Quick Lap

Pretty standard pre-work lap with Jamon. It was damn cold this morning and the snow was a bit variable, but it was still worth the 5:00am alarm.

Dog Days At DV

Today was pretty damn good for something that started with absolutely no plans. I lounged around the house until about noon when I finally decided get off my ass and do something. Something involved driving to PC where I met Jim and Allison and joined them on their afternoon "dog walk." Two laps and a few hours later, three happy skiers and one very happy dog were back in the car and headed toward victory PBR.

Redemption

Unlike yesterday's fiasco, today was all I hoped for and a bit more. Ben and I went up to the top of LCC and skied a few laps in Silver Fork and Day's Fork. While we did find a bit of mank snow, the North-facing aspects were incredibly fun. It was really nice to ski in a place where bushwacking through scrub oak was not the day's crux, and powder runs went for more than 400 vertical feet. I need to stop spending so much time in BCC and come over here more often.

Today Did Not Happen

Among the things that did not happen today... I definitely did not get two core shots in my brand new pair of Megawatts.

Working Up An Appetite

Ben and Ed picked me up at a little after 6:00 this morning and we drove up to Big Cottonwood to see what the storm had left for us. It was still exceptionally cold (yesterday's avy report said -46F at 11,000ft.), so everyone had a big puffy jacket in their pack. We skinned up Mill D, dropped into Beartrap for a couple East-facing powder laps (a rarity), and then finished up with a lap back into Mill D for a total of just over 4000ft. Not too bad considering we're all still getting in ski shape. Now we're all off to eat turkey and replace lost calories. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Learning to Edit

The process of learning to edit has been a very slow one for me. I've been playing around with Lightroom for a while, and I thought I kinda knew what I was doing. Then, my friend Austin came walking by my desk while I was messing with a photo and said "hey man, try something like this" before reaching over my shoulder and making a couple quick edits and proving that I knew absolutely nothing about editing. I was sick on Monday, so I spent my time geeking out on Lightroom and learning what does what and how to apply it. Then I went back into some older nugs and re-edited them. When I was finished, I couldn't believe that I had previously called them good to go. Well, as long as you're making forward progress, you're still progressing, right?

Dawn Patrol

The first 5:00am alarm of the winter is always a painful experience, especially when you're still pretty sick, but it was worth every second of lost sleep to get in some good turns. The standard crew of Alex, Pip, Jamon, and Myself went to USA bowl, and I started off by botching the approach really bad. For some reason I had convinced myself that an incorrect turn was the correct turn, and we ended up way too far to the East. I paid my penance by doing more than my share of trail breaking in as quick of a manner as I could. It all worked out pretty good though, since most of the bowl was basically a wind-blown grass field and we found ourselves at the one section with a leeward slope. Despite all the wind loading, things were very stable and the snow was excellent. A bunch of open powder turns and some tree skiing later and we were all back at the road and headed to work.

Second Turns

Today the turns were much better than yesterday, but we still had to set our sights rather low. Avalanche conditions were very nasty, and the snowpack is still very thin for the most part. So, we went nice and high, past Alta to Grizzly Gulch, and skied the lowest angle terrain we could find. It was worth every second of effort for the season's first face shots.