Baldy Awakens From Her Slumber...Well Sort Of!

Ever since I moved to San Diego from the East coast last spring, I've been looking forward to skiing Mt Baldy (great bares bones mountain located just outside LA for those who aren't from Socal) this year. Due to a mild winter and Baldy's near complete lack of snowmaking, I have yet to ski there this year. However, my buddy Tyler made it up there this Monday after they finally opened the Thunder Mountain chairlift. The following is his report:

"It was a typical day at Baldy; they didn't open the summit chair until noon. A few folks hiked to the summit out of frustration. Dianna decided to join along. She had brought her skins and climbed up the groomer to get some time in on her skins before this coming weekend's trip to Pear Lake.

We spent most of the morning doing laps on the beginner chair. When they finally opened the summit chair, I took a run on the one groomer that was open from the top. On the second run down, I ducked the ropes and got to ski an untracked run from the top. The first half of the run was fun. There was actually dry powder if you can believe it. The second half was rock and snow covered ice. My skis will never be the same...

At the bottom, Dianna and Laura skied on and finished out the day while I read the paper.”

Note: Tyler fails to fully explain why he finished the day out sitting in the lodge, drinking beers and reading the paper. Besides being greeted on the second half by rocks (which were ever so kind to his skis), he was also greeted by the ski patrol who took away his lift ticket. So it appears that the good luck we had at Snow Summit on Saturday had ran out.

John Nelson: The Wolverine Hunter

My friend John Nelson just got a job checking wolverine traps in the Sierras. It might not sound like an exciting job at first. But he is basically getting paid to go out on backcountry ski tours with a buddy of his to check these traps. He is living the dream while the rest of us are sitting in our offices bitching about how we are stuck skiing at Snow Summit! Granted, winter camping isn't exactly luxury. But he is living the dream. Seeing as though he was out this past weekend, I asked him to give us an update on what he's been up to. He sent me this entry. Apparently the Blackberry reception in Sequoia is better than I expected:

Dateline J.O. Pass, 9400'

Its cold as shit and has snowed 16". Three of us spent two nights out in order to check a bait station that was set up just northwest of Mt. Silliman. It took one day to walk in and find a place to camp. We spent the second day checking the trap, which is a motion sensitive camera pointed at a big chunk of venison. Everything is about eight feet off of the snow. The bait is on a pole that is wrapped in barbed wire in order to grab hair off anything that climbs the pole. We spent a total of about 20 minutes at the trap, which was actually a long time because it was too cold to stand around.

We got some pics of a marten, a jay, and a squirrel and no hair samples. The experiment was a success though because the camera worked when we tripped the infrared beam, which is a good indicator that the other 18 stations are also still working.

We ended up getting two phenomenal runs in over the course of three days, Alta gold for sure, but had to skin back out to Lodgepole because the snow was so deep and the walk long and flat. I have a few trips left to do and am headed to Onion Valley on March 1st to do some east side trips.

Ski Report: Surf N' Ski

As I said two posts ago, I've been going through some difficult times recently due to not skiing the previous two weekends. So by the time this past week came around, I was pretty much desperate. I was going to go out and get some turns in no matter what. Unfortunately, none of my friends were up for any real trips. Girlfriends, visitors from out of town, or side jobs tracking wolverines took precedence. So I resorted to pimping myself out on Telemark Tips (www.telemarktips.com) to find someone who was interested in doing some backcountry skiing in the Eastern Sierras. "Single white male, AT skier, 22 years experience downhill, 5 days backcountry, enjoys steep couloirs and long walks on the beach, willing to do anything to join party of experienced backcountry skiers for weekend in E. Sierras." Amazingly enough, my post got lots of looks but no offers.

Rejected by all of the free-heelers on Telemark Tips, I turned to my next best option. My friends Tyler and Dianna were planning on going to Snow Summit for some night skiing on Saturday with Dianna's cousin, who was in town visiting from Massachusetts. After getting spoiled by all of the great early season skiing at Alta, Snowbird and Vail, I told myself I wouldn't sink to the level of skiing at Snow Summit. But like I said, I was desperate for some turns. So it appeared that this was to be my fate for the weekend.

