SoCal Ski Blog

Highgear: Altitech 2 Altimeter

2007-03-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

Ever since seeing my buddy Dave's cool Suunto Altimeter watch last January, I had been lusting over an Altimeter. Finally one morning last September, I was in the middle of my morning space out ritual checking out what was new on Steep and Cheap and my wait came to an end. I exercised my inner backcountry dork and purchased a Highgear Altitech 2 Altimeter for the low low price of $64.81. (Regular Price $140). Due to the low snowfall this winter, it wasn't until the last month that I've really been able to test it out.

Basic Design: Before I finally tried it out, I was a bit hesitant about the clip on design. But I found this to be rock solid. I've been clipping it to the chest strap on my backpack and have had no issues with it coming off. Plus, its far easier to look at than a standard watch.

Altimeter: I did an initial calibration of the altitude (in October) at sea level in San Diego and haven't calibrated it since. In general, the altitude readings have been consistent with those on road signs (Sequoia) and what locals were reading (Jackson). The accumulated altitude tracks vertical both ascending and descending. While I wish you could set it to just track altitude ascended, this isn't a big issue. In Jackson, we did have a small storm roll in one day. The barometric pressure did have an affect on our base elevation, changing it by 300'.

Barometer: Like I said, there was a small storm that rolled in. We did see the barometer drop. However, it wasn't big enough to really be an adequate test. Once I see how it performs in a real storm, I'll update this section.

Thermometer: Like many watch based thermometers, the accuracy of the thermometer is questionable and is definitely heavily influenced by your body temperature. Last weekend, at 10,100 ft, the thermometer read 79F while on my chest strap. However after 20 minutes with the backpack laying on the snow, it had steaded out at47F.

Compass: It tracks well with my standard compass. However, in cold weather (20F was the coldest I've used it in), the entire Altimeter functions very slowly. By this I mean that there is a significant lag when shifting functions and scrolling displays do not show up clearly. This results in making the compass almost useless. So I intend to still bring a regular compass with me on my trips.

Overall, its a solid product. I bought it mostly for the Altimeter function and that functions excellently. Also, even if you just want to use it for the watch function, its much more convenient to look at while clipped to your backpack than it is to look under your glove at a standard watch.

Sequoia National Park: Soccer Fields

2007-03-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Over the last few weeks, winter has finally arrived in Southern California. This Friday afternoon, I packed up my car, picked up my friend Brett, and headed north for my first trip of the year to Sequoia National Park. We arrived at our friends' Chris and John's house in Three Rivers 6.5 hours after leaving San Diego (gotta love LA traffic!). As always, they were great hosts and greeted us with great food and lots of wine. Over the course of the night, the rest of our friends (Carl, Dianna, and Tyler) arrived.

We set out the next morning at 6:30 to head up into the park. On our way up, we stopped to use the restrooms at the Wolverton recreation area. This was the site of the day's first major lesson. Carl, Tyler and I were all sitting on the toilet trying to do our business. The conversation goes something like this:
Tyler: Don't you hate it when you're trying really hard to go because you know you'll eventually have to and the last thing you want to do is to have take a pooh when you're out on the trail?
Carl: Dude......whatever you do, DON'T PUSH! This friend of mine who's training to be a nurse has been doing EMT ride a-longs. He told me that seemingly every night around 7:30, they get a call for some 50 year old guy who just had a heart attack. He gets home from a bad day at work, his wife gives him grief about something, so he heads up to the bathroom to take a pooh and escape from it all. Unfortunately, he pushes too hard and he ends up having a heart attack. So whatever you do, DON'T PUSH!
We all have a good laugh about it. I finish and head out to the cars. It seemed that both Tyler and Carl took Carl's pearls of wisdom to heart as they didn't come out of the bathroom for what seemed like a good 10 minutes.

We set out from the Wolverton parking lot (7200') around 7:30. We initially started on the Panther Gap trail before taking a left and heading up the Pear Lake trail, which took us up to the "Hump". (9200') The trail is marked with Yellow Reflective Squares on the trees. However, they are spaced very far apart. If there isn't already a skin track in place, the best recommendation I can give is to aim to stay on top of the ridge as it climbs up. Unfortunately, Carl had to bail out before we got to the hump due to knee pain from a pre-existing injury.

From the hump, we left our skins on and descended a few hundred vertical feet to get to Heather Lake. After crossing Heather Lake (watch out later in the season...Carl broke through the ice 2 seasons ago), you climb a few hundred feet to the base of the ridge on the other side of the lake. This is the base of the run we call the Soccer Fields. They're called the soccer fields, because the top looks like 2 soccer fields that were placed end on end at a 20-25 degree pitch.
We broke trail and after another hour (4h20min after leaving the parking lot), we were up at the top (10,100').

View From the Top of the Hump

John, Steve, and I made it up to the top before all of the others. We were surprised when we saw how far back Brett had fallen. When he got a little closer, we saw him clutching a single pole with both hands to help him on the skin up. It turned out that one of his 10 year old Life Link carbon fiber poles had snapped when he used it knock snow off his boot. Since backcountry skiers have to adapt and overcome, that's what we did. Using duct tape and a piece of a tree branch, we built a splint to hold the two pieces of his pole together. The pole was a few inches shorter, but it held up for two laps and the skin out.The top of the soccer fields is a wide open 20-25 degree slope. Because of its northern exposure, the snow had stayed dry despite the warm temperatures and we got in some fabulous turns. After about 550 vertical feet, the wide open slope gives way to a fun 350 vertical ft mix of rocks and trees. Overall, we were skiing on 8-12" of soft, relatively dry fluff.
When we got ready to skin up for the second run, we ran into our second equipment issue. Both of my Life Link poles mysteriously would not let me change their length. When I loosened the lower half of the pole (which after a few turns is supposed to let the pole extend or contract), it wouldn't move. It felt like the piece in the upper half of the pole that the lower half screws into was jammed. After 10 minutes of fighting with the pole, I gave up on it. (WD-40 later that evening seemed to do the trick)

On the second skin up, I started cursing myself for the steep skin track I had laid. Apparently, my thin straight skins had better traction in the fresh snow when I was breaking trail than in the slicked beaten-down skin track when we were heading up the second time. Once again, I seemed to be moving back 1 ft for ever 2 ft I went forwards, was cursing Jim (from Norpine) and was thoroughly frustrated.

The second run was also great. This time we went a bit further to skier's right when going through the rocky section. Towards the bottom, John skied past us over what he thought was a rollover. It ended up being a 20 ft cliff. John, being the great skier that he is, took the surprise with ease and landed it beautifully. So then, after a bit of goading, I decided to huck myself off of it too. John said the landing was super soft and that the conditions were ideal. Still I had never really jumped anything bigger than 10' before. So I was very nervous and I thought about it a little too much. I didn't chicken out. However, I also didn't approach it with the right attitude. Even though I decided to jump, I was hesitant about it. I took one turn too many, killed too much speed, had to really push off to clear the rock, got leaning back too far and the result was a complete yard sale. I ended up being fine and I'm glad I did it. But in the future I really need to approach it with an attitude of success. Attitude really is everything!At this point we decided to head home for the day. Once we got to the hump, instead of following the skin track back, we went to skier's right along the ridge and skied down a beautiful, north facing, 25-30 degree meadow with a sprinkling of sequoias. Due to the lower elevation, the snow much heavier than the Soccer Fields. But with a little speed it was very skiable and a lot of fun. It would definitely be a great place to come back to after a fresh snowfall. Once we made it to the end of the meadow, we traversed to skier's left until we made our way back around the ridge to the Pear Lake Trail. After a fun luge run, we found ourselves back at the parking with a cold 12 pack of beer waiting for us. All in all, it was another great day in the backcountry.

Guest Blog: Skiing in China

2007-03-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

My father, Jere Leister, is currently living in Beijing, China and has shared some of his thoughts on his experiences skiing in China.

A month ago I went skiing near Beijing with my Taiwanese friend, James. It’s single run of man made snow was far from great, but I had a good time and worked out my old legs for a couple hours. So, when he asked me to go with him to the best ski resort in all of China over the Chinese New Year holiday, I thought why not? On-line I saw that the Yabuli Ski Resort was indeed billed as “China’s largest ski area with over 300” snow/yr and recent investments totaling over 150 million U.S. dollars… In 1996, chosen as the site of the 3^rd Asian Winter Games. …. 700 sets of skis in very good condition. … 9 trails, which are as challenging as any trail in Switzerland or North America.” It all sounded pretty good, and my friend made reservations to fly to Harbin.

The first surprise came after arriving at the hotel when we arranged for transportation to the slopes. They said if we boarded the bus at 7:00 AM we’d get to the slopes by 11:00; leaving only a half day to ski. The bus came half an hour late, but the on-board “tour director’s” cynical commentary on Heilongjiang life (translated to me by James) made the time pass pretty quickly.

There were remnants of old snowfalls in Harbin (more than normal in Salt Lake or Denver) so I hoped I’d see a lot up north. As we got close I realized that it was not to be; there was, perhaps, 6 inches on the ground. This was in-line with another realization when we got to the ski area. Only 4 of us got off the bus to go skiing. Most of the passengers were from the south of China and were just on a trip to see the Manchurian country side.

But my first sight of the mountain again made me hopeful. Even if the snow cover was minimal…I saw two mountains and the far one looked like it might have some decent vertical. Of course there followed another surprise… the upper mountain was off-limits, only for use by government ski team members.

As you can see it was a blue sky day. That was a treat since Beijing is almost always overcast. After another bus to the actual ski area, I went to the rental shop. Their skis all looked like they’d never been tuned or sharpened. (On a side note, you can also rent ski clothing there too.) Oh well, I guess I really wasn’t on this trip for the skiing. But, my friend was psyched because, even though he was restricted to the beginner slopes, they were at the top of the mountain and he could have full time instructor for minimal cost.

I skied the five runs numerous times, despite two them probably (but not clearly) being closed, and joked with my friend each time I went to the top of the single lift. The day was sunny and the people, just like everywhere in China, were all very friendly and enthusiastic. I was glad for a chance to use my Chinese with the people on the lift

and as always in China we had great lunch:

….and I got to see how they made so many huge death cookies… by “mining” instead of making snow:

And then the real reason I went with James… after getting back to Harbin that night he called some friends who happened to live there and they showed us a night on the town… ( no photos I can publish). The next day we toured Harbin’s sights… they are known for their snow sculptures… the second one was the most surprising..

Grand Teton President's Day Weekend Trip

2007-02-23T16:15:00.000-08:00

After getting back from my early January trip to Alta with my dad, I kept waiting for it to start snowing in California. When the snow never came, I kept canceling ski trips and had almost given up on their being a California ski season this year. I signed up for my first triathlon of the season (Wildflower Olympic) a few weeks ago and had almost shifted priorities to training for that. Luckily my buddy John asked me to join him on a president's day weekend backcountry trip in Grand Teton National Park and my priorities are back where they should be.

I flew into Salt Lake last Friday afternoon. After spending the day skiing at Alta, John picked me up and we started the drive up to Jackson. I was expecting that arriving without reservations on President's Day weekend, we'd have problems finding a room. I was wrong. The town was deserted. After staying in Hoback Junction the first night, we split our time in Jackson between the Motel Six (an unbeatable deal at $40 a night) and a friend's condo. The only downside to the Motel Six is that it doesn't have a hot tub.

We met up with the rest of the group at 7 AM by a trail head near Taggert Lake on Saturday. We started off by climbing up "25 Short" and then skinning over to 10696. Due to high winds and wind-packed snow, we didn't go any higher than ~10,300'. From there, we skied down the ridge to the top of Maverick's. Just as last year, the first turns of the year in my AT boots had me wondering how I could ever ski in something so soft. But the wind-packed snow of 10696 eventually turned to soft powder when we got over to the tree protected east/northeast face of Maverick's. We had a beautiful run (2500' vertical) with 6-8" of powder on moderately pitched terrain through a mixture of trees and open fields. By the time I was a quarter of the way down, I once again had gotten used to my AT boots (Garmont G-Rides) and enjoyed every turn . The downside to skiing Maverick's from "25 Short" is that it requires an hour long skin out. We finished the day by enjoying a few pitchers of beer at Dornan's. If you're ever up that way, I highly recommend stopping there. The view of the Tetons (basically the same as the pic below) from the bar is absolutely stunning.
On Sunday, we decided to ski "Wimpy's", the next peak to the south of Maverick's. Initially, I was relieved to see that there was a skin track already put in. However, I was soon cursing Jim, the very old school owner of Norpine in San Diego, who insisted (when I bought my equipment last year) that I should just get straight skins. The skin track was obviously put in by people with fat skis and wall to wall carpet underneath. For every 2 feet that I went forward, it seemed like I'd slide back 1. (And that was after pushing as hard as I could with my arms to help keep from sliding back.) On the whole, the run down is a 2300' vertical mix of moderately pitched (25-35 degrees) trees and wide open meadows. For the first run, we skied down along the ridge to skier's left. If you go too far over, it gets pretty cliffy. The snow (6" mix of fluff and sunbaked slab on top of fluff) was decent on the first run. Right about the time we started skinning back up, it started snowing. By the time we started skiing down, there was a nice 3" of fresh snow. We skied more down the middle (to skier's right) this time and had a fantastic run. It seemed like every time we'd head into the trees it would open up to a sweet powder shot. The second run earned Wimpy's a big thumbs up. Another positive for Wimpy's is that you don't need skins for the ski out.
On Monday morning, we awoke to 5" of new snow (in the mountains..not in town) and set out to ski Albright...the next mountain south of Wimpy's. The access to Albright is the same (Death Canyon trailhead). When you hit the Valley trail, you stay on it past the turn off to the bottom of Wimpy's. We stayed on the trail until just before Phelps Lake when we started on our way up the south side of the ridge (still on the east facing part...just on the southernmost part of it) of Albright. It was a gorgeous day...sunny, low 30's, and 8-10" of soft snow. We topped out about 150' below the summit (~10,900')and ate a nice lunch while contemplating the untouched powder field awaiting us. I've said it before. But I'll say it again. One of the beauties of backcountry skiing vs. lift-serviced is that you can actually take the time to relax and enjoy the whole powder experience. For our first run, we had a beautiful 3300' vertical run sticking to the south side of the ridge (between our skin track and the main gully) through a mix of open meadows and thin glades. The snow was phenomenal. For our second run, we only went up about 2500' and then skied the same trees before finishing heading into the heart of the gulley about halfway down. The only trick to the gulley was to stick to the right side as the left (southeast facing) side was pretty baked. Towards the bottom, you need to head right to avoid a sizable (~20-30') cliff band.On Tuesday, it was just John and I. We headed back to ski Maverick's again. This time we approached it from the south using the same trailhead we used for Wimpy's and Albright. The only challenge was that the entire mountain was covered with dense clouds. So it made the whole process of actually finding the base of Maverick's from the Valley Trail a bit tricky. In the end we got lucky and guessed right. Besides lucking out in actually finding our way to the base of Maverick's, John and I also lucked out with the best skiing (by far) of the entire 4 days. Most of Maverick's was east/northeast facing (which meant it wasn't baked at all) and it didn't look like anyone had been there since it snowed on Sunday night. Due to the high winds, we only hiked up 1600'. But we did 3 full laps and got in my 3 best runs of the year. It was fairly steep (30-40 degrees) and full of surprises. You'd duck through a set of trees, catch air off of a lip and find yourself in a wide open meadow that was all yours to carve up.
Like all good things, our stay in Jackson had to come to an end. John and I drove back to Salt Lake on Tuesday night. But we got in a half day at Alta on Wednesday before John dropped me off at the airport. From the remnants of fluff we found at Alta, I can only imagine how great Monday must have been there.

Backcountry Decisionmaking, the War in Iraq, and the Importance of a Questioning Attitude

2007-01-19T13:12:00.000-08:00

With the almost complete lack of snow in Southern California, I spent last weekend getting caught up on reading rather than going on a previously planned ski trip to Sequoia National Park. I finished reading "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward and reviewing the Avalanche Safety Reader given out at the Avy Level 1 course I took last March. At first, I thought that they had nothing in common. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon when I was reading an article in the Economist, "Economics Focus: What the World Bank Knows", which was an assessment of the quality of research put out by the bank, that I realized what the link was. The point in the article that really struck me was that the Bank's leadership was consistently using untested research as gospel that their policies worked. They were looking for their in-house research to justify what they already wanted to do (prove that their aid programs and recommended reform programs actually worked) without criticizing the quality of the data or looking to see if it could also be used to show that their policies didn't work. This problem of trying to support the desired outcome is a problem that affects decisions everywhere from the backcountry to the White House to our everyday lives. I can guarantee you that none of us are immune to this.

In addition to putting out lots of information about how the environment (weather and terrain) affects avalanche safety, one of the big points that S. P. Parker, our instructor at the avy clinic, put out was the need to be aware of what is going on in our minds while making the decision about whether or not an area is safe. He brought up the fact that there's a catch-22 that exists in that the terrain we most want to ski often has the highest avalanche danger. The steep powder field that looks so nice also has a 35 degree pitch and has been having wind deposit snow on it for the last 10 hours. These are all major danger factors. But S.P. pointed out that all too often very experienced people ignore these danger factors and look for reasons why they should ski the terrain. Even if they do recognize that the danger factors do exist, they neglect to give them the proper consideration. Some of the messages that go on inside the brain of our friend Homo Powdericus are:
1) I've just spent 3 hours skinning up this mountain. There's no way I'm leaving without good turns.
2) It's been 1 month since I've gotten half decent powder. I don't care what signs I'm seeing. I need freshies.
3) It looks soooooo gooooood!!! I've never gotten hurt before. So I'll be fine this time.
4) Everyone seems to think its safe...so it must be.

These are all rationalizations that have gone through my head at some point to justify skiing a potentially dangerous slope to get some good turns. In retrospect, I recognize that they weren't very smart. They encouraged me to ignore my gut and not fully consider the downside to the decision.

A related issue that S.P. brought up is the tendency for groups to delegate decision making to those with the most experience. What this means is that a group of people will often just follow the most experienced person. He brought up numerous case studies where many of the lesser experienced people did notice danger factors and were concerned about them. But they neglected to speak up because they had decided to follow the person with the most experience. They figured that he noticed the danger factor and had given it the proper attention.

For those of you who haven't read it, I highly recommend reading "State of Denial". It's Bob Woodward's narrative and analysis of the decision making process behind going to war in Iraq and our subsequent strategy for fighting the insurgency. It was largely based on interviews Woodward conducted with key policy makers within the Bush administration. Whatever your politics are, the book is interesting in its lessons for decision making. Woodward argues that like our friend, homo powdericus, key members of the Bush administration did not maintain a questioning attitude. They both failed to question the validity of the evidence justifying their action (WMD intelligence that was 5-10 years old). Additionally, he argues that they failed to adequately consider the downside (not finding WMD, Iraqi infrastructure being in poor condition, the population becoming hostile and the possibility of Shia vs. Sunni fighting) of their decision. Within the government, there were numerous high ranking officials/military officers who did have serious doubts on all of these issues and failed to speak up just like the backcountry skiers who delegated decision making authority to the person with the most experience.

I do not intend this to be open up a discussion about the merits of the war in Iraq. THIS BLOG IS NOT MEANT TO BE POLITICAL! What I do want to show is that these decision making errors do take place and can result in serious consequences.

Within the submarine force, one of the guiding philosophies is to maintain a questioning attitude. What this means is to always question the information being presented to you (where did it come from, does it make sense when seen against current indications/past history, could it be wrong, etc), to use conservative assumptions (not politically conservative, but try to avoid “la la” land assumptions) and to always look at both the pros and cons. A key part of this philosophy is that it’s every crew members’ responsibility to speak up if they have a concern. What this means is that we expect the most junior sailor to speak up if they have a concern. While I at times found this frustrating while I was serving on board a submarine (USS Toledo), it helped to keep us safe while we were operating hundreds of feet underwater. Just like on the submarine, a questioning attitude will help to improve our decision making and to keep us safe, whether it’s at work or at the top of a mountain in the backcountry. I'm not saying it’s easy to maintain. But at the very least we should be aware of it.

