Spring Time In Alaska

Spring time in AK! This is the Spring Fling Party last weekend...I was crowned Miss Spring Fling (ok, I crowned myself, but I was still crowned!)

Getting some drunken air off the kicker.
A few weeks ago, a mellow afternoon ski.

Some tele chica turns.

Seth making some turns.

We took a glacier travel course a few weeks ago. Here we are learning how to ascend a rope after falling into a glacier. OK, we weren't really in a glacier, but we were up on the Matanuska Glacier about 2 hours from Anchorage.

(which way is this girl climbing?)

Final Report From Southern VT

Been interesting here this past week. Been watching the snow line creep up during the day, then drop back down during the night. Tuesday, drove up to school in the morning and the snow level was just above the valley floor ~ 900 ft. During the day it went up to about 2400'. Wednesday morning the snow level was about 1600' and by the afternoon it was up to about 36oo'. This morning the snow level was at about 3400' but the clouds are starting to finally clear out now. Hiked up Stratton on tuesday afternoon, started the hike in driving rain which quickly turned over to snow as I climbed. Was hoping the snow might dry out on the upper mt, unfortunately I was wrong. The drifting snow was pretty intense on the upper mt though, Ripsaw-esque snow waves. Tons of snow up there, the tower pads were buried near the top of the mountain, my guess is that represents about 3' of new base snow up there. Should stick around for a while since it was so dense too.
Took a woods line down the mt, because of the flat light and snow, I couldn't see what the hell was happening on the trail. The snow density must have been in the high 20% range, it was like skiing on warm butter. Not quite the best skiing of my life, but not bad in the overall.
I think the bike will be out this weekend.
Took a trip out to Cali two weeks, spent one day skiing Alpine Meadows and skiied some of the balziest lines of my life, no fall-zone type shit, that at some times nearly scared the shit out of me. Was following some ski patroller who had won a pro freeskier comp at Squaw the previous year. He made the lines look easy. Spent the next two in the backcountry. By the final day the temps were in the 60's to low 70's with out a freeze up at night. We were able to set off some major wet-slides on the southern facing slopes, that was also pretty intense. Then got caught in a thunderstorm as we were crossing over the ridge back into the valley with our car. It started hailing without trees for cover, that sucked. Good times, good times.
Later ya'll, we talk again soon.

Make that 60 Inches since last week...

...and there's a huge Nor'Easter barreling towards us for Sunday/Monday with preliminary predictions calling for a snow storm of "historic" magnitude.

Jay will hit 400 inches tomorrow, everyone else is pretty damn close. Dawn Patrol this AM at a closed Sugarbush North lead my friend Kip and I to some savory spring time face shots. We're sooooo far from spring skiing here it's ridiculous...and it's April. Go figure.

The Winter That Wouldn't Stop

36+ inches since last Wednesday with more on the way. 7 months of skiing in VT this season and we're not even close to being finished. For what was shaping up to be a really rough season, things sure have come round'.

Hope your all gettin' some too. Wish you were here...really...you'd like it.

Happy Nor 'Easter!!!!

Just when I thought the New England skiing season was done, mother nature serves up a little surprise for us Old Worlders. A little storm that will dump well over a foot on the northern mountains has begun, and is predicted to last through the weekend.

I'll be heading up to tuckerman's ravine tomorrow for a couple of days exploring Fithian's favorite tree shots (it looks like most of the stuff above treeline will be pretty avy prone). And probably heading over towards Quinn's house for some skiing this weekend (unless he has something better to do like clean the garage).