How Shall This Winter Be??

Waking up to a beautiful white blanket of heaven's finest this morning brought a smile to m face.  Winter is finally here in a three part storm cycle that is sure to bring a couple of feet to the mountains.  And it's doing so in great fashion; just in time for the lifts to start turning this Thursday at Snowbasin.

And with that comes another year's worth of goals to shape up and guide the season.

1. Ski at least 45 days both frontcountry and backcountry
2. Ski at least 600,000 vertical feet
3. Ski the south face of Ben Lomond Peak
4. Drop S&S at J-Hole
5. Ski Superior 
6. Continue filming and putting edits together
7. Enter a big mountain competition or two
8. Call in sick to work at least twice for a 15 inch or more storm
9. Solo Willard Peak ice drainage and ski down into Liberty
10. More photos
11. Throw more 3's
12. Throw more front flips
13. Stop being a girl when it comes to back flips
14. Nail my line through the blond cliffs
15. The usual male skier dream

I think that rounds the potential season up.  I'm really stoked to ski a resort full-time for two consecutive seasons.  This will be the first time ever doing that and Basin has a lot of hits waiting to happen.  But I am also super excited that I managed to get a full season pass up to Grand Targhee for $250, so I will definitely be hitting that resort up a couple of times this year in addition to my six days up at Jackson Hole, which I couldn't find it in my heart to forgo this year. 

Now it's just time to keep the moment from Portillo going.......

Yes I Hit 50!!

I hit my 50th day skiing for the season this past weekend.  I know that's not a lot by way of the Rockies standard, but for me working a desk job everyday and also doing tree work heavily during the fall and spring, this is a good personal accomplishment.  I'm pretty sure that I won't make my vertical footage goal, but this year I've started to really look at quality versus quantity and keeping myself healthy by not pushing too far after fatigue and exhaustion set it. 

Very "scrumtrulecent." That is all

'09-'10 Season Goals

Yep it's that time of the year again.  The time of year that I actually produce goals.  And with the third day of skiing for the season completed, here they are in no particular order of importance:

1. Ski at least 45 days; includes both frontcountry and backcountry
2. Ski at least 800,000;
3. Ski the south face couloir of Ben Lomond with Christian
4. Drop S&S
5. Ski Monte Cristo
6. Ski Superior
7. Put a couple video segments together
8. Shoot more photos
9. Call in sick to work at least twice for a weekday storm dump of 15 inches or more
10. Solo Willard Peak ice drainage and then ski down into Liberty
11. Throw more 3’s
12. Stick the front flips in all conditions
13. Start throwing back flips
14. Stomp my line at the blonde cliffs with the flip
15. Find a hot ski babe to date

Pretty much amounts to mannin' up and huckin' more

Winter Performance Review

So another winter come and gone. Today marked my end of winter; I took the ski cargo box off my car. Let's go ahead and look at my goal performance.

GOALS:

1. Ski at least 45 days: 57 Days; 15 Backcountry
   
2. Ski at least 800,000 vertical feet: 722,345 feet
   
3. Ski the the south face/couloir of Ben Lomond from the peak w/Christian: No
   
4. Ski Little Superior on a good powder day w/Christian: No
5. Get Avalanche Level 1 Certification: COMPLETED
6. Get Avalanche Level 2 Certification: COMPLETED
7. Huck a certain cliff on Banana Dayz in Big Cottonwood Canyon: COMPLETED
8. Huck a certain cliff on Honeycomb Cliffs in Big Cottonwood Canyon: COMPLETED
9. Drop Corbet's Couloir at Jackson Hole: COMPLETED 3 times
   
10. Learn a backflip: No
11. Ski Silverton Mountain: COMPLETED, Got arrested on my birthday
    
12. Ski Monte Cristo in Little Cottonwood Canyon: No
13. Film one or two short ski mountaineering films w/Christian: No
14. Call in sick to work at least once for a weekday storm dump of 15 inches+: COMPLETED
15. Ascend all 3 pitches of Malan's Waterfall: No
16. Solo Willard Peak ice drainage at least 3 times: No
17. Take an ice climbing trip to Ouray, CO: COMPLETED
18. Find a super hot Backcountry Babe to date: No

Ok so let's look into why I didn't accomplish some of these goals:

• I didn't get my vertical footage goal due to my job as a ski buddy with Dakota. I never got him to ski more than 10,000 feet per day (more than 5 runs).
  