Sitting in my office Thursday, I remembered one of the important life lessons I've learned in the Navy. While I was a Midshipman, I spent 5 weeks one summer on the Los Angeles class attack submarine USS Houston. While on board, we were lucky enough to pull in to Pattaya Beach, Thailand for a port call. I had only been on board for 2 weeks before we pulled in. But they had been out for a few months already and really needed to blow off some steam. I won't go into any details. But I will just say that I was scarred, yet utterly amazed at what great use they made of their time. While there, the junior officers let me in on their informal liberty rules: 1. Always seek to elevate. 2. When you crash and burn, regroup, and elevate. What they are basically saying was live life to the fullest. Find a way to squeeze the most fun into whatever you are doing...even if it involves skiing at Snow Summit.

What relevance did that have to this weekend and how was I going to elevate? The title of the entry pretty much gives it away. But one of the life-goals I said I was going to accomplish at some point this ski season was to surf and ski in the same day. That is a quintessential Socal experience. There is probably no other place in the world where doing that is so easy. So I met Tyler and Laura (Dianna's cousin) at San Onofre at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning. The waves were a little on the small side (2-3 ft and mushy). But we all managed to catch some good waves and have a great time. I've got to give a big hand to Laura. It was her first day ever on a surfboard and she actually stood up and rode a wave on the second one she tried catching.

After spending 2 hours surfing, we took off for Tyler's place in Laguna, picked up Dianna, and headed up to Snow Summit. The drive up there was actually a real pain. It took us 3 hours to get there and the roads weren't even that bad. I attribute this to a combination of typical LA traffic on the freeway and LA drivers not having a clue how to drive in snow once we were in the mountains. If there were any snow on Mt. Baldy at all, the drive alone is reason enough to go there. We arrived at Snow Summit around 5 PM. Snow Summit has a $40 ticket that is good from 3-9 PM. So as far as ticket prices go, it’s not outrageous.

Once we were on the mountain, we actually had a fun time. It's small and the terrain isn't all that interesting. But it did have good snow and moderately pitched terrain that was good for cruising. The mountain was nice enough to groom in between the jumps in the terrain park. So we enjoyed ripping big turns in between the teeny boppers playing in the park. Truth be told, the whole experience reminded me a lot of the Friday and Saturday night ski club trips we used to take to Greek Peak and Holiday Valley when I was in junior high and high school. Back then I was one of those kids lining up to hit the jumps trying to pull the biggest daffy or backscratcher. I have to admit that things have changed a bit since then. The jumps in the park are now man-made and much bigger than the ones we had. When I was that age, you were the king of the mountain if you could successfully land a helicopter or a double daffy. Nowadays, even as a kid, you have to get inverted to really impress your friends. On the positive side, instead of eating overpriced cardboard pizza in the cafeteria, we treated ourselves to pints of Sierra Nevada.

But just like in high school, the biggest thrill came from breaking the rules. Shortly after we got there, they closed all of the slopes to the skiers' right of the East Mountain Express chairlift in order to blow snow and to groom. We were eyeing it all night, salivating over the untouched corduroy, and decided to cut the gate leading to that section of the mountain at 9:15. We figured that if they caught us and took away our lift ticket, it would be no big loss. The mountain closed at 9:30 after all. About 100 yards after cutting the gate, we came around a corner and saw a snow cat blocking our path. So we turned back and hiked up into the woods to see if we could make our way around him. But just as we were approaching the edge of the woods to cross the slope up above the snow cat, we saw two guys in the middle of the slope adjusting the snow guns. So we turned back in retreat thinking that this wasn't to be our night. However, as we were nearing the gate that we had cut only 5 minutes earlier, we heard the snow cat start up and head up the hill. We immediately turned back around and made our way along the path as fast as we could. As we were passing the slope where the snow cat and the guns were, we didn't even look to see if they saw us.

The run was gorgeous...for Snow Summit standards. We were skiing on a layer of fresh, soft, untouched corduroy. Adding to the thrill of breaking the rules were the snow guns that were still going at full blast the whole way down. We really couldn't see very well and were praying that they didn't have any hoses crossing the slope. We never would have seen them. Thinking we hadn't been detected, we came across 2 snowmobiles coming up the hill on the last pitch. Luckily they really didn't care as we both kept going and they didn't turn back. We took one more run that night. But that run was definitely the highlight. What I feared was going to be a sub par weekend turned out to be a lot of fun.

In Search of the Elusive Hardcore Skier Chick?