Alta/Snowbird Trip Report

2007-01-11T17:02:00.001-08:00

As much as I was complaining about my dad holding me back, I have to give him credit for hanging with me and skiing better as the week went on. Although it hadn't affected him the last two years, maybe his difficulties the first two days were due to the jet lag (flew here from Beijing, China) and altitude. I'm not saying that he transformed himself into an amazing skier beginning on day 3, but he skied much better the last 4 days.
On Saturday, we were greeted with a light snowfall throughout the day. But more importantly, the winds picked up leading to blowing snow. By the early afternoon, this resulted in near white out conditions. Normally, I'd look to see where the snow was depositing. But the wind was fluctuating too much...one minute from one direction, the next minute from another direction. As the afternoon went on, the winds only grew stronger. Like most of the skiers still on the mountain, we spent most of the afternoon skiing the trees off of the Wildcat lift when the top chairs closed. This was perfectly fine with me as the steep chutes through the trees off of the Wildcat lift are some of my favorite slopes at Alta. Unfortunately, by 3:15, the winds had forced the remaining lifts to close. Forcing us to quit early wasn't the biggest consequence of the high winds. More important for my sore back, they closed down the Peruvian's hot tub. So instead of soaking in the hot tub, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the Peruvian's bar. It's a classic ski bar...lots of great local characters, a big fire, ancient couches and lots of dead animals hanging on the walls. If you're up at Alta, I highly recommend stopping there for a drink after skiing. At the very least, it definitely beats sitting in traffic trying to fight your way out of the canyon. If you're there on Sundays, they have great live music.
One of the great things about the Peruvian is that you eat dinner with different people each night. On Saturday night, we ate dinner with Paul, Dick, and Elaine. When I got back from the buffet, I found that dad had enlisted them in his efforts to convince me to put off looking for a real job after I get out of the navy (this August) to allow me to spend a winter as a ski bum. I have to admit that doing that is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I will probably never have again. Sooner or later, I'll get married and start a new career. Once I do that, it would be next to impossible to do something like ski bumming. Not sure if that's what I want to do, but it does sound tempting. I never imagined that it would be my own dad who would be the one pushing me to do something like that.
By the time we woke up on Sunday, the winds (max recorded wind speed at top of Mt Baldy 107 mph) had died down. We found a mountain completely reshaped from the day before...with boot deep powder in many spots. The hike out to Baldy Shoulder was definitely worth it. But the highlight was getting some of the first tracks on Stonecrusher and Lone Pine. What was surprising was that we didn't even hit it in any of our first runs. It was probably an hour into the day. The most difficult part was getting there...the traverse into Stonecrusher was very rocky. But once you were in and made your way over to the right side of the slope, it was wonderful...boot deep and a nice steep long pitch. Despite being wary of where I was taking him, even dad enjoyed the run. Shortly after lunch, dad finally cried uncle and I was left to ski by myself. I expected to be really energized now that I could ski whatever I wanted. But by that time, most of the good snow was skied off and a lot of the mountain was wind packed crud. I got bored and was back at the hotel by 3...I guess that I've become a real snow snob...incredibly spoiled last 2 years getting 60" and 42"over 6 and 5 days respectively.
We spent Monday and Tuesday skiing down the road at Snowbird. Although I love Alta for all of its pureness, I must admit that Snowbird is growing on me more and more each time I go there. Monday and Tuesday were two of the best days I had all week. On Monday, the top of the mountain was covered in a thick fog. So we spent the morning skiing on the right side of the mountain off of the Gad 2 chairlift. It was everything I remembered from the year before...great steep, bumpy chutes through the trees. Due to all of the trees and its aspect to the sun, it also seems to avoid a lot of the freeze/thaw cycle that the rest of the mountain goes through. The snow is therefore seemingly better than just about anywhere...what looks like crud is actually very skiable. Besides that, they had some great groomers where we got some first tracks on perfectly groomed corduroy. I must be getting old because I find laying down GS turns to be simply wonderful...albeit a distance second to great powder.

The blooper for the day happened just after lunch. We decided to take the Little Cloud lift up to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, we didn't see the lift station until just before we reached it. In one of my more graceful moments, my poles got stuck in the chair (sitting on top of the them) and I had to straddle my way over them to get off....got off on two feet, but only pole made it off...the other snapped and fell off a little ways back down the mountain. This ended up being a blessing in disguise. Skiing without poles was a great drill to force me to ski better....never thought it was possible to ski steep bumpy chutes through the trees, but it was actually a lot of fun. Towards the end of the day, we we were able to go through Snowbird's new tunnel, which connects the Peruvian Gulch with the Mineral Basin area.

On Tuesday, we were greeted with warm weather (~40F), blue skies, and soft snow. We made the right decision and decided to spend the morning in Mineral Basin. I highly recommend this as it gets lots of sun in the morning. The snow was particular good in the Bookends area. The second day we bought the "lifts only" ticket. Unless you plan on skiing a lot off the main ridge (great double diamond terrain if there's more snow), a chair only ticket will give you access to plenty of great terrain for $10 less.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to and end and at 3:30 we took the chairlift from Mineral Basin to Alta for our last run of the day. We had enough time at the hotel to spend half an hour in the hot tub and grab a few drinks at the bar before the van picked us up to take us down to valley. For all of you who plan on staying in the canyon and flying out in the morning, my recommendation is to spend your last night in Salt Lake. If a storm hits, its very likely that the Canyon could be closed the night/morning before your flight. (Note: This happened to me 2 years ago)

No Friends on a Powder Day?

2007-01-05T20:14:00.000-08:00

...or so goes the old adage. I am two days into the annual ski trip to Alta that I take with my dad each year. Although Alta is pretty bare by their standards (lots of uncovered rocks/stumps that you normally wouldn't see this time of year), we were greeted with 10" of new snow this morning. At breakfast, everyone was talking about what they'd hit first and what their general strategy was to get the most first tracks possible. By the time we got to the lifts (20 minutes before opening), the lines were already huge. The locals were foaming at the mouth to get their first powder in almost two weeks. So I should have been pretty excited, right?

Actually, I felt really torn and it only got worse as the morning went on. On the one hand, I too really wanted to get some of the beautiful pow pow. But on the other hand, I was on vacation with my dad. The vacation is as much about spending time with him as it is about the skiing. The only problem is that he's 57 years old, not in very good shape and doesn't want to take a lesson to learn to ski powder. I still think of him as the person who taught me how to ski and as the skier I looked up to while growing up. To his credit, he will follow me down just about anything...at least until his body just wants to call it quits. While I try to avoid skiing the terrain (when I'm with him) that I really would like to ski, I inevitably take him to some spots that he really shouldn't be trying. After all, there's not a lot of easy stuff at Alta. So I really feel that at times I am putting him in danger.

Of course, I could just ditch him. God nows, I've done that enough in the past. Maybe if it was truly epic powder I would do that. But as I get older, I am coming to value my family more. He came all the way from China to come ski with me. So I would be a terrible person not to spend as much of this time with him as possible. I only see him 1-2x per year. So when he's around, I actually want to spend it with him and can't bring myself to ditch him each day.

So as much as I love Alta, I'm not sure that I can see myself coming back here with him again. Not only is the terrain no longer suited for his abilities, but I do not want to be teased with all the amazing snow/terrain that I am passing up as I ski down another intermediate run. I definitely want to keep taking ski trips with him...its just might have to be to one of those more intermediate friendly mountains that I've always looked down upon.

What Did Santa Bring Me For Christmas?

2006-12-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I love Christmas! As a kid, I was one of those who would do everything humanly possible to find out what I was getting before Christmas morning. I searched high and low to find out where my parents were hiding the presents. Once I found them, I employed just about every technique possible to figure out what was hiding in those packages...everything from the "fine-tuned" shake to the surgical disassembly and subsequent reassembly of packages using the exacto knife. There was no way I was getting any sleep on Christmas Eve...I was way too excited about opening any presents in the morning. It was always a thrill to see if I got what was on my wish list. Now as an adult, I'm still definitely a Christmas person. Despite all of my bitching about buying presents, I love buying presents for people when I get a great idea. (My sister's in a heap of trouble next year since my recent visit to her place in Western New York has given me LOTS of ideas!) Although I don't decorate my house at all, when I do settle down and have a family, I'm sure I'll illuminate my house in the true Clark Griswold style. (Too all of my future neighbors, I'm very sorry!)

Unfortunately, Santa did not bring me any gear this year...but I did get some checks that will be used to reimburse my checking account for some of the great gear that I have already purchased this Summer and Fall. In the coming months, I'll be doing reviews of all the new gear I've bought this year. So, I'll give you quick preview of what to expect throughout the winter.
1) Patagonia R1 Granular Jacket: Light Weight Windproof Fleece Jacket. This is replacing the black LL Bean Fleece PulloverI got for Christmas in 1992. I think this is well overdue. I went with the lighter weight jacket primarily for ski tours where I always seem to be wearing next to nothing by the time I'm done the skin up. I'll have to see how this will be for lift serviced skiing.
2) Patagonia R2 Fleece Vest: Standard Windproof fleece vest that I intend to wear with the jacket for lift serviced skiing to provide added core warmth.
3) Patagonia R1 Flash Pullover: Pullover shirt that I'll be using as a baselayer for lift serviced skiing.
4) Sierra Designs 600 Down Jacket: After getting envious of all of my ski buddies being warm while resting at the top of the mountain or sitting in the hut last year, I decided this was a must have for 2007. I got a great deal on this at Sierra Trading Post this summer...$56.
5) Black Diamond System Gloves: These are a light weight set of gloves with a shell and a removable insulated liner. Although they aren't waterproof, I think they'll be more than adequate. I also got these off of Sierra Trading Post for $19. My only concern with them is the size. I don't have large hands by any means. So I was surprised when a large was tight.
6) Black Diamond Anarchist Pack with Avalung: At the end of last season, I gave up on my REI pack after the chest strap broke. Although I wasn't excited to fork out the dough required for this pack, I figured that even if the avalung only increases your chance of survival in an avalanche by a small percentage, it would be worth it. It would be bad karma to lower your chances of survival for a measly $70. (Of course, I recognize that the true way to increase your chances of survival in the backcountry is to be prudent and avoid putting yourself in a position to get in an avalanche.)

Those are the major things I've gotten this year and I have to admit that I'm psyched to get the chance to try them out. My first trip of the year will be 6 days at Alta with my dad at the beginning of January. Like last year, we'll be staying at the Peruvian...it's expensive...but I really love that place. Hopefully, as long as the snowpack keeps building in the Sierras, I'll be heading up to Sequoia for 3 days of backcountry over MLK weekend.

Ski Porn Review: Warren Miller's "Off The Grid"

2006-12-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, I met up with a bunch of friends in Laguna Beach to see Warren Miller's latest movie, "Off The Grid." As described in an earlier post, the weekend was a lot of fun. However, "Off the Grid" was a disappointment when compared with his earlier works. I've always considered Warren Miller's movies to be a cut above the rest of the movies in the Ski Porn biz. True to the term ski porn, most movies these days are just a quick fix for not being out on the mountain. They put the focus on loud music, hucking insane cliffs, out-skiing/surviving avalanches and annoying park scenes. Sometimes this is exactly what I am looking for. But while enjoyable, like watching a porn, they generally leave you unfulfilled and empty afterwards.

In contrast, Warren's earlier movies have at least made an effort to get at the soul of the sport, communicating what makes skiing such a wonderful sport. His quirky commentaries have brought us back to Sun Valley circa 1950, taken us on a fox chase (on skis) with the 87 year old Klaus Obermeyer, or introduced us to the Schrab brothers who built a ski jump on their grandfather's farm in Wisconsin. When compared to some of the better surfing movies like "Step into Liquid" or "Riding Giants", even Warren's earlier movies could have worked harder to get at skiing's soul. Unfortunately though, "Off the Grid" was a move in the opposite direction. I want a movie that reminds me of why I love to ski.

The first question that I have to ask is where was Warren? Is he sick? If not, I hope he's going to be back next year. For "Off the Grid", he was replaced as the narrator by Jeremy Bloom, the former Olympic mogul skier and Philadelphia Eagle. I'm sure Jeremy worked really hard on the film and for the most part was just reading a script, but the commentary was lacking. It consisted mostly of brief intros of the skiers and ski areas interspersed with the skiers' themselves making cheesy "off the grid" comments...i.e. "This place was off the grid". Every once in a while there would be a comment by Warren. But it was never more than a sentence and it sounded like it was just a dubbed clip from a previous movie.

My favorite part of the movie was the section covering the expedition to the Indian ski town (if you call it that) of Gulmarg. Gulmarg is a small village in the Himalayas with a few ski lifts. In addition to some great skiing footage, it also introduced us to an area of the world we probably would never think of skiing. This might seem cheesy, but the scenes of them teaching the children in the village to ski really reminded me of the joy of learning to ski. We are so removed from the learning experience we had when we were little that we forget the tremendous rush of excitement we got the first time we slid down a slope with the two sticks on the bottom of our feet. After all, its this rush that kept us coming back and spending thousands of dollars on gear. With all of the great expeditions going on these days, I'd like to see more of this type of footage, which expands our horizons of where we could go skiing.

The Alaskan heli-skiing section at the end had some amazing footage. The terrain was sick and lines they skied left me drooling. But from a cinematographic viewpoint, I'd like to see less zoom and more long range shots. This gives you a better feel for just how crazy the terrain they are skiing is. I just don't think you get a proper feeling for it until you see just small they are compared with the slope/vertical wall that they are skiing down.

The next gripe is with the section on Jamie Pierre's ridonkulous 250 ft cliff jump. I first want to say that its absolutely incredible what he attempted. I say attempted, because it was more like a swan dive than jumping the cliff on skis. He basically did a half flip and landed flat on his back. I hate to chastise them about social responsibility, but do we really want to make people think that you can do something like he did (land flat on your back after falling 250 ft) and walk away. My answer is no. But also, to me, it shouldn't count as any sort of record until he actually lands it. Not that I have the balls to even attempt it (it takes a lot for me to even huck a 5 or 10 footer), but anyone could fall 250 feet off of a cliff and land flat on their back. The trick is landing it. He didn't do it. So why make such a big deal out it.

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as a hater...I don't mean to be so negative. I just think they can do better. I would really love to see someone make a great ski movie that really touches at the soul of the sport. Maybe my hopes are just unrealistic. Unfortunately, "Off the Grid" falls short of those expectations. I'm not necessarily looking for the skiing equivalent of a Scorsese flick. I'm just looking for something better. While its enjoyable to watch and will not doubt get you fired up to get some pow this ski season, it's nothing more than a quick fix.

San Onofre Ski Group Get Together

2006-12-09T14:29:00.000-08:00

Even though we didn't make it out to do any skiing, I consider last weekend to be the start of my ski season. I got together with the group of friends who I skied with last for the first time since last season. Those who lived between San Diego and LA (Carl, Tyler, and Dianna), I had seen over the summer. But it was awesome to see George, Christina, Nelly, and Chris again. In true SoCal style, we met up last Saturday for an afternoon of surfing at San Onofre. The waves were small and mushy...but its always great to spend an afternoon out in the water. All it takes is one good wave to keep me coming back. After spending the afternoon in the water, we had a surf n' turf beach BBQ. Carl brought down a box of live Maine lobsters that he had ordered, Tyler cooked up some killer steak, there was LOTS of vino and Nellie cooked up an amazing Pinapple cake in the campfire.

By the time the cops kicked us out at 8 (park closing time), we were stuffed and ready to head up to Laguna for a night at Tyler and Diana's favorite dive bar...the "Dirty Bird". The Dirty Bird is an old Marine bar that is a classic dive bar...cheap drinks (by Laguna standards), no frills decor, a rowdy crowd of patrons and mediocre cover band that everyone's rocking out to. If you're heading there on a Saturday night, just beware, its definitely cougar country!

We all spent the night up at Tyler and Diana's place in Laguna. For breakfast, we feasted on a nutritious meal of donuts (I had 4 of them) and coffee...we were truly fueled for the rest of the day. So we decided to go mountain biking. Its hard to believe, but this was my first time mountain biking. We went for a nice ride through the park (10 miles, 1400' vert) that surrounds Laguna. In a surprise move, Carl was the hard charger and led the way up the mountain. I jokingly asked Carl if this meant that he'd be breaking trail this winter. In a true return to form, the previous night's drinking and the lack of any real nutrition from the morning's breakfast of donuts finally caught up with Carl shortly after we reached the top. He keeled over, assumed the fetal position, and started wimpering for food and water. I'm not kidding...it was actually pretty amusing. That firmly answered the question about him breaking trail this winter. Don't worry, he was much better after we gave him some water and power bars.

While the ride up was a challenge (bike fit issues), the ride down was eye opening. In fact, it was actually kind of terrifying. I've done a lot of road riding. But I found the downhill portion of mountain biking to be much more technical in that there's more importance placed on controlling your bike. I also found that I needed to overcome the psychological barrier of telling myself that it was possible for bikes to ride downhill, at speed, over rocks, stumps and other obstacles. Despite telling myself to relax, my hands were gripping the handlebars so tight that it felt like I was crush the handlebars. I did one digger. I think the real key is to get out more and with experience I'll become more comfortable with the downhill sections. But altogether it was a great afternoon.

We finished off the weekend by seeing Warren Miller's new movie "Off The Grid". You can read my review of the movie in a separate post.

The Return of El Nino

2006-09-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

From what I've been reading over the last week, it sounds like El Nino is back. It just remains to be seen how strong its going to be. As of now, it looks like a weak El Nino. The weak El Nino brings causes a split flow through California. The good news is that this means more precipitation for Southern California. The bad news is that it usually means a dryer winter for Central and Northern California. I'm no weather expert and I certainly don't wish a dry winter on the northern half of the Sierras. But it would be awesome to for the SoCal ski seaon to start before March this year. Who knows, maybe we'll be skiing Baldy by the beginning of November.

For more information on El Nino check out these links:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/09/13/weather.nino.reut/index.html
http://64.29.226.243/dweeb.htm
http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/

Triathlon at Pacific Grove

2006-09-14T11:15:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, the big day finally came and I competed in the Triathlon at Pacific Grove. To give you an answer to the big question from my previous post, I didn't shave. I know that if anyone who wants to be a hard-core triathlon geek shaves. But I'm a lazy triathlon geek and just never got around to it.

I left San Diego for Monterey on Thursday morning. Before going up, I knew that the water would be a lot colder than what I was used to down here in San Diego. But I completely neglected the fact that the air temps and gusty winds were closer to San Diego in January than anything I had been training in. So I got a rude awakening during our first course preview bike ride that we did Thursday afternoon. As I sat freezing on my bike, I was wondering how I'd feel 2 days later during the race after spending 30 minutes in the ocean. (Yes, I know that I've become a completely spoiled San Diego warm weather weakling!) Despite the cold, I was amazed at how beautiful coast was. Both bike and run went along some of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in all of California.

Friday night all of the Team in Training participants got together for a pasta party. All told, there were over 350 of us taking part in the triathlon through Team in Training coming from as far away as Georgia. Altogether, we raised over $1.2 million. Afterwards during our final pre-race team meeting, one of my teammates (Dana) told us that she had just found out two days before that her brother's leukemia had come out of remission and he had just started chemotherapy again. It was a big shock to us all as the whole team had met him at some time throughout the season. It hurt all of us to see Dana in so much pain. She asked all of us to think about her brother's challenges whenever our bodies were hurting us during the race and to use his fight as inspiration to push ourselves to keep going. No matter how much our bodies hurt, it's nothing compared to what he's going through.

