As much as I hoped for a full-service relocation package, in this economy, that just wasn't happening. So to any kind-hearted souls who wouldn't mind lending a hand, I'd be happy for a bit of help. Here's the plan:
Loading the truck in Boise will take place Wednesday, 31 December at 2:00 p.m. Almost everything is in the garage, boxed up, and ready to load. If we have a half dozen people show up, it will be a quick job.
Unloading the truck in Draper will take place Saturday, 3 January at 9:00 a.m. Again, if there are a half dozen people, we may be done by 10:00. I lobbied for a later start so we could get out for a dawn patrol beforehand, avy conditions permitting, but the boss won't tolerate any delays. That being said, if we work fast and get done quickly, I've been given the tentative green light to go out for a ride or ski after we finish. Besides, moving boxes and furniture is good strength training and will help build your core muscles.
The move in is made possible by my kind neighbors who came over yesterday afternoon with their snowblowers and cleared out the last of the snow drift that occupied the front half of my driveway. I'll post some pictures later, but at 6,287 feet and with the recent blizzard, you can imagine what it was like. That drift was rock hard on Saturday when I tried to remove it. I thought for sure I was going to need to rent a bobcat to get rid of it. But with the warmer weather softening things up and some serious snow removal equipment, it was gone in a matter of minutes. Thank you!
If you'd like to help but don't know where I live/will live, shoot me an email at skibikejunkie at gmail dot com, and I'll send directions.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Joy to the World
Five years ago, just before we moved to Boise, we drove from California to Utah for Christmas. Our intent was to then go to Boise for a few days to do some house hunting. A huge snowstorm delayed our departure by a day, and then we had to stop along the way for several more hours to wait out the weather. When we finally got to Boise, we had one day instead of three to find a house.
For the last several Christmases since moving to Boise, we have opened presents at our house in Boise, eaten breakfast, then packed up to drive to Utah and spend the rest of the holiday week with family. This year was no exception, except that Rachel and the kids wouldn't be making the return trip. It seems fitting, then, that since we came in a snowstorm, we should go back in one. We thought about delaying, but with storms stacked up back-to-back for the next several days, we figured it was a crap shoot and we'd have weather no matter what. Since it was relatively clear in Boise, we decided to go for it.
The first couple of hours between Boise and Jerome went smoothly. My dad called me to tell me that I-84 between Burley and Tremonton was closed, but things were so clear, I really thought it might open again by the time we got there. The only trouble we encountered was that nothing in Jerome was open except the gas station, so for lunch we had cheese crackers, beef jerky, and popcorn.
Then, just outside of Jerome, the wind picked up. Snow was drifting over the road, and we saw several slideoffs. In many cases, there was ice under the drifts, so it was really slick. We slowed down to 30 mph and even less at times. We were going so slow that I started doing mental math comparing how long it would take us to drive versus how fast I could ride the same distance on my bike. There wasn't a huge difference.
As fate would have it, I-84 remained closed, so we had to take I-86 to Pocatello and then drive south on I-15 from there. From the junction to Pocatello things got worse. We stopped at a rest area, and the snow had drifted so deep that Rachel didn't want to pull her car into the parking place out of fear she wouldn't get it back out. Oh, did I mention we were driving separate vehicles? Because that made it so much more fun knowing there were two cars to worry about rather than just one.
Inside the rest area, Rachel was shaking with fear because the roads were so bad. Unfortunately, we weren't at a place where we could stop and wait it out. You'd think that in her vehicle (a 4wd Toyota 4-Runner with traction control, ABS, and brand-new, top-of-the-line, all-terrain tires) that she'd be fine in the snow, but she said she felt like it was squirming. I suggested that we trade cars and she drive my Subaru instead. Once we got back out on the road, I realized why she was so nervous. In deep snow, the 4-Runner does great. But on the icy roads, it was squirming around, while the Subaru (with winter tires) did just fine.
Before we got to Pocatello (now about six hours into the trip), our youngest started crying. She was sick of the car and hungry. We stopped at the only place that was open: Denny's. Since all the I-84 traffic was being re-routed through Pocatello, and the journey was taking longer than expected, the number or weary travelers needing a bite to eat was high, in addition to the usual crowd that would be there on Christmas anyway. The kitchen was overwhelmed to put it mildly. I don't know if it's possible to spend 90 minutes sitting in a booth at Denny's. I certainly couldn't do it. I kept finding reasons just to stand up, going out to the car or even to the bathroom even though it had the aroma of urine and halitosis, with undertones of B.O. I tried to take one of the two little kids with me every other time just to keep them from fighting.