Being Valentine's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to devote this entry to man's other obsession...women. So I was up in LA this past weekend visiting my buddy Carl. We were out with his girlfriend, Teahnna, and were walking back to my car after eating a wonderful meal at very nice Italian Restaurant (Dolce) in Hollywood. As we're walking down the sidewalk along Sweetzer Ave past a car (I don't remember what kind of car it actually was), both Carl and I were struck by its roof rack. It was covered with stickers from a whole slew of resorts including Alta, Snowbird, Kirkwood, Squaw, and Jackson Hole to name a few. Carl turns to me and says, "I almost want to leave this dude a note suggesting that we get together for some skiing." I nod my head in agreement. Teahnna's response to this is, "What makes you think this car belongs to a guy, it could be a girl's car!" Carl and I turn to each other and just start laughing. I reply that girls like that don't exist. Carl adds fuel to the fire, saying that if she did exist, he'd be out with her right now.

Needless to say, Teahnna didn't find our comments very funny. But it does raise an important point for those of us who are addicted to skiing or any other sport where the participants are mostly dudes. How do you balance the relationship you have with your girlfriend/wife (who expects you to be home on the weekends) and that with your love of the sport (that takes you out of town seemingly every moment that you have off)? As a sub-question, should you look for a woman who shares your interests or a woman who doesn't share them, but can respect your passion for them?

I'm not even pretending that I have the answers to these questions. God knows that I am a complete mess when it comes to women! But from observing a number of relationships (friends and family, some ideal and others less than ideal) and thinking quite a bit about what I value in a relationship, I have at least developed my own opinion.

Of course, the ideal situation is to find a woman who would be driving the aformentioned car with the nicely decorated roofrack. That way she can share in your passion and you both can go skiing every weekend. As a side note, I would hope that she is either roughly as good as I am or is totally understanding if I want to ditch her on a powder day. When I get onto the mountain, I know that I become a completely self-centered asshole. I am a firm believer in the "no friends on a powder day" rule. (Sorry Dad for ditching you at Alta!) But it hurts me to wait for people while I see beautiful powder getting tracked up. So she'd have to either be good or understanding. (Note: If she'd be into skiing steeps and hucking cliffs, I would consider that a major turn on!) If she was a crappy skier who expected me to hang with her on a powder day, it probably wouldn't work. She'd probably hate me by the end of the day.

That being said, I have gradually become more realistic and have come to realize that the odds of meeting a woman who is a smart, hardcore skier chick are pretty slim. Just finding a single girl like that is tough. Every dude who skis wants to meet her. On top of that, you also have to have some chemistry-which further reduces the odds. Then you need to prevent yourself from acting like a moron and screwing it up-for me the larger concern and one which reduces the odds yet further. I know this all sounds incredibly pessismistic. So in the end you're left holding out for something you're not likely to find. So like most normal people, I think the answer is to find a woman with whom you just enjoy hanging out with and can understand your passion for skiing. Naturally there's going to have to be some compromise on both sides. So you can give up going out of town some weekends when the snow is no good. But hopefully she'll understand that skiing is a part of who you are. If she's cool and a little adventurous, maybe she'll take up the sport herself.

PS: If anyone who reads this knows if that roofrack did belong to a woman who is single, I'd indebted if you could get me her number.

Withdrawl Symptoms

I've spent the last 2 weekends away from the mountains hanging out in LA and San Diego. I was sick the first weekend and just didn't want to make 6-8 hour drive necessary to find decent skiing. This weekend, I originally had plans to go to Tahoe and ski Squaw and Sugar Bowl. Then I got a call from my buddy James on Tuesday night. At first, he said that the snow wouldn't be that great and it would be mid 50's and sunny. My answer to that was fine, we'll just approach it with the attitude that it would be spring skiing. We'll be wearing T-Shirts and skiing lots of bumps. Although far from powder, that can be a lot of fun if you go into it with the right attitude. That didn't sway him and eventually it came out that he wanted to stay in San Francisco for the weekend and go out on a date with a girl that he met recently. Not being a powder weekend and the fact that he spent the last 6 weekends at Tahoe, girls naturally won out over bumps and sun. Although disappointed not to be going up there this weekend, I clearly understand. Given the same choice, I probably would have made the same decision.

I am really hurting to get back out and get some turns in. Although I'm interested in going for a tour next weekend, what I really want is some lift serviced skiing. The backcountry is a great experience in that you have to work for each turn and that you're usually the only ones out there. But the tradeoff (versus lift service) is that you really don't get a lot of turns in and you don't ski as steep of terrain.

On the positive side, this past weekend was a lot of fun. I visited my buddy Carl in LA, got my butt kicked surfing and brewed my first batch of beer since last July. It will be a Belgian Red Ale in the style of Rodenbach and should be available on draft here in San Diego in another 3 weeks.