Enough for the sad talk, the next morning we set off from the hotel at 5:30 AM to make our way to the race. Luckily, it felt a few degrees warmer than the previous few days. The first wave started at 7:15. My wave, the Team in Training Men's wave, started at 8:30. When the gun went off, we all charged into the frigid waters (58F, cold by SD standards) and started the swim. There are a couple of things to know about the swim at Pac Grove. First, its a 2 loop course where you actually have to get out of the water and do a small (25 yd) run up the beach between laps. Second, its cold. Third and most important, there's lots of kelp. In fact, there's so much kelp that you need to be as concerned about steering away from the kelp as swimming towards the next buoy on the course. The problem with kelp is that its so thick that both your legs and your arms get tangled in it and you're stuck until you rip yourself free. Consequently you waste a lot of energy. At first when I got in the water, I was freezing. But once my face and feet went numb, the pain stopped and it was all good. On the first lap I did a great job navigating away from the kelp and found myself in second place at the end of the first lap. On the second lap, I pulled into the lead and no longer had anyone to follow through the kelp. Consequently shortly before the first buoy, I basically came to a complete stop. I freed myself after 15s. But it was exhausting. By the second buoy, the wave of 20-29 year old girls coming up behind us caught up to all of us and I felt like I got ran over by a freight train. Because of the kelp, everyone swims in a very narrow path (a couple of swimmers wide). Luckily, that gave us a carrot to chase and we no longer had to concentrate on finding our way through kelp. By the end of the lap, we had passed most of them again and I came out of the water in second place in my heat with a time of 28:36 for the 1 mile swim. As a team, we represented San Diego well. We ended up with 9 of the first 11 male TNT swimmers out of the water.

The first transition did not go as well as planned. I wasted too much time trying to get socks and a vest on (cold hands don't work quick) before my coach told me just to get out on the bike. Once on the bike, I felt fine. The bike went real well. The course itself consisted of 25 miles over 4 laps. I felt like I was riding pretty fast. For most of the ride, I was consistently passing people and moved into first place among all of the team in training participants. At this point, I started wishing that I had started with the rest of the people in my age group as opposed to those in team in training. I was pushing myself hard. But I was missing the competition that would push me to do better. I ended up finishing the bike in a time of 1:11:56 averaging just over 20 mph. The bike to run transiition went much smoother. Unfortunately, as soon as I started running my lower back just started killing me. It was more intense back pain than anything I had every experienced. If I could have paused the race and gotten a cortisone shot for my back, I would have. But as I didn't have the option, I kept going. I thought of Dana's brother and his fight against cancer. But I also though about my grandfather and the fight that he is currently going through against lung cancer. If they could keep on fighting, I could keep on running. A sore back, even though every step hurt, wasn't an excuse to stop or event to take it easy. The run was 6 miles over 3 loops. I ended up finishing that in a time of 39:16. Altogether, I ended up with a time of 2:24:09 which was good for 12th place in my age group and 51st overall. Although satisfied, I definitely feel that I still have a lot of room for improvement and hope to be down to a 2:15 by next season.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents for flying in to watch the race. Seeing and hearing them cheer for me on each lap was really energizing. They were awesome! Yes, I think I have caught the triathlon bug and hope to continue with them in the future. My next race will probably be the Mission Bay Sprint Tri on October 1st. But due to the soon approaching ski season, that will most likely be my last one until next year.

Triathlon Update: The Shaving Dilemna

2006-09-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

So I've now got less than 5 days until the big race and I'm feeling pretty good. Our triathlon team had a practice triathlon last Saturday. It was half of the distance (750m swim, 12.5 mile bike, 3 mile run) we'll be doing next weekend (1 mile swim, 25mile bike, and 6 mile run). The swim, although I was still breathing pretty heavy when I got out of the water, went better than at the Camp Pendleton Sprint Tri the previous weekend. I came out of the water in 4th place. By the halfway point on the bike, I had moved into first place and extended my lead on the run. I ended up with a time of 1:08:40. This puts me squarely on track to meet my goal of a 2:25 in the actual race.

Again, I learned a few valuable lessons from this practice race. First, I learned not to put my wetsuit on the bike rack after the swim. Although I saw lots of people doing it at Camp Pendleton, its apparently against the USA triathlon rules. To teach us a lesson, our coach grabbed all the wetsuits belonging to us "low life bottom dwelling scum" who left our wetsuits on the rack. All he did was throw the wetsuits in a pile. However, all of our wetsuits looked exactly alike and I had neither labled my wetsuit nor ever bothered to look at the size. So after 40 minutes of trying on wetsuits, I ended up with a wetsuit that fits fairly well...although I'm still not convinced that it was the one I wearing earlier in the morning. (It just feels a bit looser in the arms.)

Secondly, I decided that I needed a GU flask for my bike. Once again, I lost my gels. This time they fell out from under my tri shorts. I also learned that if I were to lose a Gu pack in the race, it's a potentially disqualifying penalty if you don't go back and pick it up. I don't want that to happen in the race.

I started tapering last week on the bike and the run. We had our last ocean swim on Saturday morning. I ended up doing ~3 miles. Surprisingly my arms weren't hurting too bad at the end. I ended up making an appointment for a massage on Wednesday. I'm pretty excited. This is going to be my first massage in over a year and I've heard they're just great to loosen you up before the race.

So now I get to the big question: to shave or not to shave? Being the big race, I do want every advantage I can get. But how big a difference will shaving actually make? In high school, we always shaved for the big sectional swim meet at the end of the season. However, we're wearing wetsuits in the water and I have a hard time believing that it will make that big a difference on the bike and the run...at least at my level of competition. I was surprised with the number of guys on the team who I heard were going to be shaving. Its not even all of the most competitive guys on the team. But maybe shaving is just part of being a triathlete. So if I do consider myself a triathlete (and I do now), maybe I should just do it.

Only 3 Months to Ski Season!!!!!!!

2006-08-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

I just checked out Telemark Tips this afternoon and saw this beautiful pic on the front page. It made me giddy just looking at the beautiful pow pow! I'm so psyched for this ski season. With all the triathlon training I've been doing, I think I'll be in even better shape than last year and am really hoping for El Nino to come back and give SoCal a winter more like 2005. Well maybe hoping for a bit much, but I would like to be able to ski Baldy or San Gorgornio before March this year.

Here are some of my initial ski season resolutions:
1) Continue training to be in good shape for the start of the season.
2) Do an overnight (freezing your ass off in a tent style) backcountry trip by March.
3) Do the Sierra High Route or Mount Whitney in April or May.
4) Take a couple of lessons at Alta in January.
5) Ski Silverton.
6) Make a trip up to Roger's Pass, Canada to check out all the beautiful terrain my buddy John's been talking about.

What are your resolutions for this year? I'd love to hear what some of your goals are for this year?

Triathlon Update: Knowing When to Say When

2006-08-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

One of the ideas our triathlon coaches have been repeating throughout our training is that its better to be undertrained than even a bit overtrained. I fully understand their point. If you're overtrained, you're either going to end up injured or burned out. In both of those cases you won't perform well come race day. That being said, I have a hard time making myself stop training.

For tonight's practice, we had a swim at La Jolla Shores. Going into the practice, I had already swam ~5000 yards this week. After swimming ~1800 yards, I wanted to go back out and swim a bit more. Our coach Dave told me that since we've got a practice tri in the morning, I should just call it good for the evening and head home. I did end up following his advice. However, it took evey bit of will power to do that. After thinking it over, I've identified several reasons for this:
1) I felt great after swimming the 1800 yards. Going back to the swim practices we used to do in high school, a practice doesn't feel complete until your body is begging for you to stop.
2) On a purely quantitative level, 1800 yards just doesn't feel like a full workout. Granted most of my swim workouts these days are between 2000 and 3000 yards. But again my mental standard for swim workouts is based of the 6,000-8,000 yd workouts we used to do back in high school.
3) Even though it goes against the mantra of training smarter not harder, my gut instinct is that it takes more training volume to get better. Yes, I know that is wrong. But this is what my gut tells me and it takes a lot of work to ignore it.

Because of all of these, the feeling that came over me to night when I left (with my body feeling great no less) was one of guilt. Part of me felt like a quitter. But hopefully as I learn to take a more targeted and scientific approach to training, I will find it easier to ignore this voice.

Have any of you had common experiences?

Triathlon: Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon and AFC Half Marathon

2006-08-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

After months of training, I finally got some real race experience this weekend. I did the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon on Saturday morning and the AFC half marathon on Sunday morning. I know that some of you are probably going to say that I was crazy or plain stupid for doing 2 races in the same weekend. Initially I was just going to do the sprint tri. However, when I heard that a number of my teammates were doing the half marathon, the competitive juices started flowing and I told myself that it was just about the same distance as my planned base building run that I'd be doing anyways. Before I knew it, I was signed up for the race.

The Sprint Triathlon on Saturday ended up being a great training race. I got some of those first race nerves out of the way. More importantly, I validated a lot of the things I was already doing and saw some things that I should work on. The swim was only 500 yds and I can remember telling my buddy Nelson before the race that the course looked really short. However the swim was a lot harder than I was expecting. The water was both rougher and colder than I had been used to over the last few weeks. I had signficant problems breathing and sighting the buoys. The swells were big enough that you had to be at the top to see the next buoy. As anyone who swims with me knows, I can't swim in a straight line to save my life. So I swam off course two times. Thinking back to what our coach told us, I did try and draft. But I had problems finding someone who was going at my pace. As I was swimming in, I did try and catch the waves. However, due to being out of breath, I had actually stopped twice after catching a wave so that I could catch my breath before the next one came. Coming out of the water, I did try and strip off my wetsuit as I was jogging out. I did pretty good getting it down to my ankles. But I couldn't get the damned thing over my feet. I actually fell over into water before I got it off. I ended up doing the entire swim in 11:59 (20th out of 80 in 25-29). Not bad, but I definitely need some more time in the ocean.

T1 went smoothly with the exception of the aforementioned wetsuit problems. The bike ride was a 20 mile out and back. There was some rolling terrain, but no significant hills. The wind was not bad at all. It was actually in the first part of the bike that I felt the after effects of the swim the most. It felt like I had just been hit in the gut. For the first 15-20 minutes, I was still gasping for air. I felt nauseus when I ate an energy gel. Over that time I was only averaging ~17 mph and getting passed left and right. Around the 20 minute point, my body seemed to settle down and I started feeling better and better. Over the second half I was averaging 20-24 mph and started passing some people myself. On the bike, I came in at 58:42 (25 out of 80). I came into the race thinking that the bike was my weak area and this result just reconfirmed it.

T2 went great. I was in and out in under 1 minutes. The run was 3 miles and consisted of two loops around the Amphibious Craft Unit Five area. Going into race, I already felt that the run was my strong point. I felt great throughout the entire run and was passing people the entire time. I came in at 19:56 (5/80). In retrospect, I definitely could have pushed it a little more. But at the time I was worried more about cramping.

Overall, I came in at 1:30.37 and had a great time. There was a lot of great competition there and I now have a better idea of what I have to shoot for to do better. The following are my lessons learned from the race:
1) The swim sucked. Need more time in the ocean. Pool workouts aren't the same.
2) More Interval Bike Workouts. Got to get faster.
3) Buy an Aerobottle. Everytime I went to take a drink, I'd slow down by 3-4 mph.
4) Set up extra towel and foot basin in transition area to clean off feet.
5) Use bodyglide on feet to help get wetsuit off faster. Must practice this more. Don't want to fall over again. Highly embarassing.

This morning I set off at 4:40 to head off to the AFC half marathon in downtown San Diego. If you're thinking about doing it next year, disregard the statement about the last bus leaving for the start at 6AM. That's not true. However, be aware that the traffic on the 163 is pretty bad. It took me 45 minutes to go a grand total of 2 miles to the parking area. The race itself was a lot of fun. There was approximately 6000 runners. Being a late arrival, I literally started at the very back. Unfortunately, I had to run through the entire field as I got started. But that was good in that it forced me to start off at a slower pace.

Initially I was worried that my legs were going to give out due to being tired from the triathlon the day before. So I started out at an 8:30 pace my first two miles. My initial plan was to eventually speed up to a 7:30 pace and hold it there. But I got caught up in the moment (it's so fun passing people!) and to my surprise, my legs kept feeling better and better as the race went on. So I just went with it and trusted that they wouldn't fail me. I averaged 7-7:30 for miles 4-7 and 6:30-7:00 the last 5 miles. The hardest part by far was the hill at mile 12. By the time I got to the top of it, I was genuinely gasping for air. It was very similar to how I felt after the swim yesterday. But luckily it was just a short coast into the park from that point. I ended up with a time of 1:37:15 which was good for 47th out of 406 in my age group. I feel pretty good about my performance in the race. I can't keep but wondering how I would have done if I wouldn't have run a triathlon the day before.
As for lessons learned from the half marathon, the big one is that I obviously didn't push it enough in the triathlon. If I would have truly been pushing my limits on the bike and in the run, I wouldn't have been able to run as fast in the half marathon. What I need to do in my next triathlon is to dig down, push through the pain, and go harder. Maybe my next brick workout goal should be to push myself until I find that limit where my body gives out.

Triathlon Update: Is There Such a Thing As An Easy Butterfly?

2006-08-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

Every week, one of my triathlon teammates Emily sends out a couple of swim workouts. When we started out, they were entirely freestyle. I like freestyle. Freestyle is easy and its fast. However as the season has gone on, she's increasingly mixed in a stroke of our own choice in some of the sets.

Normally, it would be no question and I'd choose the backstroke. However, I normally workout at the USD pool over lunch (outside with the sun overhead) and am almost completed blinded by the sun whenever I try the backstroke. The other problem with doing the backstroke at USD is that they only have the flags at the end of the pool on one side. For those of you who aren't swimmers, the flags let you know when you're approaching the wall on the other side of the pool. I realized that one day when I was moving along at a nice pace and my head hit concrete. So there you have it, two reasons not to do backstroke over lunch at USD.

I could also do the breastroke. However, the breastroke is just so slow. I'm normally in a hurry to get in my workout over lunch and don't want to waste any time. So that leaves me with one other stroke...butterfly. It is fast. However, everytime I do it, it feels like I'm in an all out sprint. I'm fighting just to finish 25 yards. More often than not, my last few strokes look more like an impersonation of a dying whale than someone actually doing the butterfly. I actually kind of like it....yes I'm into putting myself through excruciating pain. I just wish that it would be possible to do the fly at something less than 100% effort. I look forward to the day when I can joke about doing a 50 fly cool down. My question for the day, is there such a thing as an easy butterfly?

Competition: Against the Clock or Your Competition?

2006-08-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

This morning I saw a comment that did get me thinking some more about competition. Like I said before, I definitely am motivated by those I'm competing against. But I do also compete against certain benchmarks (the clock in the case of Saturday's time trial) to see if I'm doing well when compared with previous performances. In the case of Saturday, I did see a big improvement. In June we did a 20k time trial that I finished in ~40 minutes for an average speed of 18 mph. On Saturday, I completed 40k in just over 1 hour and 10 minutes for an average speed of 21 mph. So that was a big improvement. I should be happy. But psychologically, I saw my battle against the clock and my battle against the other riders as two seperate races. I could be glad that I had improved. But I wasn't going to be satisfied unless I at least caught up with the two riders in front of me (one being our 60 year old coach) going into our last lap.

Competition

2006-08-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I've really caught the triathlon bug and hope to continue with it next year following ski season. Earlier, I wrote about my addiction to endorphins. However the high from an endorphin rush is not the only reason I've been having such a good time with triathlon training. This other reason has been simmering in my brain the last few weeks. Quite simply, I love competing against other people.

In races, you are either the rabbit or you're chasing the rabbit. If you're the rabbit, you want to work as hard as you can to keep the others from passing you. I know this sounds incredibly unfriendly. But the best part of being the rabbit is when you break the people chasing you. At the moment, I look back and see the look in their eyes that they can't catch me, I feel an instantaneous sense of joy. Although we weren't racing, this is the same feeling I had when going on ski tours and pushing the pace to the point where others would never be able to catch me. (Yes, I realize that this isn't exactly safe in the backcountry and only did it during extremely conditions where everyone knew where they were going.)

While being the rabbit brings a moment of euphoria if you win, I feel that the greater pleasure (and pain) comes from chasing the rabbit. On our triathlon team, I've established a pretty competition with a girl named Cassie. On Saturday, we had a 40k time trial. Although I started out ahead, she passed me by the end of lap two and due to a series of mistakes I was still far behind going into the final lap. I don't know what came over me, but somewhere inside I found a ton of untapped energy, was able to increase my speed by a few mph, and passed her with 1/3 of a lap to go. Although she ended up beating me by 30 seconds in the actual time trial, it was an awesome feeling to have caught up to her, passed her, and opened up a comfortable lead. It's the pleasure of setting a goal, executing a plan, and seeing it succeed.

Even though I'm talking about competition, I'm not going to talk about losing because losing sucks. The only good thing about it is that it provides you with motivation either to stay ahead (if you're the rabbit) or to catch up (if you're chasing the rabbit).

Triathlon Update: Iron Mt and More

2006-08-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

I'm too lazy to write a whole update for my training over the last two weeks. So here's a copy of the most recent update email I just sent out to friends. For those of you who are new to my page, I am training for a triathlon with Team in Training which raises money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Research as well as patient services. My goal is to raise $5000 by August 18th. It's a great cause. If you'd like to make a donation, you can visit my fundraising website at: http://www.active.com/donate/tntsdh/leister

Everyone,

Hello, I hope you all are doing well. The triathlon training continues to go well. Thankfully, it has cooled off considerably over the last 2 weeks here in San Diego. That's made the training much more pleasant. There's still a lot of pain involved, it's just that the risk of passing out from heat stroke has come down a bit..

My workouts continue to go well. Last consisted of a fun 20 miles running (can't believe my knees aren't hurting yet), 85 miles biking, and 4 miles swimming. As I said before, I feel pretty good on the run. I just need to get a little faster on the bike. This past weekend, we completed the Iron Mt brick workout, which is the most difficult workout we will do all season. We met up at 6:30 AM on Saturday. Yes, I am aware that I said 6:30 AM and Saturday in the same sentence. Unfortunately, in the interest of getting the workouts in before it gets too warm, triathlon training involves a lot of early mornings on the weekend and giving up late nights. (I promise to make up the late nights once the race is finished!) The bike portion of the workout consisted of a hilly 29 mile ride. The fun part was a twisty turny section where we reached speeds of 45 miles per hour. Unfortunately, on a bike, what goes down, must come back up. So the last 9 miles was pretty much one continuous hill climb and it was pretty painful. Being a brick workout, as soon as we got off the bike, we threw on our running shoes and ran up a mountain (3 miles up, 3 miles back). As we ran up, we ran past lots of hikers who looked at us like we were absolutely crazy. When I think about it, we must be a bit crazy for beating up our bodies like that.

I feel pretty confident in that as much pain as I was in, I was able to stay at the front of the pack and never ran out of gas. One of the biggest things our coach talks to us about is "fuel". Fuel is triathlon speak for food. It surprised me how much we're really supposed to be eating throughout the workout. For example on this workout, I ate 3 Guu Energy Gels (by far the tastiest gels) and one Lara Bar (pricey, but very tasty energy bar) and drank 80 oz. of water.

Upcoming Events: Just to get some of my race butterflies out of my system, I decided 2 weeks ago to enter the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon on Saturday August 19th. I'm pretty excited as this will give me the first opportunity to practice my transitions (going from swimming to bike and bike to run) in a race envrironment. The transitions are key because its time that you can make up (or lose) without expending a lot of energy. It makes know difference if you have a killer swim if it takes you an extra 2 minutes to get out of your wetsuit and onto your bike. Additionally, it will give me an idea of how I stand competitively. I previously said that I was aiming to be in the top 10% of my age group. Looking at last years results it means I'll have to finish around 2 hours 20 minutes. That might be pushing it. In my efforts to meet my goal, I swear that I won't resort to any "Landis" like tactics. (Not all San Diego residents are dopers.) Me being the type who finds it hard to say no to any athletic challenge, I've also pretty much decided on entering the "AFC San Diego Half Marathon" the following day, Sunday August 20th. It'll be a good base building run and a few of my teammates are already doing it.

On the fundraising side, I'd like to thank all of you who have contributed an awesome $800 over the last 2 weeks and $3155 total. You are all awesome! Last weekend, I set up a bike trainer in downtown San Diego for 3 hours and asked for donations from the people walking by. All in all, it was a great experience. I was literally set up right next to the bums on 4th and Broadway. (The bums know all best places to beg for money!) I ended up raising $131 while getting in an easy 45 miles in. The memorable part was the people I met. Some of the bums were certifably insane. The two best were JFK's personal lawyer and the guy who tried to sell me steroid enhanced orange juice. (formerly Lance Armstrong's smoothie specialist) But I also met a number of people who were cancer survivors. The most memorable was a family with a 7 year old daughter who had been suffering from Leukemia and just went into remission. As you all know I'm not one to normally show much emotion, but meeting her almost brought me to tears (while I was pedaling away) and really reminded of why we are out here. Its not just to do a triathlon. We're trying to save lives. The donations that all of you give are helping to save lives and improve the lives of families whose loved ones have leukemia or lymphoma. Without all of the scientific progress that we have made over the last 30 years, she probably would not be alive today.