As we filled up on our greasy, starchy meal that was nowhere near as good as the Armenian feast my mom had prepared for us, we had to make a decision as to whether we'd continue on or get a hotel for the night. According to 511, the road conditions sounded worse where we'd come than where we were going, and it wasn't actively snowing, so we decided to keep going and try and make it at least to Tremonton.
The only stretches between Pocatello and the Utah border that were sketchy were through the mountain pass near Inkom and coming over Malad summit. The rest of the time, we were intermittently on dry pavement and were able to make close to 50 mph.
As we approached the Utah border and the roads were clear--not just clear, the best we'd had all day--I expected things would only get better since Utah has a larger snow removal budget than Idaho does. Boy was I wrong. While I-15 in Idaho was mostly clear and in good condition, in Utah, I'm not sure when it had even been plowed. From the Utah line south, we were driving on packed snow and didn't see pavement. At all.
We considered stopping in Tremonton or Brigham City for the night, but both vehicles were doing OK in the deep snow and the kids were asleep, so we kept going. About 10:30 my brother called to see if we wanted to crash at his fiancee's house in North Salt Lake. Knowing it would be more than an hour of additional drive time to keep going to Cedar Hills, we stopped. At about 12:15 a.m., we finally pulled in, having covered about 390 miles in eleven hours.
To put the drive time into perspective, here are some other distances I have covered in about the same amount of time:
Bicycle: Logan, UT to Jackson, WY (206 miles, 10 hours 14 minutes)
Driving: Salt Lake City to Orange County (674 miles, less than 9 hours)
Flying: Hong Kong to San Francisco (6,910 miles, ~13 hours)
Kinda reminds me of that scene in Christmas Vacation where Clark brings everyone out to see the lights, does the drum roll, sings "Joy to the world!", plugs them in, and...nothing. Ellen's mother turns to the kids and says "I hope you all see what a silly waste of resources this was."
For the last several Christmases since moving to Boise, we have opened presents at our house in Boise, eaten breakfast, then packed up to drive to Utah and spend the rest of the holiday week with family. This year was no exception, except that Rachel and the kids wouldn't be making the return trip. It seems fitting, then, that since we came in a snowstorm, we should go back in one. We thought about delaying, but with storms stacked up back-to-back for the next several days, we figured it was a crap shoot and we'd have weather no matter what. Since it was relatively clear in Boise, we decided to go for it.
The first couple of hours between Boise and Jerome went smoothly. My dad called me to tell me that I-84 between Burley and Tremonton was closed, but things were so clear, I really thought it might open again by the time we got there. The only trouble we encountered was that nothing in Jerome was open except the gas station, so for lunch we had cheese crackers, beef jerky, and popcorn.
Then, just outside of Jerome, the wind picked up. Snow was drifting over the road, and we saw several slideoffs. In many cases, there was ice under the drifts, so it was really slick. We slowed down to 30 mph and even less at times. We were going so slow that I started doing mental math comparing how long it would take us to drive versus how fast I could ride the same distance on my bike. There wasn't a huge difference.
As fate would have it, I-84 remained closed, so we had to take I-86 to Pocatello and then drive south on I-15 from there. From the junction to Pocatello things got worse. We stopped at a rest area, and the snow had drifted so deep that Rachel didn't want to pull her car into the parking place out of fear she wouldn't get it back out. Oh, did I mention we were driving separate vehicles? Because that made it so much more fun knowing there were two cars to worry about rather than just one.
Inside the rest area, Rachel was shaking with fear because the roads were so bad. Unfortunately, we weren't at a place where we could stop and wait it out. You'd think that in her vehicle (a 4wd Toyota 4-Runner with traction control, ABS, and brand-new, top-of-the-line, all-terrain tires) that she'd be fine in the snow, but she said she felt like it was squirming. I suggested that we trade cars and she drive my Subaru instead. Once we got back out on the road, I realized why she was so nervous. In deep snow, the 4-Runner does great. But on the icy roads, it was squirming around, while the Subaru (with winter tires) did just fine.