• Any goal that I had with Christian became an extreme challenge due to Christian returning to school and having a baby.
  
• I never did learn a backflip because I just forgot about the goal.
  
• I never did get to ski Monte Cristo as I never got up to Superior this year. Montes Cristo is the true summit to Superior and it's easiest to do those two in the same trip.
• After my ice climbing trip to Ouray, I focused more on skiing and I didn't have any luck with weather as it was a really warm winter causing the ice at lower elevations to not form up as usual.
• And I didn't get that super hot backcountry babe to date cause I didn't really care for that goal. Maybe things will change this next year.

INJURIES:

So this year seemed to be the year of injuries for me. I couldn't believe how one injury would happen right after I healed from another one. Let's look at the damage I had:

1. Torn meniscus left knee - Caught my inside ski on the top of a mogul
   
2. Subluxed left shoulder - Cliff drop into really dense deep snow
   
3. Split lip and chin - Hit a patch of ice at high speeds as I initiated a turn = wipeout
   
4. Sprained right knee - Poor technique when exhausted on a bumped out technical run
5. Hairline fracture right fibula - Bad cliff drop onto a mogul
   
6. Sprained left thumb - Dakota ran into me while stopped and took out my legs
7. Sprained right ankle - I have no idea what happened
8. Broken ribs, 7th and 8th on left side - Carbon fiber ski pole to the ribs at high speed

Yeah I got a little beat up this year. Hopefully I will have better luck this next season. Plus I'm going to make sure that I workout during the season, do a lot of yoga, and stretching to stay healthy.

A really cool highlite of the winter was joining the Icelantic Ski Promotion Team. I love skiing so much and have really wanted to get involved in the industry. This has given me a taste of that and really doesn't seem like work at all. I enjoy working the demos and spreading the word about the skis. As long as I am not required to help out with demos on the really good snow days, I'll be good.

Ben Lomond Tour

Matt is now back in town for the time being. How is that good for me? I now have a local touring buddy. We had an impromptu ski tour this weekend up to Ben Lomond. I have never ever summitted Ben Lomond prior to this day. I've been up to the saddle and have played around many times in that area, but never topped the peak. That became an added bonus to the skiing.

The skin up was long and uh, long. The one thing that I don't like about touring in the Ogden area is the approaches. They are very long and flat before you start to actually ascend a slope. Matt and I came in through the north side. As we finally got to the high ridge, the wind started howling with gusts over 80 mph. That was absolutely brutal on the boot pack to the top.

We kind of slacked taking 4 hours to get to the summit. As we got to the top and I had a chance to look at the South Face Couloir. I got so excited as I was mere feet away from a season long goal, a goal that originated at the end of last season. I tried to convince Matt that we should drop the beautiful line, to test our ability. Matt stated that he didn't have enough juice in him to make the dangerous run, plus it was later in the day than is recommended for that line.

I had to accept the fact that I most likely would not attain that goal this season. However, seeing the line from the top helped me visualize my eventual descent, fortifying my confidence of success.

Matt and I skied two differing lines, but still close enough to see and rescue each other if need be. I watched Matt make his way to his first planned safe spot. Once he stopped, I dropped in. Here's my thought train that ensued: Ski cut hard to the left - two inch deep wind slab broke free but only ran 16 feet - I need to do one more cut before I feel good; Hard ski cut to the right - boot deep powder now, no signs of instability - Oh yeah let's get going; First turn - smooth and deep; Second turn - wind scowered hard pack - Oh crap hold tight; Third turn - punching wind crust - Hold on tight; Forth turn I'm going mach 9 this isn't going to be good - back to boot deep powder - Oh s#!t we're going down. At that point I was launched forward over the "handlebars" going head first into the snowpack. Man this is going to be tough.

The line was intense, not because the terrain was extremely steep, but because the spatial variability of the snowpack and quality was so drastic. Also my previously fractured fibula was a bit sore.

After we made our 1800 foot descent we had a lot of traversing and bushwhacking to get back to the car. We both were now getting drained as we spent most of our energy on the way up.

It was a good challenging tour that kept me in the realm of humility as I felt worked. It's good to have days like this every so often.

I apologize for the pic quality; I forgot my camera and used my iPhone for the documentation.

Tons of possibilities

Matt pushing through high winds

It all looks so good

The steep bootpack through 80 mph gusts

Ogden from Ben Lomond Peak

The South Face Couloir from the Summit

I think I'm stoked