As I've said before, I have committed to raising at least $4000 and I would still love to have your support. My fundraising deadline is August 18th. (At that point, I'll be making a personal donation to make up for whatever I am short of my committment. If you would like to donate, you can visit my fundraising website at: http://www.active.com/donate/tntsdh/leister. Take care and I hope all of you are doing well.

Doug

More Thoughts on Why We Love Gear

2006-08-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

As I was on a bike ride yesterday trying to rationalize why it was absolutely necessary for me to shell out $120 for a heart rate monitor, I inevitably came back to pondering my last entry when I put it out there that men love shopping just as much as women do. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to clarify my thoughts a little more.

First, why is it that it's so much fun to buy gear? The way I see it, gear is the adult version of toys. While it may help professional athletes perform better and earn more money, for the rest of us, it just helps us to play our games better and to one up our friends. Just as getting a supersoaker squirt gun instantly made you a force to be reckoned with in the neighborhood squirt gun battles when you were 9 years old, the $5000 carbon fiber road bike gives you that much more of an edge over the other guys you ride with.

Second, I think the reason that the belief persists that men don't like shopping is that we really don't like the act of shopping. We like spending the money for the new gear. But whereas women will spend an entire day shopping for one shirt, we like to make each shopping trip a quick in and out mission. We research what we want to get, find it, and buy it. We don't try on 30 other jackets or go to 10 other stores to see if we can save $5. Generally, we don't just go to REI just for the sake of seeing if there's anything we're interested in. If we're going to go, its for the purpose of buying one specific thing that we've decided on before we get there.

Women Love Gucci, Men Love Gear

2006-08-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

We men are always bitching about women and their shopping. We are flabergasted at how they could spend so much money on shoes and handbags. But I have to admit that the truth is, we men are just as bad. Women's weakness is clothes where as ours is gear. I have to admit that I am very fond of it. I'm in to my hobbies (skiing, bicycling, travelling, etc) and I love buying all the gadgets that go along with it. I often tell my friends that the quality of your bike or your skis only makes a small difference as to how good you actually are. I firmly believe that. However, I still enjoy splurging and treating myself to a new sleeping bag or pair of gloves. Last year was a particular good year as I was updating my alpine ski gear for the first time in 7 years and just buying all of my backcountry gear for the first time. November's credit card bill was absolutely horrific. It's looking like this year is going to be a little easier on my mastercard. The past few weeks have been especially fun as I took advantage of the Sierra Trading Posts' 20th anniversary sale and got some black diamond gloves for $19 and a Sierra Designs Down Jacket for $55. The biggest items I plan on buying this season include a new fleece jacket, GPS device, and altimeter.

Triathlon Update: I love Endorphins

2006-07-31T21:29:00.000-07:00

The triathlon training continues to go well with the last 2 weeks being especially good. This is an excerpt from my last update email:

In my last email, I mentioned that I had been having some foot problems. The truth is, I had those foot problems at the same time that my bike broke. So me being the semi-autistic workout fanatic that I am, I did somewhat get out of my workout routine and dropped down to 3 workouts a week for about two weeks. This also coincided with a 2 week period in which I was just in a bad mood. Over the last 2 weeks, I really started ramping up my workouts again and my spirits coincidentally started improving. Then last Wednesday morning as I was riding up a very steep, painful hill going from LaJolla Shores to Torrey Pines, I was hit with a sudden wave of ecstasy at the same time that my legs were telling me they had had enough. So what caused this ecstasy out of pain? I have two competing theories. One, I realized while going up that hill that it was less than 5 months from the theoretical start of ski season. (Yes, I admit that I am a complete ski dork!) Second, I think that I am addicted to the endorphins that go through your body when you're working out. That endorphin rush I got while going up the hill gave me the extra oomph to power me through the last 25 miles and put me in a great mood for the rest of the day. So after I'm done this triathlon, I might have to find another race to train for in order to maintain my sanity.

At this point, I know that I'll be able to finish the race. As I enter the last half of my training, my goal is to do well. I know that I won't win it. But I want to finish in the top 10% of my age group. This weekend, we had a bunch of great workouts. Friday night, we did a 2.5 mile ocean swim at LaJolla shores. In regards to my last update email, I just want to let you know that I was using sarcasm when I said that I was going to lube my black wetsuit with seal oil just to give the swim an added thrill. I'm not that stupid. On Saturday, we did a great workout riding from Lake Hodges to Solana Beach and back. It was a very hill ride and it was hot...damn hot. I'm not sure if it was Africa hot...but it was pretty close. On the way back, the thermometer registered 115F in the sun and a cool 107F in the shade. And as soon as we got off the bikes, we went for a 5 mile run. Luckily I stayed hydrated pretty well. But some of the people who were out there longer got pretty dehydrated and were shivering uncontrollably. Today I did a bit of surfing in the afternoon and then went for a 7 mile run this evening.

Now I'll share a couple of my lessons learned with you:
1) The Energy Gu's are great. When I'm on the bike, I now prefer those over the power/lara/cliff bars. That being said, all gu's are not made the same. Avoid the cliff bar gu's at all costs. They are absolutely the worst! The raspberry gave me flashbacks to the fluoride treatments I used to get at the dentists when I was a kid.
2) It's as important to poor water over your head as it is to drink it. I know what you're thinking. But I never used to do it to. But when it's hot, you can totally feel the difference in your body when you squirt a bunch of cool water into your bike helmet. Even better is to put ice cubes into your hat when you're running. It basically just cools down your body and keeps it from overheating.
3) Don't go cheap when it comes to bike repair. I had to replace my rear derailleur last November. I took it Performance (big box nationwide chain bike shop) to get fixed. They ended up putting a derailleur that was incompatible with my bike. (2 chainring derailleur when I have a triple) So when I got sick of my derailleur and my tri coach said that they had sold me the wrong part, I took it to another big bike shop (bike warehouse) to get fixed. At first they did a great job and they even cleaned up my bike. However after 2 weeks, I noticed that they must not have relubed my chain after they cleaned it off because it was covered in rust. Lesson learned is to take your bike to the small shop that can you better service even it costs a bit more.
4) Hamburgers, wings, fries, and beer are not appropriate to eat before going for a run. If you are going to eat them, 1 1/2 hours is not enough to let them digest before attempting said run. That's what I had for an early dinner tonight after surfing. I felt like I was about to vomit the entire second half of the run. So don't do what I did.

I'd like to thank all of you who have donated an awesome $2925 over the last 2 months. You guys are all awesome. Two weeks ago was our recommittment weekend where I recommitted to raising a minimum of $4,000 by August 18th. As part of that recommittment, I have promised to make up the difference between what I raise and the fundraising minimum. So for those of you who haven't donated, I would really love to have your support.
http://www.active.com/donate/tntsdh/leister If you're already thinking about making a donation, I just ask that you make it before August 15th if at all possible so I can minimize the damage on my credit card.

Triathlon Update: Suck it Up!

2006-06-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

The last time I wrote, I was complaining about my elbows and I wasn't sure if I was imagining it. The pain seemed to be moving around. It seemed to be moving around between my forearm and my tricep and everywhere in between. Finally, last Wednesday, I had enough. I told myself that I really must be imagining it and decided to go swimming the next day. Although my elbows felt a little tight afterwards, on the whole they were fine. I ended up swimming 1700 yds that day and am now back into the routine. So the lesson learned is, if it feels like your mind is playing tricks on you, it probably is. So just suck it up and deal with it!

On Saturday at our team bike practice, Lisa and Sara, two of my teammates, told us a story of their friend Rita who had recently died from Leukemia. Both of them joined Team in Training shortly after Rita was diagnosed. She was an honored teammate for several seasons and used to cheer on the team during practices. They told us that whenever they feel like they can't climb another hill, swim another lap, or run another mile, they tell themselves to do one more for Rita. I found that pretty motivating and used it get myself to do one more climb up Mt Soledad on Sunday.

My totals for last week were: biking 91 miles, running: 10.5 miles, swimming: 1700 yds.

Moving on to another topic near and dear to me, I'd like to talk about the world cup. The TV coverage this year has been great. The fact that every game is being broadcast this year shows just how far soccer has come in this country. Also surprising has been just how great the turnout has been to watch the games at the local San Diego bars. I never would have guessed that I wouldn't be able to get into a bar to watch a soccer game due to the bar being at max capacity. Like everyone, I was pretty disgusted by the US performance against the Czech Republic. But I've got to give them a big hand for the spirited effort they showed against Italy.

Triathlon: Problems with the Elbows While the Legs Keep Going

2006-06-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

In the past, I've always liked running and swimming. However, I've frequently had problems with my knees when I've gotten into an intensive running routine. Beginning in my senior year in high school, I've experienced reoccuring tendinitis in my elbows from swimming. These injury problems were the reason I got into biking (almost zero impact). But they were also the reason I decided to give triathlons a try. I figured that if I didn't overtrain in any one sport, I wouldn't experience any of my old injury issues.

As the title alludes to, I've had great luck so far with my knees while my elbows have recently started giving me troubles. Beginning after my swim workout (2500 yards, mostly low intensity) last Tuesday, my right elbow has been bothering me. The weird thing is that the pain is sometimes just forward of the elbow and other times on the back of the elbow by the tricep. Because of this, I'm not sure if there's actually anything wrong or if I'm imagining it. Maybe the pain is there because my mind is focused on my elbow so much that it never really relaxes. I'm going to take a 1.5 weeks off and then start swimming again.

The good news is that my knees haven't had any issues yet. The running is going very well. Last Wednesday, we had a 3 mile time trial that I completed in 19:28.

On the fundraising front, I've raised $850 so far. I'd like to thank Roman Kogan and Nathan Luther for their generous donations. Again, if you'd like to donate, please click here to visit my fundraising page.

Overall, my totals for last week were as follows: swimming: 2500 yards, biking: 95 miles, and running: 11 miles.

Triathlon: The World According to Gurujan: What do When You Really Have to Go

2006-06-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

Back when I was still on submarines, we used to say that one of the marks of a good officer was having a 6 hour bladder. That way you could make it through your watch without getting someone to relieve you for to go to the bathroom.

So as I was sitting on the ground at our triathlon team's running practice, I started laughing when one of the girls on the team asked our coach, Gurujan, what to do when you have to go to the bathroom on the course. Going with my old submarine instincts, I muttered to myself, "You hold it stupid." How wrong I was.

Like the answers to all difficult questions, Gurujan said it depends. First, if there's a port a potty or a gas station along the course, you could stop and use one of those. The positives are that you will have some privacy. The down side is that you lose time by stopping and leaving the course. Also, you need to make sure not to make any forward progress when you reenter the course as that would lead to potential disqualification. Secondly, you could go on the side of the course. Another girl on our team said this is what she did at the Lavaman triathlon. The positives are that you don't lose as much time looking for a real bathroom. The downside is that you can't be easily embarrassed. The girl who did it a Lavaman said that she had zero bushes/trees to hide behind and everyone passing by could see her. Another downside is that nudity is often against the rules at most triathlons. Gurujan told us that it would probably get us kicked out of the race at Pacific Grove as the 70 year old millionaires who live up there wouldn't feel good about seeing us piss in their roses. Finally, the best option according to Gurujan is just to wet yourself. He said that trying to hold it is a definite no-no and the aforementioned options all have too many downsides. Therefore, your best option is to just to go in your wetsuit (preferred as it also provides warmth) or in your shorts while on the bike or running. If you're embarrassed, he recommended camouflaging it by dousing yourself with gatorade. Apparently, wetting oneself is easier said than done. He was very proud of having completed the trifecta at the recent Wildflower Triathlon. I was half expecting that he was going to include this as one of our practical factors for one of our upcoming workouts. Luckily, he left that out.

Triathlon: Surprising Strengths and Weaknesses

2006-06-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

I'm now two weeks into training for the triathlon. Apart from my body being very tired, it's been going great! Here are the stats for last week: Running: 8 miles, Biking: 88 miles, Swimming: 4700 yds. Going into the program, I was already in pretty good shape. But this is definitely a ramp up from what I was used to.

Going into the program, I was already averaging 30-60 miles per week on my bike. Although I was doing some running and swimming, it was at most 1x/week. Thus I expected the bike to be my strength. However, this weekend we just completed our last time trial that we'll use to divide people into groups for our organized workouts. What I found was that the bike is actually my weak area. Out of 42 people, I came in 3rd on the run, 4th in the swim, and 7th on the bike.
For our workouts, we've been doing shorter distance, high intensity workouts for our team workouts. The program has us focusing on longer distance, low intensity, base building for our individual workouts. For the base building, we are aiming to do the workouts at 75% max intensity. As our coach said, if you can feel burn in your muscles, you're working to hard. The goal for these workouts is to build up an aerobic base, not to build muscle mass. This was by far the hardest thing to get used. Like most people, I've always tried going as hard as I could in all of my workouts. After a long ride, it just doesn't feel right seeing that I only average 13.5 mph.

The fundraising is off to a good start. I'd like to thank my mother for a very generous donation of $750. I'd also like to thank FedEx/Kinkos for donating copying services for my fundraising letter.

Lastly, this is a good article I recently came across in the San Diego Union Tribune which talks about one girl's fight against leukemia and her association with Team in Training.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060602/news_lz1s2herdream.html

Training For a Triathlon

2006-05-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

With a successful ski season coming to a close, I decided that I needed to find a new athletic challenge to get me through the summer. So I’ve recently started training for the Triathlon in Pacific Grove, CaliforniaMonterey) on September 9^th. (near It's an olympic distance triathlon, composed of a 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike, and a 6 mile run. I’ve told myself in the past that I was going to do a triathlon or a century bike ride. But as many of you know, I’m like the guy in “Rain Man.” Once I get out of my workout routine, everything falls apart. And more than likely, it will be a whole month before I workout again. So I decided to join up with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training (TNT) program to train for the triathlon. Not only do I have a whole team to keep me working out, but I get to raise money for a great cause.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is a non-profit health organization dedicated to finding a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improving the quality of life for patients and their families. I've made it my personal goal to raise at least $5000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and I would love to have your support. Every donation that you make, no matter how small, will help in the search for a cure to blood cancers. 75% of your donation will go directly to research and patient services. If you would like to donate, you can make an online donation by visiting my personal Team in Training webpage: http://www.active.com/donate/tntsdh/leister

Be sure to come back to the blog throughout the summer for updates on my training and fundraising! Thank you for your support.

Backcountry Ski Trip Report: TTips weekend at Tobacco Flats

2006-05-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

After making skiing my number one priority this winter, my other committments (school, work, family, etc) finally won out and kept me from doing any skiing during the last 5 weeks. So when I found out about the Telemark Tips gathering taking place this past weekend at Tobacco Flats on the East Side of the Sierras, I was all ready to load up my car and make the journey from San Diego.

Truth be told, I was a bit concerned with the weather. As of Thursday, it looked like we were going to be getting some rain on Sunday. The only question was when. But Friday morning, the latest weather report from Howard Scheckter, Mammoth's Local forecaster, said we weren't going to get anything until Sunday afternoon. That gave us the green light.

After 6.5 hours in the car, we made it to the Tobacco Flats camp site at 1:30 AM. The directions were spot on. I woke up at 6, half surprised that I was the 4th person up. I guess everyone wasn't as hardcore as I thought. Eventually the rest of the crew up. After a nice leisurely breakfast, a cup of French Roast (thanks Jim), and a motivating bag pipe performance (you the man Charlie), a group of about 15 of us set out around 7:30. Being my first time there, I was content to follow the rest of the gang. About halfway up, we split into two groups. The Socal group (myself included) went up Old Man Bowl on Little Morrison. The rest of the group headed for the Hippie Chutes (also called Finger Chutes) and Mt Aggie.
During climb up, I was surprised by how much the 5 weeks off had affected my stamina. After only 4 hours, my legs were exhausted and my lungs were gasping for air. By the time we made it to the top of the Old Man Bowl at 11:30, it had already softened up quite a bit. We stopped when I started sinking in up to my knees with every step. The run down was awesome though. This was my first time skiing corn and it was wonderful. The base was hard with a nice soft top layer. I cranked big GS turns all the way down. As much as I wanted to stop and savour the run, I was having too much fun to stop.
Once we made it to the base of the bowl (~1130), we had a decision to make. We could either keep skiing or head back to the campsite and start drinking. I'm embarassed to say that we were all dead tired and chose option B. We were back at Tobacco Flats drinking cans of PBR by noon. The other group didn't arrive back at the site until 4 pm. They ended up making it up to the top of Aggie and doing several laps on the Hippie Chutes. They reported that the snow on the Hippie Chutes was still excellent as late as 3:45. After hearing how great their day was, we were looking forward to rallying and skiing the Hippie Chutes on Sunday.
As the afternoon went on, more and more people started showing up. By the end, we probably had about 25-30 people there. It was great to get to know all of these other people who share a passion for backcountry skiing. As a couple of us remarked, the gathering was really a testament the power of the internet. Five years ago this gathering would not have been possible. But thanks to the Teletalk forum on Telemark Tips, a group of strangers coming from everywhere from Seattle to San Diego was able to get together for a weekend of skiing. Most of my friends think it's a bit weird to be driving 7 hours to meet a group of strangers I met over the internet. If I were them, I'd think so too. But let's face it, there aren't that many backcountry skiers in Southern California and the internet allows us to all come together. More importantly, if a person is into backcountry skiing, they might be a bit crazy (aren’t we all?). But deep down, they’re probably a pretty good person.

The last weather forecast we saw before driving up said that it wasn’t supposed to start raining until Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, I started hearing drops hit my tent around 1:30 AM. By 3:00 AM, those drops had turned into a downpour and heavy winds. Worse for me, I was too lazy when we set up camp Friday night and too drunk on Saturday to put on the rain fly. So I bailed from the tent around 3 when the tent started leaking like a sieve and finished the night in the front seat of Tyler’s car. Needless to say, we didn’t go out skiing on Sunday. So the Hippie Chutes will have to wait until next year.

Ski Report: Mt Baldy and the Rock Ski Theorem

2006-04-10T16:50:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday up at Mt. Baldy skiing with my friends Christina, Dianna, Tyler and Ben. It was a typical Baldy day...sunny (until clouds rolled in around 3pm) and upper 40's. The snow cover was good by Baldy standards, although there were still plenty of rocks and trees sticking out of the snow to keep things interesting. Due to the daily freeze-thaw cycle, we spent the morning skiing the south/southeast facing terrain off of chair 4 (to the left of the base lodge when looking up). It was already nice and soft by 10AM. We moved over to Thunder Mt around noon. Most of the off-piste terrain there was still frozen. But we were surprised to find that the snow on the north facing terrain(just to skiers right of the ridge the chair lift goes up) was still soft and powdery in spots. With this knowledge in hand, we headed over to South Bowl for a couple of runs before lunch. The snow in the north facing section of the bowl (all the way to skiers left) was good but inconsistent. It would alternate from being soft powder to ice topped with death cookies. All in all, it was good skiing that challenged you to adapt to the terrain and deal with it. We took a few more runs , moving further and further to skier's right working our way towards the lift. That side had definitely received more sun and we were able to find some nice untracked soft snow left over from last week's storm.
What left me really excited about Saturday was that it provided me even more reason to believe that there is strong scientific link between using rock skis and being able to ski over rocks without getting core shots. Like the week before, I was skiing where ever and as fast I wanted to, without really caring whether or not I hit a rock. The snow cover was marginally better than the week before, but there were still plenty of rocks to be found. Most of the day I was pretty good about avoiding rocks. But on the last run from the top, I was going full speed under the Thunder Mt lift. What I failed to notice on any of the rides up the lift that day was that towards the end of the slope, there was one spot where the snow stopped and a 5 yard stretch of gravel began. Unfortunately, I didn't see it until 10 yards before the snow stopped and I was going way too fast to be able to stop in time. So I decided to go with it and ski the gravel. I did jump off the snow a little to try to keep my full weight from being on the rocks. But as I was going over, I still heard that painful sound of base material meeting granite. Even though they were rock skis, a little part of me did die at that moment. I decided to wait until I was at the bottom to look at my skis as I'm a firm believer in the saying "igorance is bliss." Amazingly enough though, when I did look at them, there was nothing but a few long (2/3 ski length) scrapes and none of them were core shots. So it appears that either Dynastar is on to something in their choice of base material or there is a scientific link preventing rock skis from getting core shots.
The other interesting part of Saturday was that it was the first time I'd ever skied with little kids(since I was one myself). Ben brought his three sons along. The rest of us skied with Ben's two oldest sons, Andy (12) and Jake(9), while Ben skied with his youngest son Danny. I was amazed how good Andy and Jake were. Perhaps they weren't quite as good as the phenom kids who make it into the Warren Miller movies. But we took them down steep terrain that in places had really crappy snow. They didn't flinch for a minute and there was never any bitching. They were awesome. Before this I had always thought that it must be tough for a parent to have to give up skiing good terrain to spend years sticking to intermediate terrain teaching their kids to ski. But Saturday made me realize that it must be a great feeling when you finally see your kids become great skiers and develop the love for the sport that you have. The only thing that sucks is that Ben has a really narrow window to enjoy skiing with his sons because within 5-10 years they'll be good enough where they won't want to wait for dad anymore.