Before we got to Pocatello (now about six hours into the trip), our youngest started crying. She was sick of the car and hungry. We stopped at the only place that was open: Denny's. Since all the I-84 traffic was being re-routed through Pocatello, and the journey was taking longer than expected, the number or weary travelers needing a bite to eat was high, in addition to the usual crowd that would be there on Christmas anyway. The kitchen was overwhelmed to put it mildly. I don't know if it's possible to spend 90 minutes sitting in a booth at Denny's. I certainly couldn't do it. I kept finding reasons just to stand up, going out to the car or even to the bathroom even though it had the aroma of urine and halitosis, with undertones of B.O. I tried to take one of the two little kids with me every other time just to keep them from fighting.
As we filled up on our greasy, starchy meal that was nowhere near as good as the Armenian feast my mom had prepared for us, we had to make a decision as to whether we'd continue on or get a hotel for the night. According to 511, the road conditions sounded worse where we'd come than where we were going, and it wasn't actively snowing, so we decided to keep going and try and make it at least to Tremonton.
The only stretches between Pocatello and the Utah border that were sketchy were through the mountain pass near Inkom and coming over Malad summit. The rest of the time, we were intermittently on dry pavement and were able to make close to 50 mph.
As we approached the Utah border and the roads were clear--not just clear, the best we'd had all day--I expected things would only get better since Utah has a larger snow removal budget than Idaho does. Boy was I wrong. While I-15 in Idaho was mostly clear and in good condition, in Utah, I'm not sure when it had even been plowed. From the Utah line south, we were driving on packed snow and didn't see pavement. At all.
We considered stopping in Tremonton or Brigham City for the night, but both vehicles were doing OK in the deep snow and the kids were asleep, so we kept going. About 10:30 my brother called to see if we wanted to crash at his fiancee's house in North Salt Lake. Knowing it would be more than an hour of additional drive time to keep going to Cedar Hills, we stopped. At about 12:15 a.m., we finally pulled in, having covered about 390 miles in eleven hours.
To put the drive time into perspective, here are some other distances I have covered in about the same amount of time:
Bicycle: Logan, UT to Jackson, WY (206 miles, 10 hours 14 minutes)
Driving: Salt Lake City to Orange County (674 miles, less than 9 hours)
Flying: Hong Kong to San Francisco (6,910 miles, ~13 hours)
Kinda reminds me of that scene in Christmas Vacation where Clark brings everyone out to see the lights, does the drum roll, sings "Joy to the world!", plugs them in, and...nothing. Ellen's mother turns to the kids and says "I hope you all see what a silly waste of resources this was."
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Home sweet Idaho
With the avalanche situation in Utah being what it is and the storms that are in part responsible for creating that situation having also dropped significant amounts of snow in Idaho, for one of the few times, I was glad to be skiing in Idaho rather than in Utah. The other great thing about skiing in Idaho was the chance to spend a day with my good friends Bob, Brad, and Chago. The four of us headed to More's Creek Summit to enjoy a nice backcountry tour.
The new snow was about knee deep, except to Bob, whose knees come up to my hips. Which meant trail breaking was hard work and slow.
After about three hours of climbing, we made it to the top and were rewarded with some fresh tracks. Here's Bob threading the needle through a couple of trees.
Chago looking smooth.
Brad used to be a competitive bump skier back in the day. He looks good in the pow too, no?
Can you see the grin on Bob's face? Thought so.
The view from the top.
Chago did a nice writeup on the snow and avy conditions today--you can read it here.
The new snow was about knee deep, except to Bob, whose knees come up to my hips. Which meant trail breaking was hard work and slow.
After about three hours of climbing, we made it to the top and were rewarded with some fresh tracks. Here's Bob threading the needle through a couple of trees.
Chago looking smooth.
Brad used to be a competitive bump skier back in the day. He looks good in the pow too, no?
Can you see the grin on Bob's face? Thought so.
The view from the top.
Chago did a nice writeup on the snow and avy conditions today--you can read it here.
Monday, December 22, 2008
To the kind person who left three liters of grape Shasta on my porch
Here are a few items that occurred to me in the moments following the delivery of your gift:
- We drink diet coke at our house. If you'd like to leave some holiday cheer in the future, please keep this in mind.
