drop your cocks (chickens) & grab your socks

Today/Tonight 5-10" forecast

and this just in from NOAA's burlington office:
***INCREASING CONFIDENCE THAT A POTENTIALLY SIGNIFICANT WINTER EVENT
WILL OCCUR BY LATE WEEK TIME FRAME***

That translates to increasing confidence of a 2'+ snowfall event coming down the pipeline. Hopefully my early season frustrations are coming to an end :)
Hope you guys are having a good time in SLC and we'll see some good pics.



Starting to get deep here imby...5" overnight and another 6-12" hopefully in the cards.

I love me some Northern VT backcountry

Photos from the past 2 weeks.

Silverton, SLC, Tahoe, London, Paris......

After an exceedingly depressing amount of snow in the Northern Colorado Rockies this early Winter I was starting to twitch. I wanted to powder ski. I was tired of rockin' groomers and "touring" for the day because of AVY danger and lack of snow. There was only one answer to the question: Get to Southern Colorado where it has been hammering early season. Friday afternoon, 235pm leave Conifer High School. Link up with Bindu (yes, Bindu) in Vail and continued to Silverton, CO. A couple PBRs and I was fast asleep. We woke up and drove 15 minutes to the Base. Silverton is everything Killington, Vail, & Whistler is NOT. Core skiers riding an old double chair to the ridge of a gothic San Juan peak. Hike this way or that, and drop 2000-2700 vertical feet in a narrow Avy chute of thigh deep powder to the valley. Traverse back to the resort or grab an old bus shuttle back to the base. Chug a PBR, repeat. The energy was infectious and the hiking and skiing was 5th gear all day. After 5 laps I was toast...we got back in the car and drove back to Denver. My friend John got on a flight back to Africa the next day, relegated to another 6 months of 90+ degree temps and 100% humidity. A couple Pics:



Next Wednesday Erica and I head to SLC and then onto Tahoe for Christmas and New Years. Looks dry for the next 5 days, but this forecast gives me HOPE!:

For sanities sake...I need this one

http://www.accuweather.com/news-story.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=1&article=1

After a nice dump of snow a week ago which ended as downpours I have received two consecutive rain events in a row and have not seen the freezing mark at my house now for over 48 hrs now between the rain events. That healthy snow base I talked about a week ago has been now whiddled down to a 3" slop layer :( Hopefully higher elevations are fairing better. Thought for sure I'd be skiing before X-mas here, but unless this storm pans out, not so sure of that anymore.
(so begins my yearly winter weather dirge)

First depth of the season in VT

Bolton's backcountry is in. High winds Friday and Saturday transported a great deal of snow to the east and north facing aspects, both rich with backcoutnry delight. My pole sunk 22" before running in to our early season base. Still a touch bony here and there, but it felt damn good to get 4 laps in some suprisingly good, soft snow.

And the Winners Are....California & Southern CO!

Some snow finally started falling in the West the last couple days. I almost pulled the trigger and headed down to Wolf Creek this afternoon with a buddy to shred. Here ya go Jackson and New England, welcome to EL NINO bitches!!! Storm Totals:

Wolf Creek, CO = 49"
Kirkwood, CA = 48"
Silverton, CO = 38"
Squaw Valley, CA = 34"
Crested Butte, CO = 21"
Taos, NM = 16"
Telluride = 14"
Heavenly, CA = 10"
Jackson, WY = 4"
Killington, VT = 2"

Oh, our mountains only got 6". Yeah, el nino can be brutal for the Northern Colorado Mountains. Off to SLC then TAHOE for break! I'm bringing the SNOW Seth and Hilary!

No more carrot

Is anybody else ready to get their f*@ing snow on??! I'm done with this warm weather crap...time to bring on old man winter. Storm moving up the coast tomorrow, nothing blockbuster, but another possible biggie middle of next week. CO, CA & UT looked to get pounded early next week...let's get this shit moving!