The Cougar, The Local, and The Liftie

2006-04-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

No, isn't a C.S. Lewis knock off. I actually came across this article in Powder Magazine which touches on the Hardcore Skier Chick topic from February. Thing of it as a how to guide for the single guy to navigate through the ski town singles scene. Enjoy!

http://powdermag.com/features/columns/radar-love/

Ski Report: Sunday at Baldy

2006-04-02T20:22:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day this year at Mt. Baldy. Before moving to San Diego last spring, I skied there twice last year over President's Day weekend while I was out here apartment hunting. I was treated to 3 feet of powder both days. I was told that I was spoiled and will never see conditions like that again. I haven't. But ever since then, I've been waiting to go back.

So today I finally made it. I got there around 9. The groomers had already softened up a bit, but all of the off-piste stuff was rock hard. I found a couple of strategies to make the morning off-piste experience more enjoyable. First, try to ski where others haven't gone (i.e. no tracks) yet. Even if its rock hard, you just dig in your edges and it’s just like skiing an eastern groomer. Second, try to challenge yourself by seeking out the worst conditions on the mountain. I’m dead serious! What I mean by this is that you should look for the worst combination of death cookies, rocks, trees and anything else that may be sticking out of the snow. Then you attack it and see who wins. I like to think that if it doesn't kill you, it only makes you a better skier. After a few runs of that, plain death cookies are absolute joy.
On their website, Baldy is reporting a 12-30" base. Although coverage on most of the mountain was surprisingly good, there were numerous places where that 12" was looking awfully generous. In the thinner areas, it was definitely more like 2" of snow intermixed with gravel and pine needles. Unlike my trip to Snowbird in December, I actually used foresight and brought my rock skis...a pair 193 Dynastar Max Zero's. For Baldy, this was the right choice and I would never recommend bringing your good skis there unless it was a year like last year. I don't how you are, but when I'm on my good skis and I really hit a rock and hear that scraping that screams "Core Shot!!!”, a little piece of me dies. But if you're on rock skis, it doesn't matter...they're just rock skis!. Just after lunch, I took a run off the chair to the left as you're looking up from the lodge. On the way down, I got to a section where there were interconnected 3 foot wide snow-covered bushes surround by gravel. With my Atomic MeX’s (my good skis) I would have run like a baby. But on my rock skis, I charged it, picked my way down with jump turns and had a great time doing it. The other great thing about rock skis is their tie in with Murphy's Law. Murphy's Law dictates that if you have new skis, every rock you hit will give you a core shot. But with rock skis, it says that you can purposely ski down gravel without getting a core shot. Sure enough, when I looked at my bases at the end of the day, even with a very sketchy thinely covered run down to the parking lot, they had nothing but minor scrapes.

The last part of today's Baldy rant has to do with high fashion. Baldy is the only place where I, dressed in a 5 year old red Patagonia shell and plain black Marmot bibs, feel like the pinnacle of fashion. It’s an old school mountain and people like to dress the part. I love the fact that you see one-piece suits (never thought I'd ever say that!!), old Descente ski sweaters, stretch pants accompanied by jester hats (always wanted one in junior high), and a woman sporting a white unitard. You got to love it! Oh yeah, one more thing, if you need any other reason to go up there, there was a dude on a hot pink Tua Monoski!

Mushy Longboard Waves and Riding Giants

2006-04-01T19:16:00.000-08:00

Since I wasn't in Mammoth enjoying 16" of the Sierra's finest, I felt compelled to make my way down to Tourmaline (San Diego) to catch some waves this morning. I was pleasantly surprised. It was great longboard conditions...3 foot waves which which you could seemingly ride forever. While not nearly as good as skiing powder or skiing steep chutes, catching a good wave is pretty damn nice!

Speaking of surfing, I just recently saw the movie "Riding Giants." It's a documentary covering the history of big wave surfing. As much as I love Warren Miller, it puts any ski porn that I've seen to shame as far as quality. Besides just being a great story, what struck me about the movie was how similar the big wave surfer ethos is to skiing.

Like the ski mountaineers who continually push the limits on first descents, the pioneers of big wave surfing did the same with 30 foot walls of water. Some lost their lives, others like Mike Stang in Waimea Bay became legends. Similar to the best mountain guides, they were experts in their environment. They knew where every break was and how the weather would affect it. When their boards were limiting them, they experimented with new designs and materials that would allow them to surf still bigger waves. Also like skiing, in the beginning, there were few women out there. The waves were the love of their life. Similar to Alta Gold powder, it was an addiction that kept them come back and back for more. It was their life.

Riding Giants continues on to the 1969 "Swell of the Century" (similar to weather channel "Storm of the Century" references???) that hit Hawaii. Big wave surfing legend Greg Nolan attempted to surf and was completely annhilated by it. Like the best ski moments, unfortunately no photos were taken. The moment was too pure to disturb with a camera. Even though he only just made it down the crest of the wave before it crushed him, he described it as being right up with the birth of his first child. In skiing, we says that if you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough. It's the same in surfing. He pushed the limits and he fell...but so what.

The story continues on to the development of the Bonzai Pipeline, the discovery of Maverick's (like the best powder stashes kept secret from the general surfing community for 15 years) in Northern California and Laird Hamilton's introduction of the jet ski to hit bigger waves than previously thought humanly possible. I must compliment the director on his choice to include numerous shots of ex professional volleyball player/supermodel Gabrielle Reese talking about her husband Laird Hamilton. Unlike skiing, surfers do get all the cute women today.

All in all, its an awesome movie. While touching on the history of skiing, Warren Miller's movies are not in the same league as "Riding Giants". I would love to see a serious movie about the evolution of skiing...dealing with everything from the first Austrians in St. Anton to the first single chair lift at Mad River Glenn to some of the first descents in the Chugach today.

No Mammoth This Weekend

2006-03-31T18:48:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, due to not being able to get out of work until 4 this afternoon and the LA posse deciding to leave early for Mammoth, I was going to be stuck making the drive by myself. As much as I love to ski, doing the drive solo just didn't seem worth it. 16 hours of driving round-trip, dealing with both San Diego and LA rush hour traffic, and storm conditions on the way up were too much for me. Maybe I'm just a pussy, but if I went, I foresaw myself being completely exhausted (and in no mood to have any fun) both while up there and after coming home.

Gear Review: REI Double Diamond Ski Pack

2006-03-29T15:47:00.000-08:00

This is almost a great little ski pack. At 2000 cubic inches, it is biggest enough to take out on most daytours. I was able to carry food, avy equipment, a fleece, hat/gloves, water, skins and a basic first aid kit. With all of those, the pack is completly full. Personally, I prefer to have some extra space in case I need to bring extra clothing or water along. If you haven't noticed it from my other posts, I like to be prepared for any situation that might arise. So when I get another daypack, I plan on getting something slightly larger.
The pack fits great and is very comfortable to wear, both while skiing up and down the mountain. It has an external shovel blade pocket and attachments to hold your shovel handle and/or an ice axe. My favorite feature was the back panel zipper. It was so convenient that I almost never loaded the pack from the top. The pack also comes with a 2 L Nalgene Hydration pack that is integrated into the right shoulder strap.
As good as the pack was, there were several quality issues that were highly disappointing. First, the hose on the Nalgene pack has a fitting which disconnects (by pressing a button) from the bladder. When the pack was full, the hose would disconnect from the bladder about 25% of the time. As you would expect, I found this extremely annoying when to get a drink, I had to stop skiing, take off the pack, open it up and reconnect the hose to the bladder. Next, 2 weeks ago, the connection between the bladder and the hose started leaking and I lost all of my water at the very beginning of a ski tour. REI ended up replacing the Nalgene hydration pack with a Camelback bladder that seems to be better built. (So far, no leakage!) Finally, at the beginning of my tour this past Sunday, one of the connectors for my chest strap ripped off the pack. If you've ever seen me, you know its not because I was overflexing my pythons!

Overall, I can not recommend this pack. For day tours where you are not taking a lot of gear with you, it is a great pack. However, I expected more from REI in terms of quality. You do not want a pack that is going to fall apart on you in the backcountry.

Note: I just returned the pack to REI. True to their reputation, there customer service was excellent and they gave me a full refund when I couldn't find another pack in the store to replace it with. They even let me keep the Camelback hydration bladder/hose.

Its Snowing in Mammoth!!!!

2006-03-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

....and that's where I'm going to be this weekend! I just finished looking at the latest weather forecast. According to the NWS, they are supposed to be getting upwards of 3 ft of new snow. It sounds like this storm will be wetter than recent ones. The snow level is supposed to be around 8000 ft dropping to 5500 ft later tonight. I won't be getting there until late Friday night. So I'm sure it will be tracked up by Saturday morning. Even so, the skiing should be great.

Backcountry Ski Trip Report: Baden-Powell/9088 Trip Report

2006-03-27T15:03:00.000-08:00

I joined up with Dave Puzo (Carlsbad) and Scott Siegrest(Hermosa Beach), whom I met on Telemark Tips, to ski Mt. Baden-Powell this past Sunday. We met up at the Vincent Gulch parking lot parking lot at 7:45. From there we hiked about 1/3 mile along the Angeles Crest highway to the North Gulley(shown by where creek runs down on topo map). The highway is normally just closed in the winter. However, I doubt it will be open at all this summer. At one point, half a lane's worth of the highway (and the supporting ground underneath) has given way and slid down the mountain.

Due to the steep pitch in the gulley and the main bowl, we decided to leave the skins in the car and boot-pack up. However, the snow level in the gulley was far below normal. (We could see the creek running. From what I hear, there is normally 10-15 feet of snow in the creekbed from accumulated snowfall and avalanche runoff.) Since we also decided to leave the rope in the car, we were forced to abondon our plan to hike up the gulley when we got to a sketchy section about 20 minutes in. At that point, we were considering turning back and skinning up the main trail that starts at the parking lot. But as always, once you commit to one course of action, it is difficult to admit defeat and turn back. So we decided to climb the west side of the gulley until we made the ridge and then followed the west ridge up. The climb up the ridge was a bit sketchy. The rock was very crumbly and the mud was fairly loose. Once we started hiking up along the ridge, we wished that we would have brought our skins along. The pitch was low and the snow was deep. The extra 1 lb that the skins weigh seemed like a small price to pay considering we were sinking 1-2 feet into the snow with every step.

Once at the top, we found that the west ridge actually had lead us to the unnamed peak 9088 vice Mt Baden-Powell. We momentarily considered continuing on to Baden-Powell. But after 5 hours of hiking up, we were just too tired. Considering how tough the hike was, the ski down was surprisingly good. We skied the gulley just to the west of the ridge we followed to the top. The top layer (1-2 inches) that wouldn't support us in our ski boots, was more than enough to support us on our skis going down. For the first half, it was almost as if we were skiing a groomer with 2 inches of loose/wet snow on top. About 2/3 of the way down, avalanche debris in the gulley forced us into survival skiing mode. Once past the avalanche debris however, the snow on the last section, although thin and wet, was surprisingly good. We were able to ski all the way to the road.

Recommendations: If you do plan on going up the main north gulley, I recommend that you bring a rope. We wish we would have brought it so we could have proceeded with our orginal plan. In the gulley that we skied, the cover was thin for the bottom third. So this storm coming in Tuesday/Wednesday should help to fill it in. Due to the steep canyon walls and it being an obvious slide path, I would wait a while to ski any of the gulleys. While we were sitting on the top of Burnham eating lunch, Mt Throop caught my eye. It looks to have some nice steep north/northeast facing slopes. They might be worth checking out.

Avalanche Activity: Most of the avalanches we saw were wet slides on west facing slopes. They looked to be several days old and a number had slid all the way to the ground. We experienced some sluffing of the top layer (~2 inches) at a few places. But there was nothing signficant while we were there.

Avalanche Safety Course

2006-03-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

At the very beginning of this ski season, one of the promises I made to myself was to take an avalanche safety course. Previously, I had done a little backcountry skiing (twice in high school) and had skied quite a bit of powder, but I didn’t have a clue when it came to whether the slope I was on would actually slide. Looking back at some of the things I had done in the past, I knew that I was lucky not to have gotten hurt before.

Back in college, I did the standard semester abroad my junior year. I lucked out and ended up studying in Grenoble, France during the winter of 1999. That turned out to be one of the biggest snow years Europe had in recent years. Consequently, every weekend turned out to be a powder weekend. If you don’t know, there is no such thing as avalanche control in Europe. You go off-piste at your own risk. That winter, we used what we called the “Three-Track” Rule. It stated that if there were three or more tracks going off piste, it could be assumed that any avalanche that could take place, would have already taken place and it must therefore be safe. Not very smart, I know. But we were just reckless college students then.

Even though taking the avalanche safety course was one of my top priorities at the beginning of the season, I kept on putting off taking the course. I never had a sense of urgency. After all, one of the people who I normally skied with was very experienced in the backcountry. I trusted that he knew when it was safe to be out and when it wasn’t. I conveniently ignored the fact that no one else in our group had any significant experience. Furthermore, I bought into the argument that the western Sierra snow pack was more stable and not as prone to avalanches.

Eventually, I decided that these excuses just didn’t hold up to closer scrutiny and demanded that I learn more about avalanche safety. No group should rely solely on one person’s judgment. Each member should have sufficient knowledge to form their own opinions and to contribute to group decisions. If you’re just depending on one person, who is going to back them up when they make a mistake? What would happen if they got hurt? Besides the group responsibility issues, the western Sierra snow pack argument didn’t really hold up either. Two weekends ago we were skiing on 2.5 feet of super dry snow that was more like what you’d find in Utah than the Western Sierras. Despite the fact that we didn’t set off any avalanches, the snow that weekend was definitely susceptible to sliding. Again, nothing happened to us. But sooner or later everyone’s luck runs out. So I finally decided that it was time to give up a weekend of skiing, take an avalanche safety course, and take personal responsibility for my own safety while out in the backcountry. I no longer wanted to rely solely on luck and my friend’s judgment.

So I spent last weekend (Saturday through Monday) taking the Sierra Mountain Center Avalanche Level One course that was being given in Bishop, CA. The course was taught by S.P. Parker. He opened the course off by telling us that the course was not going to give us the one answer. In other words, nothing we were going to learn was going to tell us that a slope was 100% safe. There are simply too many factors that influence whether or not a slope will slide. Instead, the course was designed to teach you the right questions to ask yourself so that you could make an informed decision and minimize the risk of your or your party getting caught in an avalanche.

On the first day, we spent the morning in the classroom discussing case studies, types of avalanches, rescue procedures, how terrain influences the potential for avalanches, and routefinding. The afternoon was spent in the field looking at the actual terrain for signs of avalanche danger and practicing using our beacons. I found this really useful since I had never had much success practicing with my beacon before. (I’ve got an Ortovox M2. While its range is better than the digital beacons, it definitely takes more practice to use it effectively.)

On day two, we again spent the morning in the classroom covering additional case studies, group dynamics (what leads groups to make poor decisions), influence of weather, and snow pack theory. In the afternoon, we drove to Table Mountain and dug snow pits. S.P. showed us how to identify the different layers and to perform tests to determine how well the different layers had bonded to each other. I was surprised when S.P. said that he didn’t dig snow pits very often. He only considers them to be one of many factors that help you to determine what level of avalanche danger exists. He emphasized that other factors such as slope angle, wind loading, weather, sun exposure, terrain triggers, how the snow feels (slabby, soft, crusty, etc) and signs of recent avalanche activity should all help you to form a good picture of the degree of avalanche danger present. You only need to dig a pit when you are still unsure after looking at all these other factors.

Day three was spent in the field near Mammoth Rock. We spent the morning examining the terrain for signs of avalanche danger (recent slide activity, wind loading, slope angle, etc), discussing safe routes, and digging another snow pit. In the afternoon, we got in a short run (8” of excellent fluff with wind-pack in places) before practicing multiple burial (2 –3 people) searches. I found the multiple burial scenario much more challenging. Personally, I had a difficult time with my analog beacon (M-2) picking out where each victim was. I realize that I still need to a lot more practice with this scenario. We also learned that team organization plays a big role in coordinating search efforts to make sure that everyone isn’t converging on the same victim.

So was the course worth the $350? Definitely! You can’t put a price on your life. But like S.P. said in the beginning, it’s not the answer. If you are looking for the definitive safety guarantee, you are better off giving up backcountry skiing and staying at a resort. As an avalanche safety instructor should, S.P. comes off as being very risk averse and prudent. In the course, he would never say that a pitch is completely safe to ski down or skin up. It always felt like the textbook answer was to either go up or down the windblown section with no snow on it. But that is precisely because avalanche safety is not an exact science. It's about minimizing risk intead of eliminating it as well as knowing how much risk you are incuring and being comfortable with that. I do feel that the course gave me the tools to better judge how much risk I am taking on each run. Right now, I know the questions to ask and which factors are most important. The next step is to gain more experience so that I can better weight all of these factors to form a more accurate picture.

Lessons Learned from Last Weekend

2006-03-15T21:47:00.000-08:00

1. Bring a Repair Kit: A number of articles I've read have said to always bring a repair kit with you when going into the backcountry. I have yet to bring one. But this weekend, my buddy Carl was evidence of wisdom of those articles. On the first day out, the loop at the front and the tail clip of the same skin broke. Luckily, we had some duct tape. But Carl was reduced to attaching his skins to his skis by wrapping the front and back with duct tape. So if I don't want Murphy to strike me, I guess I'll have to be responsible and put together a real repair kit before I go out for another tour.

2. Never Feed Carl Whole Heads of Garlic: One of the side dishes at dinner Friday night was whole heads of roasted Garlic. Apparently, one of garlic's side effects is bad gas. Carl was farting at a rate of once every 10-15 minutes throughout the entire day Friday. Because Carl was graciously letting Nellie and I break trail, it didn't affect us too much. But at one point Carl told us that he really wished he was in better shape because when he'd fart, he didn't have the energy to speed up and escape the smell. As we were heading back to the car at the end of the day, I let Carl go ahead of me at one point. Sure enough he let one out and I realized what he meant. It smelled like I had just been doused with some sort of garlic mist. I was in awe...not sure whether to be disgusted or to admire Carl for his amazing powers.

Backcountry Ski Trip Report: The Good Snow Karma Continues

2006-03-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

They say that good things come to good people. I guess that Carl, Nellie, and I have been doing something right since our good snow karma continued this past weekend. This weekend was perhaps the best skiing I’ve ever had and everything just seemed to work out right.