- We have three little kids that go to bed around 8:00 p.m. Dropping off three liters of sticky purple disgustingness at 7:45 p.m. made it impossible to get our four-year-old, who is difficult to get to bed to begin with, to go to bed without first having some. With said belly full of sugary crap, it makes it that much more difficult to get him to go to sleep.
- You left the "gift" anonymously. Is that because you were embarrassed about giving us grape Shasta? What's the point of giving the gift anonymously anyway? Or was it that you didn't want toxic purple soda in your house, so you re-gifted it to me? If you didn't want it, you could have just thrown it away.
- When I opened the bottle--which I didn't intend to do, but my hand was forced as explained in item 2--it sprayed all over the place, running off of the countertop and underneath the dishwasher. I didn't realize it before, but taking the base plate off of my dishwasher so I could clean the hardwood floor underneath was exactly how I wanted to spend some of my evening. I can't thank you enough. By the way, was the bottle shaken because you slipped on the snowy sidewalks and fell? Because if that's the case, I'm really sorry. I promise I am.
- After reluctantly giving some to my kids and glad-heartedly cleaning up the mess it caused, I dumped the rest down the drain and put the empty in the recycling bin. Now that I've vented, perhaps I'll go relax with an icy glass of diet coke. By the way, did you know that if you spill diet coke, it isn't sticky and it's actually quite easy to clean up? Just wondering.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Review of Bodyworlds
First off, to anyone who suffered through yesterday's post, I apologize for the length. I sat down to eat my lunch (a snickers bar and diet coke, if you're wondering) and started writing and just kept going. It probably should have been three posts rather than one, but oh well.
Incidentally, I'm kicking around the idea of going back up canyon to check on Joshua. You know, just to make sure he has enough food and so forth. I got thinking that he was probably following us because he was hungry and hoped we might have something we could share. Sadly, we didn't.
Yesterday, along with three of my siblings, four of my in-laws, a niece, a nephew, and my mom, I went to see the Bodyworlds exhibit at the Leonardo in Salt Lake City. Here's a quick rundown:
Incidentally, I'm kicking around the idea of going back up canyon to check on Joshua. You know, just to make sure he has enough food and so forth. I got thinking that he was probably following us because he was hungry and hoped we might have something we could share. Sadly, we didn't.
Yesterday, along with three of my siblings, four of my in-laws, a niece, a nephew, and my mom, I went to see the Bodyworlds exhibit at the Leonardo in Salt Lake City. Here's a quick rundown:
- Perhaps the most interesting thing that I learned was before I even entered the exhibit--a sign on the wall indicated that there are more living organisms on each human being's skin than there are human beings in the entire world. I promptly licked my own hand and said "that was like dropping an atomic bomb."
- The focus of the exhibit was the human heart, so of course they had a display citing Lance Armstrong's statistics for resting heart rate, wattage, and so forth and compared them to an "average" man. I was glad to know I was about 80% of the way between average and Lance, at least as far as the cardio stats are concerned. I just wish I could close that last 20%.
- Don't go see the exhibit unless you are comfortable looking at skinless genitalia. Or at least mostly skinless genitalia. The female specimens usually had the skin left on, and all of the specimens are "intact." All of the specimens are also depicted in action poses in order to accentuate a certain aspect of the anatomy. The "hurdler" was even erect, although in that case, much of the tissue had been removed.
- The most disturbing moment was when I made a joke to my mother about the preponderance of genitalia, to which she responded "the ones going like this [points downward] don't do anything for me." I will now go rinse my mouth out with rubbing alcohol.
- I had a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings at crown burger before going to the exhibit. I was sick to my stomach for the rest of the evening. Not sure which was the causal factor, but I'm going to lay off the cheeseburgers and fried food a little more from now on.
- My 14-year-old niece had seen the exhibit once before with her 9th grade classmates. You get one guess as to which group acted more mature.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Can I borrow $60?
From what I've heard, a lot of meth (or heroin or crack or whatever) junkies who are early enough in their habit that they haven't yet resorted to stealing but far enough along that they've spent all their own money will ask friends and family members for $40 or $60 or whatever they need to get their next hit. They'll cite reasons like "I don't have time to go to the ATM" but then never pay you back.
If I ever ask you for $60, it will probably also be to fuel my addiction. And like many junkies, my addiction is to a white powder. Except that mine's perfectly legal. Maybe not perfectly safe, but at least perfectly legal. I'll just use the cash to buy a lift ticket instead of drugs.
