to borrow their X5. We could not even get his car up the hill to their house. We had to park it on the side of the approaching road. It was very kind of Neils to allow us to borrow his car. Needless to say, we ended up getting started a little later than we had planned. We were finally headed up the canyon around 7:30. There were a bunch of people up in the Grizzly parking lot as we had expected. We tried to get going as quickly as possible. We were surprised and joyed to find that we were the first ones to be heading into Grizzly Gulch and up on the Patsy Marley ridge from this storm. Most people were going to skin over in the closed sections of Alta where I assume they must feel more comfortable. We traded off breaking trail and we were not rushing anything as we were not in any huge hurry. We were passed on the ridge by Andrew McLean (the world's premiere ski mountaineer) and his touring partner who were thankful for our skintrack and were kind enough to then lay one for us for the rest of the way (notice the photo of Andrew's urine). Our original plan was to go into the Patsy Marley bowl, dig a snowpit, and preferably ski it. This changed when we saw the natural slide that had occurred in the bowl before our arrival. Just for educational reasons, we dug a pit anyway in an area that was very representative of the area that slid. We found that underneath the new snow from this week was a meltfreeze crust on top of loose facets to the ground. The top layer slid very easily and this information did not exactly instill confidence in us and our desire to ski this line. So we adjusted our plans. We took our skins off and headed back down the ridge a little to an area that we were confident in due to its lower angle and tree growth. This proved difficult for both Jer and I to ski. I found myself putting too much weight forward and therefore my tips kept diving. I soon figured it out and got some sweet turns the rest of the day. We skied back down to the area where the skin track begins up to the ridge where we put our skins back on and made our way to the top (only after discussing the snow conditions with a group of people checking things out). We did not traverse the ridge this time. We just skied the area just West of the first open area on the ridge that has become a mainstay of our backcountry skiing repertoire. We found this to be stable enough to ski and we got some sweet turns in it. I have to say the these were the best turns of the year so far. I was really happy Jer got some video of at least one of my runs because it was great out there. We took a couple laps in here and then decided it was probably time to head back. It was 12:15 and we both had things to do at home. The skiing was great. The exercise was great. I really enjoyed digging a pit again and remembering all that I learned from last year. I can't wait to get out again!

Day 4 - Wednesday Nov 28 - Undercover Powder

Well, it finally snowed. I wasn't going to pass this up. Unfortunately, the people that would go with me (myself included) could not spend too much time out today so we had to figure out a way to get some turns in early and fast. We figured one more time skinning Alta would satisfy these requirements. When we arrived at Alta around 5:30am we discovered that beginning today they were closed to uphill traffic. We did not have time to go anywhere else... so we went to the side. We skinned and skied through the trees. It wasn't as good as it could have been had we been able to go up into Ballroom or something, but it was good nonetheless. I enjoyed the company of three fine skiers: Has, Luke, Sarah, and CJ. The new snow was about 12" deep in spots on top of an icy crust (and a few rocks that Has was kind enough to uncover for us). We were quick to make a few laps before it got too late and before anyone from Alta could give us a hard time. It was a lot of fun, though. Can we just talk about how great it is to be skiing powder again? It feels like it has been so long! Looking back it was Friday, April 20th that was my last powder day. Yes, it has been a while. I look forward to a few more like this soon.