Our original plans were to head out Friday morning and spend Friday and Saturday night at the Pear Lake Hut in Sequoia National Park. As luck would have it, the Sierras were hit by unusually cold temperatures and heavy snows from last Monday until Sunday. As a measure of just how cold it was, the snow line reached to just inside of the park entrance, or 7,000 ft below the elevation we'd be skiing at. Due to avalanche conditions and a potential lack of visibility, we had already decided to spend the weekend doing day trips instead of heading out to the hut. When we got to the Wolverton parking lot, a ranger told us that Evan, the hut caretaker, had radioed in reporting 3 ft of new snow at the hut. There was no way any of us were up for breaking trail through that much snow. So we were happy with our decision. Plus, with this much good snow, there was no need to go all the way to the hut to get good turns.
So we set off down the trail from Wolverton. The 10" of light fluff covering the skin track told us the day was going to be great. We ended up going to "Alf's", a new area that Nellie had found earlier in the week. Just before we reached the intersection of the Pear Lake and Panther Gap Trails (bottom of the Hump), we broke off to the right heading for the ridge you would see if you were looking back as you were going up the Hump. Within 2 hours of leaving the parking lot, we had reached the top of Alf’s(8600'). Apart from a meadow on the far right portion of the ridge, all of the runs are in the trees. Moving from right to left, the runs get steeper and longer, increasing from 700' to 850' of vertical. As soon as I pointed my skis downhill, I knew that we were in for something special. The snow was thigh deep and super dry...dryer than anything I've every experienced in Utah. We were getting face shots with every turn. I had never experienced anything like this. I've skied lots of powder in my life. But this took the whole floating sensation to another level. It was so light that skiing in it was effortless.
On Saturday, we decided to ski 9975. Overnight, we had gotten another 8" of new snow. To minimize trail breaking, we followed the Pear Lake trail for as long as we could. Eventually, we had to break off. Breaking trail through 2.5' of snow, no matter how light it is, really sucks. But 4 hours after leaving the car, we finally made it to the top. We skied the north facing trees rather than the main bowl. The skiing there was even better than Alf’s. The snow was deeper and the runs were longer (900' vertical). In this case, the face shots were big enough to blind you momentarily. Luckily, the Sequoias are widely spaced and the woods are fairly clean. For Nellie and Carl (both telemarkers), the biggest surprise was that they now had to focus on when to breathe. They were getting so low in their turns that the snow would choke them if they breathed at the wrong time. We got in 3 runs on 9975 before darkness and aching thighs forced us to head out. I’d like to give a big thanks to the snowshoers who broke trail heading towards Panther Gap earlier that day. They saved us a good half hour on our trip back to the car.
On Sunday, we again skied Alf's. There was only 3" of new snow overnight. But the snow we got Friday night and Saturday had pretty much filled in our old tracks. The snow was still very good, but it had settled a bit since Friday and didn't seem quite as deep. It very well could have been just as good as Friday. But the previous 2 days, especially Saturday, had completely altered my inner sense of what constituted great powder. Runs we skied included Huck Me, Humpy’s, Tweaker, and The Bean. We got 4 runs in on Alf’s before we decided to head out.
As luck would have it, we ran into Chris (Nellie’s girlfriend) on the trail on our way out. She was coming back from some cross country skiing with a friend. Being the saint she is, Chris volunteered to run shuttle for us to allow us take a run down to Lodgepole. The run to Lodgepole is about 850’ of vertical. The first pitch was short and the trees were tight. I didn’t really get into a good rhythm. The entrance to the second pitch was a bit sketchy. There was still quite a bit of scrub brush to ski around. But after the first 15 yards, it was wonderful. There was enough snow to cover up all of the fallen trees and rocks that normally cover the pitch. Now you could just ski over them without having to worry about breaking you leg. The trees were a little bigger than at 9975 or Alf’s. Consequently it seemed that it was wider open under the canopy. I took advantage of that and just made big powder turns all the way down, enjoying my last face shots of the weekend.

All in all, it was perhaps the best weekend of skiing I’ve ever had. From the first face shot on Friday to our sweet Lodgepole run at the end of the day on Sunday, everything just seemed to go right.

What Boots to Use: Alpine vs. AT

2006-03-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

I just took up backcountry skiing this season. When I was buying my equipment, I really didn't ponder the question of whether to use my alpine boots (Solomon X-Screams) or to buy a pair of AT specific boots. With all the climbing involved, I knew that I wanted boots that were much lighter than my alpine boots.

I've realized that for most people, the question of what type of boot to use is not so clear. A number friends who have been talking about taking up AT have said they want to use their downhill boots. They figure that if they are going to expend so much energy going up a mountain, they don't want to be limited by their boots while going down.

I can understand where they're coming from. If I had asked that question in January (after my first time out with my new Garmont G-Rides), I probably would have said that alpine boots were the way to go. My trip to Sequoia over MLK weekend was my first time out in those boots. Going up hill in them great. They were warm, fit well, and I really liked how much the boot flexed in the walk mode. However, going downhill those first few times was a completely different story. I was used to big, stiff boots. So after I pointed my skis downhill and my AT boots started flexing like crazy, I didn't know what to do. I was either too far forward or too far back on my skis and the skis just didn't want to turn (or at least not when I wanted them to). I fell as many times that first day as I normally do in a year. So at the end of that first day, I was asking myself if I made a mistake buying AT boots.

But since that first day, the boots have really grown on me. Just because the boots are softer does not mean that you can't ski aggressive terrain with them. It just requires you to be softer and subtler in initiating your turns. You have to pay more attention to staying centered on your skis rather than leaning forward. When I used to hear people say that you don’t need stiff boots to ski powder, I never really believed them. After all, I had stiff boots and they were great in powder. But I understand what they mean now.

Getting back to the original question about whether to even buy AT boots, I see a couple of big questions that need to go into the decision. First, how far do you have to skin before you can ski downhill? If you have to skin for 2 hours before you even begin going uphill, the lighter AT boots are hands-down better. On the other hand, if the parking lot is at the base of the mountain, then the added comfort of AT boots going uphill wouldn't be so important. Secondly, how steep of terrain are you talking about skiing? The way I see it, unless you're going to be hucking big 30 footers, a good pair of high performance AT boots (like the G-Rides) should be able to handle anything. I've skied a couple of 35-degree chutes with them and they were great. So like all complicated questions, I guess it depends. But I'm plenty happy with my G-Rides.

If you have an opinion on this subject, I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Note: If you do end up buying AT boots, contrary to what I did, I'd recommend taking them out for a few days of lift serviced skiing before heading out into the backcountry. There will be an adjustment period. The last place you want to go through that painful adjustment is on a beautiful powder filled bowl that you just spent 2 hours climbing up.

Backcountry Ski Trip Report: Pear Lake Hut

2006-03-01T22:28:00.000-08:00

I had my first Pear Lake Hut experience this past weekend. As I promised everyone who I went there with, I'm going to start off by saying that it was a terrible place, with terrible snow, and 2 terrible caretakers who will stop at nothing to make your stay there miserable. So if you don't get the point, DON'T GO TO THE PEAR LAKE HUT! Its not worth the 5 hour slog it takes to get there. Now if you've already decided not go there, please stop reading this article and never again come back to my blog. For those of you who want to hear all the details of my terrible Pear Lake Hut experience, keep reading.

This was my first time out on a backcountry trip that was longer than a day. To be honest, even though it was only a hut trip, I did have some anxiety about it throughout the week. Despite Nellie (see Wolverine man article) having sent out a good packing list, I still really didn't know what I would need. How much food was I going to go through each day? How many changes of clothing would I need? I didn't know. I wasn't sure whether to bring a full-sized backpack or to go with a daypack and attach stuff sacks to it. I decided to go with stuff sack option and packed a ton of food and twice as much clothing as I needed.

We set off from the Wolverton parking lot (at Sequoia National Park) on Friday morning. The weather was great. It was sunny and mid 40's. We followed the Pear Lake Trail up to the top of the hump. I had taken a portion of this trail before to go up to ski 9975. But the trail is much more challenging with a 40 lb pack on your back. From the hump you follow the trail down to Heather Lake and then follow the yellow triangles to the hut.

As much as I love skinning and the whole being out in nature thing, I go backcountry skiing so I can get good turns in. So while most of the party kept moving towards the hut, John, Tyler, and I made a short excursion up to the Soccer Fields (Just past Heather Lake and above the trail to the right). It was heavenly. The skin track was already in place. Apart from 2 sets of tracks from the previous group at the hut, we were making fresh tracks all the way down. We had about 8" of nice creamy powder. The runs started out as a wide open low grade bowl (~500' vert) and finished up with about 300' vertical through steeper terrain with some trees and rocks. It wasn't Utah light. But it was pretty damned good. After one run on the Soccer Fields, we left to join up with the others. We were giddy with the knowledge of just how good this weekend was going to be.

After another hour on the trail, we arrived at the hut. If you're expecting luxury accommodations, you're going to be disappointed. It’s definitely not a luxury condo in Vail. Its basically one big common room that is used for eating, socializing, and sleeping. Besides beds (with mattresses), it’s main amenities are an indoor toilet, a wood pellet stove for heat, solar powered lights to use at night, and two Coleman propane stoves to cook on. For a complete list of what the hut has and what they recommend that you bring, see the website. (http://www.sequoiahistory.org/pearlake/pearlakehutequip.htm).

On Saturday, we left the hut at 9 AM to head up to the top of Skier's Alta (north facing portion of Alta peak that you ski from the hut). It was another gorgeous day…sunny and high 30's. It was 2000 vertical feet from the hut to the top of Skier's Alta and it took us 1 hr 45 minutes to make it up. On the way up, Miles, Evan and I were all salivating over some of the chutes that hadn't been skied since the last storm. We settled on skiing the Hourglass Chutes for our first run. It was about 500' vertical and true to its name, it was wide open at the top and bottom with a bottleneck in the middle. I was the 3rd one into the chute. Apart from some wind pack at the top, it was great skiing. From the bottleneck to the bottom, it was steep (30-35 degrees?) with about 8-10" of great, untouched powder. After getting to the bottom and looking up to see our turns, it really did look like a scene out of a heli-skiing video.

The rest of the way down is composed of two wide-open bowls, one above the other. The first bowl is definitely low grade while the second one is a bit steeper. The snow on both was excellent. After getting to the bottom we stopped for lunch. At that point, John, Nat, and I decided to head on over to Pear Lake and check out Milo's Couloir to see if it was skiable. Unfortunately, when we got to it, we found that due to its more easterly exposure, it had crusted over and wouldn’t be any good.

Just when we were skiing back from the base of the couloir to the lake, I literally fell through a hole in the snow. Everything below my arms had broken through and I was held up by bracing my back and skis against the sides of the hole. Looking down into it, it was at least 10 feet deep below me. Luckily for me, John was still above me when I fell in and was able to pull me out. It was one of the only times in recent memory that I have truly been scared while on skis. If I had fallen in, I would have been there until they could have come back with ropes to pull me out. Thankfully I wasn't by myself that day.

After that adventure, we skinned up a short, more northerly section of the same ridge. Unfortunately Miles and Evan deemed the snow pack to be too slabby to try and ski the main face. So we skied back down to the lake following our skin track. I didn’t see it, but I was told that Nat had a nice collision with a tree on the way down. John and I finished out the day with another run 2/3 of the way up Skier's Alta. It was every bit as good as the first.

Besides great skiing, we also ate and drank well at the hut. When we got back, we found a full vat of River 'Ritas (Beer, lime-aid, and tequila) waiting for us. Earlier in the entry I know I sounded like I was complaining about all the weight we were carrying in. Well, I now admit that it was our own doing. That's what you get when you bring in enough booze (several 12 packs of beers, 2 bags o' wine, and a few bottle of whiskey) and food to insure that despite burning several thousand calories greater than normal per day, you come back 10 lbs heavier. It didn't hurt that all the meals from Chris's heavenly pasta to Kinga and Dave's Rice and Chili were absolutely delicious.

The next morning, Miles, Evan and Alisha left the hut to return to civilization. We still had one more day to rip it up. We set off again for Skier's Alta. This time, I pushed a bit harder and made it up in 1 hr 15 minutes. Sunday definitely wasn't as nice as Saturday. It was overcast and a bit cooler. But the snow was still great. We actually all got a decent sunburn on Saturday. SPF 15 just didn’t do the job. So it was probably for the best that it was cloudy. We spent most of the day hitting various chutes and doing our best to ensure that the next party at the hut wouldn't be able to find any untouched powder. We actually quit skiing around 3:30 that afternoon. I admit that I was the one who said that I didn't want to take another run…although I’m sure that if I had said I wanted to, the others would have resisted. So we went in and treated ourselves to some Gluhwein (hot wine with oranges, cinnamon and cloves). After a few glasses, we decided to go ski another run on the Front Yard (small hill right in front of the hut). I was in such a good mood that I was contemplating taking my headlamp out and going back to the top. Thankfully, I sobered up after a run on the Front Yard and decided that wouldn't be so wise. Instead, we treated ourselves to a round of beacon sniffing. That's where we hide an avalanche beacon and practice finding it using our own beacon. This was my first time using mine (Ortovox M1). It took a while before I remembered how it worked. I realized that I need to practice using it some more.

I must admit that my only regret for the trip was that my friend Carl couldn't make it. The previous Monday, he was the victim of a road rage incident. I'm not sure of all the details. He didn't want to tell me. All, I know is that a crazy Armenian guy (now in the custody of the LAPD) did some serious damage to his face. Despite the fact that Carl wasn't physically there, he was definitely there in spirit. Trying to discourage any of the girls from joining us on the trip, he was kind enough to make them absolutely paranoid that an avalanche was going to kill us all at any moment. Thank you Carl! I found it especially ironic since Carl was the one who told me that the Sierra snow pack is incredibly stable and that you really don’t need to wear an avalanche beacon more than a day after a storm. (Note: I'm by no means advocating that avalanche safety isn't important. He just had them convinced that the hut was as dangerous as a 35 degree slope the day after a 2 foot dump.) Another funny Carl story that came up was his trip into the hut last year with Nellie. Apparently they decided to do a moonlight headlamp trip into the hut on a Friday night. What could go wrong did go wrong. They got lost a few times and it ended up taking them close to 5 hours just to reach the top of the hump. Apparently when they got down to Pear Lake (~5 AM), Carl was delirious (from lack of sleep) and didn’t see where Nellie went when he was crossing Heather Lake. What he missed was that fact that Nellie avoided a weak spot in the ice. So when Carl went, he fell in up to his knees. It’s pretty funny now. But I’m sure Carl didn’t find it so funny back then. Enough with Carl and on to the rest of our story.

The next morning when we woke up it was raining. Yes...raining. The day before, we had heard that a storm was coming in and the snowline was supposed to be 8,000 ft. With the hut being at 9,200 ft, we thought we'd be fine. Despite the fact that it briefly shifted to snow after we left the hut, most of our descent was through the rain. It took us about 1.5 hours to make it back to the top of the hump and another hour to make it down. Once we got to where the Pear Lake Trail me the Panther Gap trail, I was amazed by how much the snow had melted. Countless rocks and logs that were once snow covered, now blocked the trail. The moss on the trees was now a bright green. It looked as if spring was on its way. All in all, my first Pear Lake trip was another great ski experience. I look for to joining Chris, Nellie, Tyler, Dianna, Dave, King, Miles, and Nat again next year. Lastly a big congrats to all the girls who joined us on the trip. Despite Carl's best efforts, they were real troopers and did great. In my book, they have all earned the right to assume the title, "hardcore skier chick."

Note: If you didn't already realize it from everything that followed the opening paragraph, the Pear Lake Hut is not in fact a terrible place. I just promised everyone that I would spread some negative press about it to keep it from getting too popular.

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

2006-02-21T22:27:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-02-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

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.

Backcountry Ski Trip Report: Red Mountain and Panther Peak

2006-01-31T10:58:00.000-08:00

Last weekend (1/28-29), I again made the trek up to Central California to do some backcountry skiing. I'll be honest, the skiing wasn't very good. In fact it was pretty bad. But like all difficult things, it was a formative experience and I learned a lot. The story is best told by breaking it down into lessons learned.

Lesson #1: Avoid Parking in Grandma's Front Yard: On Saturday, we were planning on skiing Red Mountain, which is located between Shaver Lake and Sierra Summit on Rt. 168. So we drove up most of the way the night before and decided to sleep in the back of John's Explorer. We parked on the side of the road around midnight and figured everything was fine. I guess we were a little close to Grandma's house because her dog got wind of us around 1:45. Grandma decided to come out and find out if we were ok. She was actually pretty cool. She had no problem with us sleeping there for the night. It just took away from the little sleep we were getting in the comfy confines of the Explorer.

Lesson #2: Bring Toilet Paper: I've gotten too used to staying in places that provide you with toilet paper and of course forgot to bring my own. So shortly after waking up, I had to go and do my business...toilet paper or no toilet paper. Unfortunately, there were no leaves on the ground and all the trees were evergreens. I decided that they wouldn't be too comfortable or effective. The best solution I came up with was to grass wrapped with an old REI receipt.

Lesson #3: Get a Hide a Key: We arrived at the Red Mountain trail snow park around 7:15. We then had breakfast and put our gear on. To keep us entertained, we had the Sirius satellite radio blasting tunes from the "Hair Nation" station. A minute later, John shut his door and realized that he had locked the keys in the car (they were still in the ignition) with the radio still on. So we were presented with a dilemma. Do we go on the ski tour or do we get the door opened? Rather than getting a professional, we decided to try and open it ourselves. Picture John standing on top on the roof of the Explorer using one of his skis as a lever to pry open the door with me trying to jam my ski pole into the opening John created in a sad attempt at hitting the automatic lock button. As expected, it was completely ineffective. I was really surprised that no one driving by stopped as it looked like we were trying to break into the car. Once we gave up on doing it ourselves, we decided to go on the tour and deal with it later.

Lesson #4: Usefulness of GPS and an Altimeter: Neither John nor I had ever been out to Red Mountain. John had heard about it from a friend and had read a description of it on the Sierra Club Ski Mountaineer's website. But that was about all the knowledge we had. On the positive side, we did pick up a topographic map of the area. But unfortunately, none of the trails were labeled on the topographic map, the trails themselves weren't labeled very well, we were stupid and talked ourselves into taking the wrong trail. Not wanting to waste time, we decided to take what we thought was the geographic straight line to the trail we wanted to be on. We eventually made it onto the trail. But we were really never sure where we were on the map or how far we had left to go. We only realized that we were on the right trail when we reached West Lake at the base of Red Mountain. For me, the hike wasn’t the hard part. It was only 6.5 miles and the climb was very gradual. Most all of it consisted of following Snowmobile tracks. The hard part for me was the uncertainty. GPS would have obviously cleared that up. But as long as you have a topographic map, an Altimeter would also have given you a good idea of where of you were by telling you which iso line on the map you were on. (Note: This is similar to the technique we used on the sub where we would use ocean depth to fix our position.) If you want to do this tour without getting lost, just follow the signs at first for the Red Mountain trailhead and then for Red Mountain. (We errored in thinking that we were already on the Red Mountain trail as soon as we left the parking lot and that the first sign for the Red Mountain trailhead would loop us back to the parking lot)

Lesson #5: Bring Basic First Aid: About halfway into the hike, I got a pretty good sized blister on the back of my left ankle. When it first started hurting, it made me wish that I would have brought some mole skin with me. Luckily, John had a role of duct tape, which turned out to be an excellent temporary fix. We made a small duct tape square by putting folding one strip of duct tape in half (sticky side to sticky side). We put this against the blister and then taped that to my foot. So now you know one more use of duct tape. Despite the fact that this wasn't very serious, it did make me think about what I would do if something more serious happened. In the future, I'll definitely bring a basic first aid kit along with me and I might take a wilderness first aid course.

Lesson #6: The Skiing at Red Mountain is not worth the hike: Even if you don’t get lost, it’s a 5 mile hike to get to the top of the mountain. So it’s not easy to get to. The west facing ridge has a nice steep 400 ft vertical ridge. But it’s west facing. The north facing bowl we heard so much had a nice rocky steep section that last for about 30 vertical feet. It was followed by several hundred vertical feet of boring low grade crap. The snow at the top was very wind packed and slick while we did find some powder in the woods below.