As evidence of my addiction, the following was today's avalanche forecast from the UAC:
"Bottom Line for the Salt Lake, Park City and Provo area mountains:
"The avalanche danger is HIGH on and below mid and upper elevation slopes, especially those facing west through north through east and southeast. Human triggered avalanche are likely on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees, and slides can be triggered remotely from a distance, so avoid travel adjacent to and below steep avalanche paths....The nightmarish avalanche cycle that started Sunday intensified Tuesday night into yesterday morning. The two standouts were a large natural hard slab that released in Little Cottonwood Canyon at 8:30 am, 4-5' deep, 800' wide on a NE facing slope at 11,000' and a remotely triggered slide in Mineral Fork, that was about 1000' wide on a northeasterly facing slope at about 9,000'. In addition, numerous class 1's and 2's were triggered in the backcountry, many remotely, and most running above the ice crust and explosives in Big Cottonwood Canyon pulled out slides with 2 to 4' crowns. Natural activity was also observed in Cardiff and Days Fork."
And yet this morning there I was at the BCC park and ride lot at 5:50 a.m., along with Tyler and Dug. Every junkie justifies his habit; in my case it was because I just needed a workout. I haven't been on the bike since last Friday, I am lousy about exercising indoors, so I just needed to do something to get the cardio engine going. At least that was my excuse.
We did have the good sense to stay on low angle terrain where the risk of a slide was pretty much nil. Which meant we were skinning and skiing through the weeds to start and end our day.
Towards the beginning of the tour, we were talking about Andrew Maclean, a world-renowned ski mountaineer who is widely regarded as invincible due to his miraculous survival of close calls over the years, the following clip from his interview with Stephen Colbert being a prime example.
Unfortunately for his companions, although the trouble doesn't seem to catch MacLean, his partners aren't always so lucky. If you're skiing with him, you should be prepared for some gnarly crap to go down. And maybe take you with it.
As we were having this conversation, we heard a whistle behind us in the woods. We turned around to find a man walking towards us. He was dressed in a jacket and winter hat, jeans, and some skate shoes that weren't tied. He asked us what time it was, and we told him. "Oh, so it's morning!" was his response, obviously a little confused. He told us his name was Joshua and asked about our equipment, where we were going, and if he could follow us. Feeling fully capable of knocking down any avalanches ourselves, we really didn't want some guy in tennis shoes with no safety equipment doing it for us. So we told him it wasn't safe and suggested he turn around.
Except he didn't turn around. Tyler looked back a couple of times and saw him duck behind a tree or stop walking when the light was on him. We were all a little nervous, especially Tyler, who was in back. I didn't offer to trade Tyler places--see what a good friend I am? I mentioned that it might not be a bad idea in the future to carry an ice axe on every tour. Unless the wacko living in a tent in the forest has a gun. Eventually the trail turned up a steep hill and the snow got deep, so that was the last we saw of Joshua.
I told Dug that he has a weird variant of whatever Andrew MacLean has, except instead of his friends dying, they just have weird experiences that only seem to happen when Dug is present. Chupacabra anyone?
Anyway, the point of this is to talk about skiing, not weirdos in the forest. Actually, the real point was to let you all know that I am addicted to skiing, to the point that I still go out on days I shouldn't. Not that I go to places I shouldn't, because, you know, there's always somewhere that's safe.
So after a couple hours of skinning, we make it to the top, or at least as close to the top as we wanted to go. We talked about going over to the Meadow Chutes, but it took us about 3 seconds to decide it wasn't worth the risk.
With all the weeds we had hiked through on the way up, I was curious how deep the snow was, so I dug a pit. Maybe a couple of feet to the dirt. Good in the sense that there wasn't much snow to slide. Unfortunately the pit revealed what we knew were already there--lots of faceted layers and a rain crust for the snow to slide off of. I wacked the top of my pit with a shovel, and it took three hits for the snow to collapse. Not a good omen. Still, we were on some mellow terrain, so between that and the thin snowpack, the risk was minimal.
On the way down we had a couple of instances of whoomping (is that really a word? Because all backcountry skiers know what it means, but I don't know if it's a word) and cracking. On a steeper slope, it all would have gone. But we made it down in one piece and without incident. Well except for the Joshua incident, that is.