Day 3 - Saturday Nov. 17 - Girl You Know It's True

Cody was at my house a little before 9:00am this morning. We wanted to get a little later start because we simply have not been receiving precipitation lately so we wanted what was up there to warm up a little. I received a phone call around 9:10 from Jer saying his car had been broken into over night so he was going to be a little late. Being the understanding soul that I am, I told him it was no big deal and we could wait. When he arrived he was still determined to drive the three of us up to the hill so we threw a towel over the glass where Cody was going to sit and we were on our way. I suppose I should have expected Jer to have deliberately wasted some time this morning... after dealing with the cops and everything with his car, he then took the time to find his old stereo and (somewhat) install it. We had to play around with it for a while in order to get any sort of reception, but once we did it was pure gold! Notice the radio station on the screen - that's right, Movin' 100.7. We were especially pleased to hear the soothing sounds of Milli Vanilli - Girl You Know It's True on our journey (follow link to get the full effect). We decided to once again just skin Alta in order to actually be able to ski on snow. This time, however, we skinned up to the top of Collins instead of Wildcat. Jer and I were both happy to have Cody out on telemark gear today. He bought some boots a little while ago at a ski swap and I was more than happy to lend him a pair of skis and skins. He did quite well. We were all very impressed. I think even he was impressed and he wants to definitely do this again. (You know what I think? I think he is converting. He is too stubborn to say it himself, but I think he will fully come to the tele side of things by the end of the sesason.) We were able to find some soft spots up top which took a couple turns to get used to, but once you got in a rhythm it was actually pretty good skiing. We pretty much just skied all the way down while trying to traverse or whatever else in order to get the best turns. It really was a pretty good day out there. I need to start finding opportunities to do it more often so I can get back into shape. I hope you all recognize me in the final photo on this post. Yes, that is me. I have gone green (my coat has, at least). But don't think you will only see me in this jacket from now on. Those of you that are keen watchers of the backcountry scene may just see me in a certain December issue of Backcountry Magazine in a full page ad for Voile. Just watch for it.

Day 2 - Saturday Nov. 3 - Jibbing

Despite the lack of snow in recent weeks, Jer and I made our way up to Alta this morning. We knew there wasn't going to be much up there, but we wanted to get out. It had just been too long. We were debating between skiing Silverfork, Cardiff, Grizzly, or Alta. Since the others were going to require a substantial hike in with out the aid of skins, only to find crappy snow conditions, we decided upon Alta where we could skin the whole way to find crappy snow conditions. We skinned to the top of Wildcat and found that once we reached the snow that was in the sun, it was soft enough to actually be pretty fun skiing. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't great, but I can honestly say that it was the softest snow I have skied since July. We were both happy with our turns. Things are looking up for this season. Skiing down the rest of the mountain was just as we had expected - frozen, hard, and choppy. It certainly was a good time, however. It was fun to be out skinning and skiing again. I know I said that last month, but I just love it. When we reached the bottom, there were several groups of kids jibbing. They were going off jumps, doing rails, and this traffic barrier that was on the mountain. Jer simply could not pass this up. The following three video clips are Jer's three attempts at rail sliding the traffic barrier (notice the Gifford boys from my ward in videos #1 and #2).