The trip back to the car was easy. It took us 1.5 hours. Its not all downhill. So you’ll either have to put your skins back on or carry them like we chose to do. Thanks to the grumpy front desk guy at the Tamarack Lodge (just up 168 from the snow park), we were able to get AAA to send someone out to open the Explorer up for us. Amazingly, the battery was still full of juice with the radio going at full blast all day.

The next day, we skied Panther Peak at Sequoia National Park. The tour leaves from the Wolverton parking lot (just like 9979 which we did over MLK weekend). You just follow the yellow trail markers and it will guide you there. It only took us about 2 hours to reach the summit. The skin up was made easier by following John’s skin track from when he went up the previous weekend. The run down Panther Peak gives you about 700 vertical feet of low grade, north facing trees. The first 100 feet at the top is more exposed and we found it to have a very heavy crust. While not great snow down below, we had about 8” of heavy, creamy powder. You definitely had to have some speed to help you turn in it. But it was fun! By the time we went up for a second lap, it had warmed up substantially. This caused the snow to stick to our skins. In the future, I’ll be sure spray some of the Black Diamond Free Glide spray onto it the night before. Since we didn’t spray it on the night before, we used some Globstopper wax. While not totally fixing the problem, it at least allowed us to make it back up for a second run.

What is Ski Porn?

2006-01-30T19:35:00.000-08:00

That is the question I have gotten from some of my non-skiing friends. Some didn't know what it was while others, like my mother, were offended and thought that I was actually writing a review of the latest skin flick. Ski porn is hard core skier lingo for ski videos. If you don't believe me, just google it and you'll find a whole array of good clean ski videos to choose from. Ski porn is what we, who are addicted to skiing, use to satisfy our cravings when we can't get out to the slope.

Although not the same as when you are out there yourself, its still pretty invigorating/inspiring to watch the guy or the girl in the video skiing a beautiful line in knee deep powder down an insanely steep (>50 degree) pitch in the Chugach. You wish it were you when they huck a 50 ft cliff and land it effortlessly. You're glad its not you when the landing doesn't go so smoothly and the aforementioned huck is followed by 20 cartwheels down the slope without the skis releasing. My ACL hurts just watching. Even though what they do far exceeds our abilities, it does motivate us to get in the car for that 9 hour drive in search of good snow and great terrain. So, if I offended you, I'm sorry. But ski porn is what it is and I will not give in to political correctness and call them ski movies. That just sounds so lame.

Backcountry Ski Trip Report: Weekend at Sequoia

2006-01-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

I spent last weekend skiing the backcountry at Sequoia National Park. It was both the first time on my new AT gear and my first time backcountry skiing since 1995. It turned out to be a great weekend. We got close to 2 ft of fresh, dry powder between Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. The biggest surprise to me was how dry it was. Although not quite Alta dry, it was pretty close. It dedfinitely wasn't the typical Sierra cement I've heard so much about. The snow line was only at 3,500 ft.

Each day, we drove up to the Wolverton parking area in the morning and went out from there. On Saturday, I was a bit apprehensive about going out in the middle of the storm. But for the most part, we stayed in the trees and my buddy John (who lives in 3 Rivers just outside the park) was very familiar with the terrain and assured us it was safe. We started off on the Pear Lake trail before breaking off to go to the top of the peak we call 9979. The initial hike to the bottom of the bowl took about 3 hours. I was pleased with my stamina. I had no problems keeping up with John and apart from my lungs, I didn't feel all that tired. After another hour, we made it to the top of the bowl. It's a nice north facing bowl. Visibility in the bowl wasn't great. But we could see. Although the terrain was great (low grade bowl leading to widely spaced trees for about 900' vertical), I skiied terribly. The AT boots were a lot softer than my downhill boots. Consequently, I had trouble keeping myself centered. I was either too far forward or I was leaning back. At least on the first run, it seemed that I couldn't link more than 5 turns without falling. I fell more on our two runs that day than I had all season long combined. By the second run, I knew what to expect from the boots and started getting the hang of the new boots. I could now link 8 turns before falling.
On day two, we got off to a late start. It was decided that we had to ski with the girls that day. We didn't actually go on a full fledged tour. Instead, we again went to the Wolverton parking area and did laps up the hill directly across from the sledding hill. It was affectionately known as the "Beginner's Slope." But apart from the very top, it had a good intermediate/expert pitch. There were even a few rocks to jump. The big advantage to the "Beginner's Slope" is that its only a 10 minute hike from the parking lot. The disadvantage is that the run is only 400 ft of vertical. So it takes quite a few laps to get good vertical. We were the only ones who thought it was worth skiing. So it was completely untracked. The snow was excellent (8-10" of good dry powder). In fact, it was probably the best snow we had all weekend.

On day three, we went back to 9979. Thankfully, we were greeted with a bluebird instead of a snowstorm. When we got to the base of 9979 bowl, we headed up the trees to the right (when facing uphill) instead of skinning directly up the bowl. We made good time and broke John's record with a time of 2:59 from the Wolverton parking lot. For our first run, we headed down through the trees we had just skinned up through. That face is northwest facing so the snow at the top was already pretty crusty. But once we got further into the trees (thinner and more exposed to sunlight at the very top) it was very good. We got some excellent video. Tyler and Carl quit after the first run. Tyler was tired and Carl's boots hurt. Dave, John and I went up for another 2 runs. We did one more run in the trees and finished it off with a run in the bowl.
All together, we climbed close to 10,000 ft of vertical throughout the weekend. For that, we got in only 9 runs. It might seem like a lot of work for not a whole lot of skiing. But it was absolutely wonderful. I actually enjoy the skin up. I like the fact that it forces me to slow down and enjoy the scenery. The other big thing is that you're guaranteed first tracks. Consequently, you have none of the anxiety that you have at a lift serviced ski area on a powder day. There is no mad rush to get to the powder before its tracked up. So you just end up taking your time and enjoy the day more. I know that I was spoiled with the snow quality that we had. But we were the only ones out there and it was great.

Ski Porn Review: Altavision

2006-01-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

Before leaving Alta last weekend, I got my hands on the first Wahsatch Powder Productions release entitled "Altavision". It is a simple, extremely low budget movie that focuses on great powder skiing. What I liked best about the movie is that they kept the focus on the skiing. The movie was basically one big face shot. It was only a matter of how you got to it: deep powder in open bowls, landing in powder after hucking a 40 ft cliff, or making beautiful turns through the trees. Unlike most other videos today, they did have a park scene, but it was kept to a minimum. Additionally, the Stevie Wonder bloopers scene was hysterical. Their crashes are far better than the standard Warren Miller falling off a lift or firemen running into each other. They are also more believable than those videos which show guys getting swept off a 50 ft cliff by an avalanche and walking away. If we got off of our butt, took a drink, and got a little courage, these were things that we might actually attempt. You can't help but laugh at each crash. The scene proves true the old saying we had on the boat, "Another person's misery is our greatest joy!"

While I really enjoyed the movie, there are a few areas that they could improve on for their next production. First, the movie needs more dialogue. It had the skiing and it even had decent music. But it would be more interesting to have a narrarator talking about where they're skiing, philosophizing about skiing powder, or even just introducing some of the skiers. Secondly, there are lots of interesting personalities at Alta and it would be cool to hear some of their stories. For example, Rob the guy I wrote about from the lift the other day was hysterical. A monologue with him just going off would be great. Finally and most importantly, the movie needs more chicks. I'm not saying that they need to blow their budget and bring in Sarah Burke or Ingrid Bakstrom, but it would be nice for them to showcase some women skiers and to let us know that they are women.

Despite my criticisms, overall I thought it was a fine piece of ski porn and highly recommend it. If you're interested in obtaining a copy, you can email Wahsatch Powder Productions at: wahpowprod@yahoo.com.

Ski Trip Report: You Win Some and You Lose Some

2006-01-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

The old saying goes that you win some and you lose some. As ski days go, Saturday was one of the worst ski days I’ve ever had. Temperatures were only in the low 30’s. But there were high winds that made it feel far colder and turned most of the snow to absolute crap. Yes, I know that I sound like a complete west coast weather weenie and you might say that I’ve forgotten my northeastern roots. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re absolutely right. I’m soft and I’ve been spoiled by great weather and snow conditions. But you’d be spoiled too if your ski season had gotten off to the kind of start that mine has. Anyways, now back to how the day actually went. Winds were coming from the west. When we actually got smart about figuring out where the wind was depositing all the blowing snow, we did find some good snow in East Greeley, Greeley Bowl, Gunsight and Glory Hole. But by then, I was mentally out of it (didn’t really want to be out there) and was skiing terribly. I was leaning back on my skis the whole day and had no energy in my legs.
(Lone Pine on Ridge, looking up from East Greeley)
The only highpoint in the day was meeting another one of Alta’s interesting personalities on the chairlift. I hope all who go to Alta have the pleasure of one day meeting Rob Rowley (Rob, sorry if I messed up on your name, I’m going from memory of what I saw on your pass). Rob is an absolute riot! Like Red Man, Rob looks a bit disheveled. He’s in his mid 40’s, is slightly overweight, had gloves but wasn’t wearing them, has long hair, and has a pair of fairly new Fischer skis with 25 year old bindings. According to Rob, his mission in life is to get the POW POW and to the ride the first chair every day he’s there. Like Red Man, he does not actually live or work anywhere in Utah. He’s from the great skiing state of Virginia. Within the first few minutes talking with him, he will proudly tell you that last season he got 37 first chairs, 2 seconds, and 1 third. Probably more impressive, is the 22 double double’s that he got the year before that. The double double involved first chair on both the old Collins and Germania lifts (both replaced last year with the Collins High Speed Quad). According to Rob, the difficult part wasn’t being first in line on the old Collins double. It was surviving the Chinese downhill, with some of Alta’s best skiers behind you, to the Germania lift. Legend has it that one day Rob rode up with a former US ski team member who characterized the aforementioned Chinese downhill as the scariest run of his life.

Another story Rob shared with us was the time he met the guy he was on the chairlift with. It was 10 years ago and they were both staying at the Goldminer’s Daughter Lodge. Rob checked the weather forecast at the front desk and saw that 6-8 feet of snow were predicted. He thought it was a typo. But no, it wasn’t. It was the storm of all storms. They ended up with 99” of 4% moisture content (really dry) snow. The road coming up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Alta was closed for 2 of the next 3 days due to avalanches. On one of those days, they did try opening the road. But after 4 cars made it up, another 4 were buried in an avalanche and it was closed for the rest of the day. Despite all this snow, Alta did manage to keep the lifts running. I jokingly asked Rob if it was deep enough to necessitate the use of a snorkel. His response was that it was it was too deep for a snorkel. It would just clog up with snow. In that depth of snow, he prefers the filtered breathing mask. He said that it’s pretty weird to be standing at the top of a slope and to see the top of the powder chest deep, 12” below your goggles. It must have been absolutely incredible. I wish I was there. But breaking first tracks on the high traverse must have really sucked!

The National Weather Service predicted 4” of new snow Saturday night with another 4-7” on Sunday morning. At 4 in the morning, I woke up and was stoked to see blizzard like conditions outside. When I woke up again at 7, I was disappointed to see that the blizzard conditions had given way to blue skies and had left only 4” of new snow. But I figured that the 4” would significantly improve conditions from yesterday and a bluebird was always good. Dad and I made it over to the lifts by 8:45. The lifts were running, but were only taking ski patrol up at that point. There was one person waiting in line before us. At first I thought it was a liftie. Then I realized it was Rob. He had just arrived at Alta the week before. So this was first chair number 4 for the season. Dad and I got chair number 3.

Shortly after getting on the lift, it started snowing again. It turned out to be another great powder day. We got first tracks on Greeley Bowl and North Rustler. At that point, we put the no friends on a powder day rule into affect and split up. Next I took a run off of the high traverse. To my delight, I again got first tracks on Stone Crusher and Lone Pine. The next run I met up with Red Man and we hit High Rustler and took a bunch of runs in Eagle’s Nest. Before taking me into Eagle’s Nest, I again had to sign one of his iron clad confidentiality agreements promising not to show anyone his secret stashes. By 11:00 (when the original forecast called for the storm to let up), the storm only intensified. With much regret, I decided to meet up with Dad at the Peruvian for lunch.
(Wildcat Lift in Snowstorm)
After lunch, we took one run before we were forced to go our separate ways, me for maintaining my sanity (I hate to wait) and him to keep from having a heart attack(trying to keep up with me). I originally meant to head out to East Greeley. But not seeing any tracks going towards Glory Hole, I hiked out there and again got first tracks. Next, I moved over to the Supreme lift and had an excellent run in Catherine’s area and got first tracks in 2 chutes in Supreme Bowl. I was elated that at 2:30 in the afternoon, I was still getting first tracks. Granted, both chutes had sketchy entrances that probably discouraged most skiers, but anyone with a little ingenuity could have skied them. By that time, there was at least a foot of fresh powder in the untracked areas. So it was real good. I finished the day with a couple more runs in Eagle’s Nest before heading back to the Peruvian to get cleaned up before catching the van down to the valley. To top that all off, the perfect day ended with one of those perfect moments. Before I caught the van down, I headed up to the Peruvian bar for a beer. I was sitting in a big soft leather chair, next to the fire, drinking a PBR, and listening to a Dead cover band. I was just sitting, smiling, and thinking that it doesn’t get any better than this.
(Grizzly Dad in Snowstorm just after skiing Eagle's Nest)

Ski Trip Report: Back At The 'Bird

2006-01-06T17:24:00.000-08:00

I skiied the 'Bird today. I had the honor of skiing with John "Red Man" Reif, a local legend. Red Man is a 54 year old professor of Nanoscience at Duke who calls the the bunkroom at the Alta Peruvian Lodge his second home and manages to average 50-60 days per year at Alta and Snowbird. He is a living library on the history and locals' stashes at Alta and Snowbird.

When we got to Snowbird, I got the unpleasant news that the Gad 2 Lift was broken. Apparently the bull wheel cracked 2 weeks ago and a new one is being manufactured in Canada. It will be several weeks until it will be open again.

Despite that bit of bad news, the day overall was excellent. We were treated to another bluebird. Temps were in the mid 40's. We started off skiing Mineral Basin, which was in the sun in the morning. Unfortunately it took the first 2 hours of the day for the snow to really soften up. So we were skiing on frozen crud and death cookies. We should have just stuck to the groomers. Around 11, we headed for the main ridge under the tram. Red Man swore me to an oath that I would never show anyone else his secret powder stashes. So sorry, all I can do is tell you the trails we went down. (Not that I have a chance of remembering where they are next time I come back since I was just trying to keep up with him as we were constantly ducking in and out of the trees and down chutes.) Almost every run we did off the ridge, we started off going down Great Scott. Its the 45 degree slope right under the tram with a bunch of people standing looking over the edge. The entry involves a ~5' drop in. The cover was a little spotty today. So you really had to pay attention to the rocks sticking out of the snow. Once you were in, the snow was absolutely fantastic. After skiing down the main part of Great Scott, we would then traverse over to the nose of the main ridge at Snowbird. From there, we took runs down the Wilbur Chutes, Lone Pine, and Dalton's Draw. They were all very excellent and uncrowded. The only issue was the entry which involved skiing over rocks. Luckily I only ended the day with one core shot. Somehow Snowbird just doesn't agree with my skis.

Red Man might be 54 years old. But I have to admit that he skis faster than me. I prefer taking lots of short agressive turns down the fall line. He generally just makes big fast GS turns through anything. We didn't stop for lunch and skiied together until 2 when he headed back to Alta. To be honest I was kind of glad that he left because my legs were just about out of gas and I would hate to admit that I had been beaten by a 54 year old.

When we got back to the Peruvian we were greeted with the news that Alta had opened up the Baldy chutes today. I was disappointed to hear that I had missed it because they look fantastic. I've never skiied them but plan on hitting them tomorrow.

Ski Trip Report: First Two Days at Alta in 2006

2006-01-05T19:44:00.000-08:00

Life doesn't get any better than this! First, I do New Year's in Vail. Then I join my dad for 5 days at Alta. Like the last couple of times I've come up here, I'm staying at the Peruvian. I came the same week as last year. Its amazing! Apart from a few new faces, its almost the same people staying here. Every conversation begins with something about you looking familiar. This sure says something for customer loyalty and what a great place the Peruvian is.

So now on to the skiing. Dad and I got up here around 8AM on the 4th. There were 4" of fresh light Alta powder to go on top of the 10" they got the day before. This presented me with an ethical challenge. On the one hand, its a powder day and we all know that there are no friends on powder days. My dad is 56 years old, a smoker, and severely out of shape. So skiing with him would mean missing out on a lot of good turns. On the other hand, he did fly all the way from Taiwan to go skiing with me. The decision wasn't made any easier when on the 2nd run when dad lost a ski almost as soon as we hit the powder. Not having powder cords, Murphy's law dictated that his ski burried itself in the snow. We spent a good 30 minutes digging for it. We were just about to write it off and I was about to leave him when he stepped on it with his boot. Damn!!! So dad had his ski and we were back to skiing together again. (Note: Our first stop after finding his ski was to visit the ski shop and get him some powder cords. He has been bitching about them being a pain in the ass every since.)

So what was good on day one? While waiting for dad to buy powder cords, I found some fairly untracked snow in Greeley bowl and Greely Hill. We spent the early afternoon on the Supreme lift. The areas to skier's right and left of the lift are littered with amazing chutes. The snow cover was good. I didn't hit any rocks. Although very steep, the entries to most of them do not involve jumping any rocks. Catherine's opened while we were in at lunch. But after getting back out, I made the hike out there around 1:30. Everything that was easy to reach was already tracked up. So I hiked all the way to the outer edge of the area boundary. To my delight I was treated to a nice moderate pitch (Note: Most of Catherine's is moderately pitched) with only 4 other tracks through it. Although only a spray, I got this season's first face shot on that run. Shortly thereafter, I split with dad and made laps off the Collins lift until closing. To get back to the lodge, I took Wildcat Bowl and Blackjack back to the Peruvian. That whole face off of the Wildcat lift is one of Alta's best kept secrets. Even though it was the end of the day, it was only mildly tracked and the shade kept the snow nice and light.

Today they opened up Ballroom just after 9AM. So instead of the normal groomer for our warmup, we warmed up on the Ballroom traverse. Since it was the warmup, we stopped about midway and then skied down. I didn't make dad do the whole traverse. I let my dad go down first and was amazed. The old man was skiing powder and making nice looking turns. I was so happy for him. Every other time I've taken him into powder he's always looked really uncomfortable and I've felt guilty for taking him down those runs. But today he got it! You da' man dad! Just after lunch as we were getting off the Sugarloaf lift, they opened up Devil's Castle. So of course we followed the mass of waiting local powder addicts through the gate. Getting into Devil's Castle involves a good hike. So don't go there unless you're willing to sweat. I wasn't willing to wait for dad to deal with his powder cords, so we immediately got split up. It was beautiful powder down the first pitch. After that first pitch I followed a few tracks towards a knowl. One of the things I love about Alta is all the suprises you find. For me, this was a cliff band on the other side of the knowl. Not being the huckmeister, I opted for a narrow chute instead of the 15' cliff with the mystery landing. The chute was quite an adrenaline rush. It goes with out saying that it was steep. But to start off it was only 2 ski length wide. So at first you could make hop turns. Then it narrowed to less than a ski length wide and to get out you had to do a straight line and duck under a pine tree before it let you out into this awesome powder field that almost no one had been in. This brought me to face shot number two for the season. I love face shots! After that I got another two runs in Devil's Castle. Again Dad and I split up at the end of the afternoon. I took a number of runs down West Rustler. But the best runs were in Eagle's Nest. The chutes were narrow, the entries sometimes a bit hairy, and the snow was tracked but dry.

So now that I've been here for two days, how does Alta compare with Vail? First, the people at Alta are here for skiing the skiing as opposed for the social scene. They wear functional clothing that often doesn't match instead of one piece Bogner suits. They all have a burning passion for skiing and are intensely devoted to Alta. Second, besides a few ski shops, there is no shopping up here. So if you're looking to buy a new fur coat, its probably not the place to go. Third, Alta is much smaller than Vail. You could fit Alta into Vail's back bowls. Lastly, Alta is much steeper than Vail. I didn't ski a run at Vail that is as steep as any of the chutes or most of the bowls at Alta.