When we got back to the parking lot and started getting in the car, the tourists who were just arriving for the day thought something was wrong and the lifts weren't working. When we told them we were done, didn't ride the lifts, and were now on our way to work, they just looked at us and couldn't think of anything to say.
Back at the mouth of the canyon, I was just about to change my clothes and head to work when a couple guys from Arkansas pull in next to me and start asking questions about the ski bus. Could they not tell, with my shirt removed even though it was 18 degrees and snow was falling heavily, that I was in the middle of something and wasn't interested in drawing out the process?
Then, with my pants still unbuttoned but their brains full (and I do mean full) of the three details they needed to know to get up the mountain, they say "maybe it will stop snowing." Excuse me? When did Utah become the new Colorado? And why don't the tourons go back there instead? I mean if you don't like snow, go to Vegas or Cabo. But for crying out loud, don't come to Utah. The skiing here is good because it snows. But if all you want to do is ride groomers, go somewhere else. Some of us need the snow. Badly.
If I ever ask you for $60, it will probably also be to fuel my addiction. And like many junkies, my addiction is to a white powder. Except that mine's perfectly legal. Maybe not perfectly safe, but at least perfectly legal. I'll just use the cash to buy a lift ticket instead of drugs.
As evidence of my addiction, the following was today's avalanche forecast from the UAC:
"Bottom Line for the Salt Lake, Park City and Provo area mountains:
"The avalanche danger is HIGH on and below mid and upper elevation slopes, especially those facing west through north through east and southeast. Human triggered avalanche are likely on slopes steeper than about 35 degrees, and slides can be triggered remotely from a distance, so avoid travel adjacent to and below steep avalanche paths....The nightmarish avalanche cycle that started Sunday intensified Tuesday night into yesterday morning. The two standouts were a large natural hard slab that released in Little Cottonwood Canyon at 8:30 am, 4-5' deep, 800' wide on a NE facing slope at 11,000' and a remotely triggered slide in Mineral Fork, that was about 1000' wide on a northeasterly facing slope at about 9,000'. In addition, numerous class 1's and 2's were triggered in the backcountry, many remotely, and most running above the ice crust and explosives in Big Cottonwood Canyon pulled out slides with 2 to 4' crowns. Natural activity was also observed in Cardiff and Days Fork."
And yet this morning there I was at the BCC park and ride lot at 5:50 a.m., along with Tyler and Dug. Every junkie justifies his habit; in my case it was because I just needed a workout. I haven't been on the bike since last Friday, I am lousy about exercising indoors, so I just needed to do something to get the cardio engine going. At least that was my excuse.
We did have the good sense to stay on low angle terrain where the risk of a slide was pretty much nil. Which meant we were skinning and skiing through the weeds to start and end our day.
Towards the beginning of the tour, we were talking about Andrew Maclean, a world-renowned ski mountaineer who is widely regarded as invincible due to his miraculous survival of close calls over the years, the following clip from his interview with Stephen Colbert being a prime example.
Unfortunately for his companions, although the trouble doesn't seem to catch MacLean, his partners aren't always so lucky. If you're skiing with him, you should be prepared for some gnarly crap to go down. And maybe take you with it.
As we were having this conversation, we heard a whistle behind us in the woods. We turned around to find a man walking towards us. He was dressed in a jacket and winter hat, jeans, and some skate shoes that weren't tied. He asked us what time it was, and we told him. "Oh, so it's morning!" was his response, obviously a little confused. He told us his name was Joshua and asked about our equipment, where we were going, and if he could follow us. Feeling fully capable of knocking down any avalanches ourselves, we really didn't want some guy in tennis shoes with no safety equipment doing it for us. So we told him it wasn't safe and suggested he turn around.
Except he didn't turn around. Tyler looked back a couple of times and saw him duck behind a tree or stop walking when the light was on him. We were all a little nervous, especially Tyler, who was in back. I didn't offer to trade Tyler places--see what a good friend I am? I mentioned that it might not be a bad idea in the future to carry an ice axe on every tour. Unless the wacko living in a tent in the forest has a gun. Eventually the trail turned up a steep hill and the snow got deep, so that was the last we saw of Joshua.
I told Dug that he has a weird variant of whatever Andrew MacLean has, except instead of his friends dying, they just have weird experiences that only seem to happen when Dug is present. Chupacabra anyone?
