Whistler, eh?

This needs to be updated pretty badly huh?

Winter break was very good. Lots of good times seeing friends and family. Towards the end of break, my Dad and I flew out to Whistler, Canada for some stellar skiing. Whistler is the largest resort in North America and truly dwarfs other places. A lot of this has to do with the ridiculously huge, open alpine at the top of both Whistler and Blackcomb mountains:



All that terrain and you can go anywhere you want?!?! YES! You can see little skiers on a groomed path kind of in the center descending from the big notch known as the saddle. Dad and I skied through the saddle in the other direction. Our first day was spent cruising around the high alpine at Whistler.

Later that night it started snowing and would not stop until the end of the trip. Overall, we saw 113 cms (bout 44") of snow in four days... JEA!

With all the snow, the high alpine was closed for most of the rest of the trip (avalanche issues) so we skiied a lot of sweet tree runs like this:



That's Dad laying it down. We're skiing on Blackcomb mountain looking over at Whistler.

Mid-way through the trip, we took the plunge and signed up for a day of Cat-Skiing (riding in a snow-cat and skiing in the backcountry). With all the snow, it was deep, untracked and delicious.



Conversation probably went something like this:

Dad: "Is it up over your knees over there too?!"
Scott: "BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH"
Dad: "Do you have any idea where our guides went"
Scott: "NAH HAHAHAHAHAHAH"
Dad: "BAHAHAHAHAH"

Our last day in town, it was still nukin and woke up to 15" of fresh. Dad and I got up early and earned first turns on a lot of the stuff:



You can deduce a couple things from this:

1. It's still snowing hard.
2. I'm very, very happy.
3. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I hope everyone is having a good first couple weeks of school! I plan to update this thing more regularly... no seriously...

Blueberry Mountain

Last week we started to hear stories of large amounts of snow up in the Adirondack High Peaks. I had planed to go hiking but upon hearing the rumors of fresh powder to be slain.... things took a different course. Scott D. agreed to some sort of doomed backcountry adventure.

The plan was... look at a bunch of hiking pictures online, identify some loosely forested area (looks ski-able), and go for it. None of this sanity, follow a guidebook shenanigans. It was adventure time.

Scott and I identified Blueberry Mountain as a pretty decent suspect. It's a short (2 miles and change) to the summit and appeared to have some decent space in between trees to make turns.

Saturday morning we headed up and made the slog uphill. About a mile in the trail turned from nicely packed snowy trail to a foot or more of deep, untracked powder. Eventually we reached the top celebrated briefly and put on the downhill gear.



This little segment was the best turns we had. Probably three or four nice turns right off the top. Then we skied a whole lot of this:



Rocky, loggy, and tight. It's a good thing I was on ghetto skis because the scratches were pretty numerous. The turns weren't pretty and we were scraping off rocks galore. We only skied about a mile back down before getting stopped by trees that were just too tight. The hike back was pretty chill and we agreed that for the general idiocy of the plan, the day had gone well.

On the way back, we stopped at The Mountaineer (an outfitter up in Keene) and asked about some recommend spots to hit in the future. They asked where we went today and we explained our adventure. I mentioned that we probably should have stopped in the shop BEFORE we just gunned it to the woods. They said, "nah, you guys had fun and probably skied somewhere nobodies done it before."

So that's the spin we're going with. First Ski and Snowboard Descent. Blueberry Mountain. Ker-booyah.

Going to Classes - Completed

The greatest part about this part of the semester is being done with stuff. Today I am done with classes. While I may have a whole bunch of exams and projects due next week, I will not be returning to a lecture hall or lab to endure the pains of class until after Christmas and all sorts of other good things.

We're finally starting to get some winter weather here in Troy. It's snowing! It's cold! It's delicious.

Last week Troy got a pretty interesting storm of wintery mix rain/sleet/snow stuff. I have enjoyed walking on the ice sheets to class all week. It adds excitement and adventure to normally boring walk. If only people didn't look at me funny when they see I'm intentionally walking on the ice....

I believe the storm was all snow up in the mountains. Tomorrow shall be a day of investigation.... yesssss...

Disgruntled

I wish there was more light. Days should start getting longer stat.

After Daylights Saving time and the onset of Winter, it really started getting dark earlier and earlier around here (like every year). Now it's getting dark around 3:30 and is genuinely dark by 5. I start class at noon or ten. So on any given day I'm only seeing 5 or 7 hours of daylight. Grumble. Yeah, yeah get up earlier Scott.

Should be, get up later sun. Everybodies gotta hit the snooze button sometime.

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

My family and I cruised up to Vermont for Thanksgiving at this placed called the Hawk Resort. It was kind of strange not being home in Cincinnati and seeing people and doing the whole traditional thing... but still good.

The place we stayed had some wicked good meals and Thursday I nabbed the classic Thanksgiving dinner (although I had to avoid the temptation of Beef Wellington). We went skiing on Black Friday after sleeping through all the shopping insanity. Killington was looking pretty good with a variety of trails open including a quality bumped out run.

After a half-day of skiing, we went "crafting" in some random teeny towns in Vermont. Let me tell you, I'm a crafting champion. Painted gourd santa ornaments? Yeah, we picked up some of those. Looking at fancy hand-crafted wood furniture? I'm all over that. Sampling home-made jellies? I'm your man.

I hope everybody is getting ready for Christmas and neglecting everything that comes in between (finals, projects, bah!).

Fred Beckey

Last Thursday,Fred Beckey came to speak at a special Outing Club presentation. This guy is a climbing legend! He was born in 1923.... so he's.... 84. And he's still climbing on stuff harder than I can (like 5.8).

His slideshow had more insane pictures of amazing rock and mountain climbs (Denali, Waddington, Rainier, Hood, etc.) than I could previously imagine. For many pictures, Fred would say something like "this was about ten years ago." And you're thinking.... so that means you were 74?!?! You were navigating a glacier as a 74 year old?

After the presentation I asked Fred what allowed him to climb so long into his years. He kind of gave me a funny look that said "I'm old?" And then explained that once he got started he just never stopped.

Wow...

SKIING!

This needs some serious updating!

Two weekends ago we began to hear rumors of snowmaking at Killington. With a bit of internet browsing we determined that they had been making snow on a run on the upper mountain in anticipation of opening day a week from now-ish. No lifts spinning... no problem! Killington is on state land so the "officially" can't kick you out (unless you're being ridiculous).

The crew (Tim, Jeff, and myself) got organized and got after it. Incredible first turns of the year.

The target is in sight.



YES!