Ski Trip Report: New Year's in Vail

2006-01-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

I just finished my 4th day of skiing at Vail. While it lived up to some of my negative expectations, it has also surprised me in a lot of good ways. I’ll start off with the good. The skiing has been better than expected. While the mountain lacks a lot of the rocky steep chutes that Squaw, Alta, or Jackson have, the terrain is actually decent. The front side of the mountain is pretty much entirely traditional tree-lined slopes. There are a few good runs through the trees and the bumps by the Highline lift are enough to give your thighs a real fun for their money. But I wouldn’t spend too much time on the front side of the mountain.

Vail’s real treasure is the back bowls. They are HUGE. By themselves, they are over 3000 acres. I was treated to the joy of a foot of fresh powder on New Year’s Day. The combination of the back bowl’s expansiveness and the fact that everyone was too hung-over to ski, meant that I was getting fresh tracks from 0830 to closing. It was one of the best powder days of my life. Early on in the day when the visibility sucked, I was mostly sticking to the trees in China and Siberia Bowl. While in some areas the trees are pretty close together, most of the trees are very skiable as long as you go slow. Once the visibility improved, a local pointed me to the Mongolia pomma. I hate to spoil a good thing. But there was absolutely no one over there. I had a number of fantastic runs in Bolshoi Ballroom and Inner Mongolia Bowl. The only downside to heading over that far is that the pitch becomes more moderate in Inner Mongolia Bowl and the catwalk at the end is fairly long. But if you’re looking for fresh tracks, it’s well worth it.

To finish off New Year’s Day, I went with some locals on the Mintern Mile. It’s a backcountry trail that takes you from the ski area boundary at Lost Boy in Game Creek Bowl to the ski bum town of Mintern. It was awesome! The first part was moderately pitched untracked powder, alternating between open meadows and glades. Then we had a half hour down a fairly flat narrow trail through the woods. Although flat, you can get going pretty fast and it’s too narrow to turn. Because of that, the trail is affectionately called the Luge. After getting to Mintern, we spent the next hour drinking Margaritas in a real classic ski bar. The inside entrance was filled with skis and snowboards. The walls were lined with old ski pictures. It was absolutely packed with locals who had just finished up their day of skiing.

The snow quality was also very good. Despite temperatures being in the upper 30’s to mid 40’s, the snow was pretty dry. Vail was reporting a 51” mid mountain base. Although this was less than what was Snowbird had 3 weeks ago, I didn’t hit a rock until the last day. This was due to the mountains here being generally less rocky than in Utah. So the important thing to remember is that the cover at Vail could be excellent compared with Utah even though its base might be less.

The biggest surprise was the cost. I wasn’t expecting Vail to offer a good military discount. But even on New Year’s weekend, the ticket only costs $45 for active duty military. Sorry for you non-military types. You still have to pay the outrageous sum of $82. If you know that you may be coming here at some point next season and you are ever in Colorado on business, you might want to get a Colorado ski pass. It covers unlimited skiing at A-Basin, Breckenridge, and Keystone and 10 days at Vail/Beaver Creek. All this for only ~$320. The only hitch is that it isn’t good at Vail over Christmas and the first time you get it, you have to buy it in person. After that, you can renew online.

We flew into Denver International and used the Colorado Mountain Express Shuttle to get to Vail and back. In good weather, plan on the drive taking 2.5 hours. On the day we went to Vail, with some snow from the night before and heavy traffic, it took us 3.5 hours. It costs $68 each way. So factoring in the time and the cost, it makes sense to fly into Vail/Eagle airport if you can get a good deal.

Now onto the part of Vail that met my expectations. The last two resorts I’ve taken trips to have been Jackson Hole and Alta/Snowbird. Vail is definitely on a completely other level on the ritzy scale than they are. We were staying at the Vail Cascade Resort and Spa. Although a 4 star hotel and one of the best hotels in Vail (normally $460/night), we got it on hotwire for $150/night. It’s a nice place with a swank bar for Après Ski. But they really try and nickel and dime you. I was disappointed that you actually had to pay to get internet access. Even most budget motels include that free of charge. The women who come here are dressed to impress. Fur is definitely big here. So expect to see them decked in designer clothes, fur coats, and fur boots. Along with that, people come to Vail as much for going out at night as for the skiing. So if there’s bad weather (ex. Snowstorm) or it was a big party night the night before (like New Year’s), expect to see the mountain pretty empty for the first part of the day. At first it kind of pissed me off that no one wanted to come out for a great powder day. But then I realized that it just meant more powder for myself and it didn’t both them that they were missing out on some skiing.

Ski Report: The Future of Skiing?

2005-12-19T10:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I went with Carl and Tyler to Mt High. I was greeted to a glimpse of the possible future of skiing. Judging from the number of people paying to ski in decidedly mediocre conditions, ski areas will definitely still be in business in 50 years. But they might not look anything like you remember them and I felt a bit uncomfortable. So what did I find so disconcerting? Well, you see, Mt High is the anti-Alta. Just as there are no snowboarders at Alta, there are almost no skiers at Mt High. Although only a rough estimate, I would venture that there were at least 100 snowboarders for every skier on the mountain. While Mt High doesn't discriminate against skiers, the mountain is clearly geared towards snowboarders. Unlike other mountains, which have a terrain park, Mt High is a terrain park that has a few traditional trails.

Currently, only the west half of the resort is open. They are reporting a 12-18” base with a cumulative total of 1-2” of natural snowfall this year. From what we saw, that appears to be pretty accurate. The only snow there is what they have made. I did remember to bring my rock skis. But surprisingly, the 12-18” base was much easier on my skis than I expected. In fact, they came out much better than they did after two days on Snowbird’s 50” base.

Overall, the mountain was pretty crowded. The wait on the Blue Ridge Express averaged about 10 minutes. (The Exhibition double chair on the other hand was empty) But getting from the slopes to the lift was treacherous. All the snowboarders decided that it would be a good idea to sit down and get out of their bindings between the end of the trail and the entrance to the lift. It never occurred to them that people might actually want to get to the lift. The mountain itself could have done a better job regulating that and educating them on proper etiquette. Once on the slopes, it was definitely crowded. So if you like making big fast GS turns without having to worry about cutting people off, you probably wouldn't like the place. I decided to make the best of it and to look at all the people as moving slalom gates. No I didn't crash any gates. But I do apologize to all the people I cut off!

The other big downside to the mountain was buying a ticket. Normally the mountains are pretty efficient at getting your money. But it actually took us a good half hour waiting in line to purchase our tickets. On the positive side, they do offer a good military discount. ($36 for an all day lift ticket)

At first, we weren't too psyched about the fact that the whole mountain was a terrain park. But after some prodding from Carl, Tyler and I gathered our courage and started hitting the jumps. What was it that made us so hesitant to jump at first? For me at least, the answer is very clear...fear. I admit that when I look at a jump and consider whether to really hit it with some speed, I think about what could go wrong. I see visions of wipeouts and torn ACL’s. Getting big air introduces a degree of uncertainty into skiing that you just don’t have to deal with when your skis are on the ground…no matter how steep the slope is or how fast you are going. If you ski with proper technique, you won’t fall. And if you do fall, it surely won’t be as bad as if you were twisting through the air before you fell. The funny thing is that after jumping a little and landing successfully, I realized that I had been psyching myself out the whole time. Yes, I could get hurt. But that was only one possibility. The more likely outcome is that I would launch off the jump and land it fine. In instances like this, peer pressure can be a good thing. It encourages you to try stuff, that although you are capable of, you wouldn’t try on your own. So hopefully Carl keeps giving me shit about not jumping and maybe by the end of the winter, I’ll be doing helicopters and inverted aerials. Okay, so maybe inverted aerials are going a bit far. But I'd be stoked to do a helicopter by the end of the year.

Besides getting us to give jumping a try, the best part of the terrain park was the entertainment. For any of you going there, I recommend carrying up a set of lawn chairs, a case of beer and setting up shop under the Exhibition double chair to watch the clown show taking place on Lower Chisholm. In this place, they have put together the wonderful combination of big jumps and morons who have no business hitting them. What you are treated to is a wonderful display of snowboarders destroying themselves that rivals the best crash scenes from your favorite ski porn. Most of the time, they walk away. But unfortunately, we did see one person being taken down the hill by the ski patrol. Note: I did see one skier pull a half twisting back flip.

Am I going to back? Probably not. The mountain is nothing compared to Mt Baldy. The sheer number of snowboarders annoys me a great deal. But if it doesn't start snowing down here by mid January and Baldy isn’t open, maybe I will go back to do a little jumping.

What the Hell Was I Thinking?

2005-12-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

I was presented with the choice of spending New Year's Eve in San Diego going to a party or bar that probably didn't interest me too much or going to Vail with one of my buddies and 4 girls. At the end of my last entry, I was definitely leaning towards being the old cheap bastard (OCB) and staying around San Diego. But somewhere between now and then, I came to my senses and realized that I was being a complete idiot. Yes, I know that Vail is a complete rip-off and violates my ski ethic. But there are several arguments against being the OCB. One, apart from a trip to Alta last January, I pretty much missed the last 5 ski seasons due to Navy commitments or disappointing northeast winters. So I owe it to myself to splurge this year. Second and more importantly, I'd be passing on toasting in the New Year combining my two favorite things, women and skiing. So San Diego, you lose and I'm heading to Vail for New Years.

To Vail or Not to Vail? That is the Question?

2005-12-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

I just received an invitation to spend New Year's in Vail. You might think I'd be jumping at the opportunity...especially when you hear that the group would be composed of 2 guys and 4 girls. But I'm very much on the fence. One, its Vail, which is not the type of resort I like going to. I prefer the mountains where the reason people are there is to go skiing...not to spend all night at all the chique restaurants/bars and then fit in a few hours of skiing after sleeping in. Second, Vail's lift tickets this year are $81. That's outrageous! There is no way that mountain is worth $81. For another $18, I could go to Silverton where I'd be skiing steep terrain, have a guide, and be guaranteed powder. Plus, the cost of this trip would cut into the rest of the trips I have planned for the winter...Alta, Tahoe, and possibly Silverton. But maybe I'm just being a cheap, elitist ski-snob and I should get off my high horse and have a little fun!

Ski Trip Report: Weekend at the 'Bird

2005-12-11T22:26:00.000-08:00

I just got back to San Diego after spending the weekend skiing at the Bird (Snowbird). I met my buddy Carl (from LA) and his buddy Ross (NYC) there. After spending 10 hours driving to Mammoth last weekend, we decided to that it makes more sense just to fly to Salt Lake. Its a little bit more expensive. But the skiing is better and the hassle is a lot less. We were treated to two bluebirds. For those of you not familiar with the skier lingo, that means beautiful blue skies. The skiing was good. They advertised ~120" total snowfall and a 56" base. Despite this, the cover was thin on most of the mountain (as should be expected of early season conditions). When I look at the condition of my bases after the second day, I kick myself because I decided against bring my rock skis. Afterwards talking with one of the locals, we heard that they don't break out their good skis at either Alta or Snowbird until there's at least a 100" base.

As I said in my previous post, Saturday was supposed to be the first day with Mineral Basin open. I think they actually opened it Friday since it was pretty tracked up by the time we got there Saturday morning. The best snow in Mineral Basin was on Double Down and Chamonix Chutes in between the Mineral Basin Express and the Baldy Express.

We spent the entire second half of the day skiing the Gad 2 chairlift on the right side of the mountain. The snow was much dryer. Due to being out of the sun most of the time, it hadn't been exposed to the thaw/freeze cycles like the rest of the mountain. In particular, the chutes in Black Forest, Organ Grinder, and S.H. were great. They're steep, narrow, and the cover was better than the rest of the mountain. The highlight of the afternoon was Carl and I getting cat-called by some girls on the lift. That was a first for the both of us! Too bad they couldn't see us taking some great diggers the following run!

The downside to the day was my first run. After getting my bindings mounted a few weeks ago, I had never upped my DIN setting. So 10 turns into the first run, I hit a bump and came out of both skis. I lost everything...skis, poles, hat, goggles, and even my glasses. It was a beauty. Somewhere in there I hit my left thumb. I thought it was just a jam at first. I skied (and fell) on it the rest of the day. When I got back to the lodge that evening and took off my glove, I found that it was swollen and black and blue. I ended up going to the Alta Clinic Sunday morning. It ended up being broken. But Doctor Ken Libre did a great job and made me a cast that could go over my glove so I could still ski on it. So the weekend continued. When I think back to the whole DIN setting issue, it makes me mad. The ski shops try to be conservative and set it low. But in doing so, they expose us to easily avoidable injuries that take place when the bindings release for seemingly no reason. So we are stuck with adjusting them progressively tighter using only trial and error.

We stayed at the Alta Peruvian Lodge. That's my favorite up there. It was the first time Carl and Ross had ever been they became instant fans. Everything's great about the Peruvian. One, its a nice hotel that has a cheap option. There's a bunkroom for everyone who doesn't want to cough up the big bucks. Second, the food is awesome. The breakfast buffet in the morning is to die for...omelettes, French toast, oatmeal, fresh fruit etc. Normally, they have a menu at night. But on Saturdays they have a buffet. We stuffed ourselves. I went up for two helpings and fyi...they do allow seconds on desert. If they ever offer the oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwich, go for it. It’s awesome! But really the best thing about the hotel is the people. Its a place where people go who love skiing. It does have a bar. But its not posh. You go there to drink beer and talk about the day's skiing. The people who go there are repeat customers. On Saturday we ate dinner with Mark, an old dude in his 70's who's been going there for 40 years. He's just one of many. I hope to be able to sit there when I'm in my 70's and tell some young kids what skiing was like 40 years ago.

On Sunday, I missed the first half of the morning getting my thumb checked out. But at 11:15am, I got a text message from Carl: J'ai trouve la poudre! For those of you who don't speak French, it means I've found the powder! I soon met up with Carl at the Gad 2 lift. We found some untracked snow in between Election and Bassackwards. The powder was boot deep, but it was a bit flat and the pitches were too short. We soon spotted tracks opening up under Road to Provo. After 2 runs off the Gad 2 lift, we headed up the Little Cloud lift and spent the rest of the day on Shireen, Mark Malu Fork, and Last Choice. Those were my first real powder turns this year. If you were over there, you would have heard me yelling up a storm. The powder was a bit wind blown and crusty in areas, but it was still powder. The only downside was the traverse out to it. Saying that it was rocky would be an understatement. Each time going out, I could hear that grinding noise that makes you shudder. It felt like a part of me was dying. But like addicts, Carl and I had tasted the powder and couldn't restrain ourselves from coming back for more. After 2 hours over there, we headed down for lunch. We saw that we both had core shots along our edges and rather than risk destroying our skis, we decided to call it a day. But the POW POW was definitely worth it!

Initial Entry Etc

2005-12-09T20:43:00.000-08:00

This is the inaugural entry for my ski blog. So before going into any details, I'll tell you all a little about myself. I'm 28 and have been skiing since I was 7. I grew up in upstate New York skiing at Swain, Bristol, and Holiday Valley. For those of you who aren't familiar with them, they range in vertical from 600-1200 ft and are covered with something known in northeastern ski reports as frozen granular. To most of you, that means boilerplate ice! When I was in grade school, I thought that Killington was the ultimate. I wanted nothing more than to become good enough so that I could tear it up on the bumps of Outer Limits. Family trips to Vail in 8th grade and Whistler in 10th grade showed me what real mountains were. After those trips, I kept on skiing in upstate NY, but it was only to stay in shape until the next trip west.

After high school, I had the good fortune to spend a year as an exchange student in Austria. I really lucked out. I lived in a region called the Vorarlberg, which lies right on the Swiss-Austrian border. That was a fantastic year for skiing. I got to go backcountry skiing a few times. Wonderful experience! During a weeklong vacation in Lech, my host family put me in a lesson. At first, I felt a bit insulted. I considered myself a pretty good skier and hadn't been in a lesson since 8th grade. But that was the way they did it there (they put all their kids in lessons) and it was the best thing that could have happened. During that week, for the first time, I learned to properly ski powder. Up until then, I had still adhered to the common east coast misconception of gaining flotation by leaning back on my skis. It was like night and day. It went from being endless work to utter bliss. More importantly, I learned that no matter how good I thought I was, I still had a lot to learn. After coming back to the states, I went to Tufts University where I was on the ski team my first two years. (42) I had never raced before and never really became a very good racer. I was mostly there just to go skiing every weekend. But again, it was a great learning experience. I realized just how technically strong you have to be to make it down an icy GS course. Those skills definitely improved my free skiing.

During my junior year, I spent the spring semester in Grenoble, France. If any of you are still in college and are looking for a place to study where you will maximize your skiing, Grenoble is the place to go. Meribel, Courchavel, Val Thorens, Tignes, Val D'Isere, Les Deux Alpes, and La Grave. They were all within 1.5 hours from Grenoble. For poor college students, the more important factor is that they are cheap for students. Day bus trips out there were $25 for most of the resorts. Lifts tickets to Les Deux Alpes were only $7. 7,000 vertical feet for $7. That was an incredible bargain. I remember a French ski magazine making fun of Aspen charging $70 for lift tickets to a place that was only a fraction of the size of Les Deux Alpes. That year (1999) was also an incredible winter for snow. Shortly after arriving there in January, a cycle started where it would snow Monday through Friday and then be sunny on the weekends. This continued for close to 2 months. Every weekend was thigh deep powder. I though I had died an gone to heaven. In fact, I was pretty lucky not to have died that winter. If you're not aware, European ski areas don't carry out any type of avalanche control off piste. You go off piste at you're own risk. In fact, they make you buy separate insurance to cover rescue costs if you get injured while skiing. Being stupid college students, we adopted the 4-track rule. If we saw 4 tracks going off piste, we figured that if the slope would have slid, it would have already slid. Luckily, we never got caught in an avalanche. But I now realize just how stupid that was.

After college, I joined the Navy and have spent the last 5 years in the submarine force. I spent most of the time stationed in Groton, CT on the USS Toledo. I got to do some skiing, but unfortunately never more than a few times per year. We were out to sea too much and when I was in port, the finicky northeastern weather never seemed to cooperate. Truth be told, two years ago, I got bored of skiing in the northeast. For one season, I did what I had earlier said I would never do. I took up snowboarding. The learning process was painful. Don't even ask me how badly my ass hurt. But it was a lot of fun. It was like being a kid again. I once again felt like I was on top of the world just because I could make it down without falling. I got just as much satisfaction at the little ski area an hour away (Watchussett MT) as I did if I drove 4 hours to ski at Sugarbush or Jay Peak.

Last Spring, I moved from Groton to San Diego where I'm on shore duty. Despite being in San Diego, I plan on doing a lot of skiing this winter. First, I want to take up backcountry skiing. I tried it a few times while I was in Austria. I had a great time and really liked the idea of having to work for your runs. Second, I hope to supplement that with the occasional trips to Tahoe and Salt Lake City. You might ask me what about Mammoth? Well I went there last weekend. It’s a pretty good mountain. But to get there, you have to drive through LA. That sucks. So I'll gladly spend $150-$200 to fly to Salt Lake or Reno than spend 10 hours battling traffic on my way to Mammoth. If any of you are in the military, Squaw Valley is offering free lift tickets to active duty for the entire winter excluding holiday weekends. Finally, if it’s a good season, I hope to hit Mt Baldy outside of LA quite a bit. Not many people in Southern California seem to know about it. Well I hope it stays that way. It’s a pretty bare bones mountain. It doesn't have much in the way of snowmaking. I'm not aware of any real beginner terrain. And the time I was there, it didn't look like they had put in a new lift in the last 40 years (I apologize if that is inaccurate). Basically, it’s a real skiers mountain. Those who go there love skiing. I've been working out quite a bit the last 3 months and I just got an AT setup and a new pair of Atomic MeX's. So I think its going to be a pretty good season. The weather just needs to start cooperating and giving SoCal some snow.

I'm actually writing from Salt Lake City where I'll be hitting Snowbird for two days of early season skiing. Just read that tomorrow will be the first day they're opening Mineral Basin, so maybe there will be a little POW POW left over from the last storm.