Anyway, the point of this is to talk about skiing, not weirdos in the forest. Actually, the real point was to let you all know that I am addicted to skiing, to the point that I still go out on days I shouldn't. Not that I go to places I shouldn't, because, you know, there's always somewhere that's safe.
So after a couple hours of skinning, we make it to the top, or at least as close to the top as we wanted to go. We talked about going over to the Meadow Chutes, but it took us about 3 seconds to decide it wasn't worth the risk.
With all the weeds we had hiked through on the way up, I was curious how deep the snow was, so I dug a pit. Maybe a couple of feet to the dirt. Good in the sense that there wasn't much snow to slide. Unfortunately the pit revealed what we knew were already there--lots of faceted layers and a rain crust for the snow to slide off of. I wacked the top of my pit with a shovel, and it took three hits for the snow to collapse. Not a good omen. Still, we were on some mellow terrain, so between that and the thin snowpack, the risk was minimal.
On the way down we had a couple of instances of whoomping (is that really a word? Because all backcountry skiers know what it means, but I don't know if it's a word) and cracking. On a steeper slope, it all would have gone. But we made it down in one piece and without incident. Well except for the Joshua incident, that is.
When we got back to the parking lot and started getting in the car, the tourists who were just arriving for the day thought something was wrong and the lifts weren't working. When we told them we were done, didn't ride the lifts, and were now on our way to work, they just looked at us and couldn't think of anything to say.
Back at the mouth of the canyon, I was just about to change my clothes and head to work when a couple guys from Arkansas pull in next to me and start asking questions about the ski bus. Could they not tell, with my shirt removed even though it was 18 degrees and snow was falling heavily, that I was in the middle of something and wasn't interested in drawing out the process?
Then, with my pants still unbuttoned but their brains full (and I do mean full) of the three details they needed to know to get up the mountain, they say "maybe it will stop snowing." Excuse me? When did Utah become the new Colorado? And why don't the tourons go back there instead? I mean if you don't like snow, go to Vegas or Cabo. But for crying out loud, don't come to Utah. The skiing here is good because it snows. But if all you want to do is ride groomers, go somewhere else. Some of us need the snow. Badly.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Long underwear
My grandfather wore long underwear every day of every year for pretty much his entire adult life. He was a cowboy in the transitional period of cowboys, having worked on a western ranch like you'd read about in a Louis L'Amour novel while growing up, and then later farming and ranching as techniques transitioned to automated equipment, such as tractors, pickups and the like. But the wearing of long underwear (and usually a flannel shirt) every day was one of those things that didn't change. Of course, he also lived at 7,000 feet, so it never got unbearably hot, and he was usually up by 5:00 a.m., so mornings were always crisp if not downright cold.
Today I spent my morning skiing and came straight to work, so I've been wearing long underwear all day myself. And I've got to say there's something to be said for it. I think I'll start wearing it on non ski days from time to time as well.
It was needed this morning, since it was four degrees Fahrenheit according to the thermometer in my car when I pulled into the parking lot. Others were reading as low as zero degrees. With the wind, the chairlift rides were pretty chilly. At 11:00 it had warmed up to about ten degrees, and with the sun up, it felt positively toasty by comparison.
The cold temperatures kept the snow in good condition. We had a fun time, with four of my colleagues plus Kris all playing hookie to make some turns. UTRider did a nice writeup, so I won't go into any more detail, but it was good to help out the Utah food bank in order to get cheap lift tickets. As I was heading to the car, I saw the food bank truck being loaded up. There must have been several tons of food. Hopefully someone who needs it will enjoy peanut butter, chili, and Reese's puffs as much as I do.
The problem with riding the lifts versus backcountry skiing is that lift-served doesn't wear me out near enough. When I'm worn out from a long climb in the backcountry, it only seems to sharpen my focus the rest of the day. But when I just lazily ride the chairlift, sipping diet coke and eating chocolate creme oreos, it really doesn't take much out of me. Consequently, I spent much of my afternoon struggling to focus and yearning to still be on the mountain. Fortunately, Dug is anxious to get out as well, so tomorrow morning is shaping up for a dawn patrol on some mellow, low-risk terrain. There was talk of doing some BC laps today but that plan ultimately disintegrated due to the current avy conditions.