October 14 - The Pumpkinman

After a week full of training, travel preparation, and catching up at work and school; we left on Friday afternoon for The Pumpkinman Triathlon in Las Vegas, Nevada. We spent that night in St. George at Ryan's condo after eating at the Pasta Factory. We woke up Saturday morning and after grabbing breakfast, we continued the drive to Vegas. None of us are big Vegas people so we decided to get a hotel in Boulder City which is where the tri actually was. We checked in and then made our way over to the tri site to check in and get our swag (I dig the shirt). We then set up our run gear at T2 - this tri was a little different in the fact that there were two separate transition areas instead of one that you simply return to twice. We then took some time to go down to Lake Mead, get in the water with our wetsuits, and just get used to it all. That afternoon we relaxed - we went to a movie (Across the Universe - I wouldn't recommend it, but it wasn't the worst way we could have spent our time) and then had dinner at Tony's Pizza and Pasta in Boulder City. We were all excited to have some small town pasta the night before the race. Let's just say that the excitement did not last long. We were greeted by our server relatively soon after we sat down so we were not yet ready to order. We did not see her again for another 20-30 minutes. At which time she quickly took our order but neglected to ask what kind of dressings we wanted with our salads, so when they did finally come we were just given ranch. The salad and the dressing was gross. It included huge chunks of onion and even the foot of the head of lettuce. It was at this point that we knew we were really fine dining. Our pastas came out eventually - Ryan's a good 10 minutes before mine and Stacy's. It took everything we had to just get over the taste and eat this stuff simply because we had no other choice in town that was not fast food. I, for one, can't wait until next year when we get to eat at Tony's again and experience this again. Back at the hotel I tried to show Stacy how to change her tire if anything were to happen, but it was so difficult to deal with that I ended up doing all the work anyway. We just got to the point where we were just hoping nothing would go wrong (not the best position to be in). We went to bed early and woke up around 5:30 the next morning. We got our gear together and made our way down to the lake. We were there in plenty of time to get T1 taken care of with time to really prep for the race. Ryan and I were competing in our first olympic distance event (we tried to do this a few weeks ago at Kokopelli) which is 1.5k swim, 40k bike, and 10k run. Our began our swim at 7:10. My swim was the best I had ever had. I felt really strong and only came in like 2 minutes after Ryan. I passed him a lot earlier on the bike that I thought I was going to. After doing so I figured I would not see him again for the rest of the race. The first 20 miles of the bike was hard. It wasn't the hardest thing ever, but it had its share of hills. The final 5 or so miles were all just straight uphill. By this time I was having a hard time even just sitting on my bike seat any longer because my butt was so sore. I definitely could have gone a lot faster, but my mind was not in the right place at that time. Ryan passed me with about 1 mile to go on the bike and I arrived at T2 just behind him. My transition was fast and I exited before him at which time I passed Stacy also beginning her run. I was feeling good and was confident in the rest of the race. When I reached the turn around point for the Sprint course I was feeling good and was sure I could go strong for twice that, turn around, and run back. I have to be honest and say that I never once ran more than 5k in training. It may have just been my inexperience or it may not, but that did not feel like 6 miles. It felt more like 10. I wondered if they had mixed up the miles and kilometers and accidentally had us run 10m instead of 10k. Either way, I did walk a little on the run. Not a ton, but some. I crossed the finish line 3hrs 29min and 41sec into the race with my sweet wife yelling for me having finished the sprint course in 2hrs 25min and 22sec. Ryan was not far behind me coming in at 3hrs 35min and 31sec. I have to say that I was rather surprised when we figured out that we had taken second and third in our age division. Yes, that is right. We were back on the podium - where we belong (it wasn't until the day after the race that my suspicions were confirmed that there were only 3 competitors in our age division). We had a great time this weekend, and we are looking forward to doing this again next year. This marks the end of my first triathlon season and I feel good about it. I feel like I set and accomplished some good goals. It was hard and fun at the same time. I will certainly be doing this again next summer. Now it is time to get out on the skis! See you on the snow.

Day 1 - Monday Oct. 8 - Hooray For Fall Break!

Today was the first possible day for skiing for the season (for me at least). I disregarded the fact that the storm was two days ago and yesterday was really warm, and I met up with Dave Whittaker, Matt Kline, and Has. We met at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon at 6:15am. We then drove up in two separate cars in case some wanted to stay a little longer. Dave and I listened to The Arcade Fire - Funeral on the way up (I don't have Neon Bible on my iPod just yet). The skin up was nice. It was great to be back out in the snow. Yes, I may have been skiing over the summer, but it is just not the same as being able to actually skin up a mountainside in some actual snow. I felt like I was in pretty good shape, but not exactly where I would like to be for the remainder of the season - but I am sure that will come. The ascent did include one foray across a small stream where some of us decided to go across with skis on, others went without, and still one other had one ski on and one off (I am not sure what advantage this gave). While skinning up, however, we discovered that yesterday's warmth and last night's cold did not exactly present us with the most ideal skiing conditions. There was over a foot of snow just about anywhere you went, but there was a layer of breakable crust about 2 inches thick on top of it all. When we finally did get to skiing down, we found this difficult to navigate. Basically, the snow did not want you to turn, so you usually ended up falling or having to jump all the way out in order to swing your skis around. It was fun, but I am sure the skiing was much better yesterday. Oh, well. We will get ours. Don't worry. It was fun to get out and skiing again. I look forward to more and more of it. It may be a few weeks until you see another ski blog entry, but get excited because they will all start rolling in. Peace.