While I'm on the topic of avalanche conditions, I'll take a moment to make a pitch for the Utah Avalanche Center. Even in good years the center runs on a lean budget. With significant cuts to the State of Utah and Salt Lake County budgets, they expect 2009 to be an extremely thin year for the center. These folks do a tremendous job providing valuable information that ultimately saves lives every year. Please donate to the friends of the Utah Avalanche Center to help keep this valuable work going.
Anyway, back to the topic of long underwear. As comfortable as it is, it's not all sunshine and roses. I've noticed that the synthetic fiber, which is designed to wick moisture, shares the same drawback of most similar fibers: it stinks. If it's funky enough for me to notice, I certainly can't be the only one. I'm sure my grandfather didn't deal with this, as his was probably made of wool, and a little BO was nothing in comparison with the animal crap that was part of his workday.
But working in a relatively small office where interaction with others, including superiors, is unavoidable makes funky smelling undergarments somewhat of an issue. As it happens, the boss has been fighting a cold and is keeping his distance to avoid infecting others. When we crossed paths and stopped to talk about a project this afternoon, we were each maintaining a larger than normal buffer from the other, each for his own reasons.
Unfortunately, short of gouging his eyes out, there was nothing I could do to mask my hat head, goggle sunburn line, and long underwear under my t-shirt. I'm just glad I wasn't the only one so attired. Maybe next time, he'll come along too.
Today I spent my morning skiing and came straight to work, so I've been wearing long underwear all day myself. And I've got to say there's something to be said for it. I think I'll start wearing it on non ski days from time to time as well.
It was needed this morning, since it was four degrees Fahrenheit according to the thermometer in my car when I pulled into the parking lot. Others were reading as low as zero degrees. With the wind, the chairlift rides were pretty chilly. At 11:00 it had warmed up to about ten degrees, and with the sun up, it felt positively toasty by comparison.
The cold temperatures kept the snow in good condition. We had a fun time, with four of my colleagues plus Kris all playing hookie to make some turns. UTRider did a nice writeup, so I won't go into any more detail, but it was good to help out the Utah food bank in order to get cheap lift tickets. As I was heading to the car, I saw the food bank truck being loaded up. There must have been several tons of food. Hopefully someone who needs it will enjoy peanut butter, chili, and Reese's puffs as much as I do.
The problem with riding the lifts versus backcountry skiing is that lift-served doesn't wear me out near enough. When I'm worn out from a long climb in the backcountry, it only seems to sharpen my focus the rest of the day. But when I just lazily ride the chairlift, sipping diet coke and eating chocolate creme oreos, it really doesn't take much out of me. Consequently, I spent much of my afternoon struggling to focus and yearning to still be on the mountain. Fortunately, Dug is anxious to get out as well, so tomorrow morning is shaping up for a dawn patrol on some mellow, low-risk terrain. There was talk of doing some BC laps today but that plan ultimately disintegrated due to the current avy conditions.
While I'm on the topic of avalanche conditions, I'll take a moment to make a pitch for the Utah Avalanche Center. Even in good years the center runs on a lean budget. With significant cuts to the State of Utah and Salt Lake County budgets, they expect 2009 to be an extremely thin year for the center. These folks do a tremendous job providing valuable information that ultimately saves lives every year. Please donate to the friends of the Utah Avalanche Center to help keep this valuable work going.
Anyway, back to the topic of long underwear. As comfortable as it is, it's not all sunshine and roses. I've noticed that the synthetic fiber, which is designed to wick moisture, shares the same drawback of most similar fibers: it stinks. If it's funky enough for me to notice, I certainly can't be the only one. I'm sure my grandfather didn't deal with this, as his was probably made of wool, and a little BO was nothing in comparison with the animal crap that was part of his workday.
But working in a relatively small office where interaction with others, including superiors, is unavoidable makes funky smelling undergarments somewhat of an issue. As it happens, the boss has been fighting a cold and is keeping his distance to avoid infecting others. When we crossed paths and stopped to talk about a project this afternoon, we were each maintaining a larger than normal buffer from the other, each for his own reasons.
Unfortunately, short of gouging his eyes out, there was nothing I could do to mask my hat head, goggle sunburn line, and long underwear under my t-shirt. I'm just glad I wasn't the only one so attired. Maybe next time, he'll come along too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
