Lazy

After getting shut down twice due to weather on our previous desert trips, Jen and I decided not to chance it again and bailed on "30% chance" of rain in Moab for pretty much the same in SLC. Predicting shitty weather, we treated ourselves to a particularly nasty workout on Friday afternoon, and basically sat on the couch and watched hockey all day on Saturday. Today, we finally got off our asses and drove into LCC for a few easy pitches before the rain rolled in.

Swell

Jen and I are stoked on the desert, but a little sick of driving five hours to get shut down by rain, so we opted for the Swell. While grabbing dinner at Groggs on the way down, we ran into Rick and Jess, and turned our group into a foursome (well, five if you count Chaco). Day one was at a unnamed wall with unnamed routes of unknown grades, and it was super fun. Lots of sendage and Jen learned how to jumar. On day two Jen and I did the Lightbulb and then we went over to the Scenic Byway area where I got to clean up my roadside project from last year. All in all, it was a pretty damn good weekend.

Playground

I had a very full day of skiing yesterday, and Jen had a hockey tournament this weekend (including a game today). But the snow was way too good to pass up, so we headed up into Grizzly and found ourselves a cool little zone with cornices, steep tree chutes, and a wide open field. We did a few laps, and today was the first time Jen jumped off anything with skis. After going off the cornice the first time and crashing in very spectacular fashion, she decided that speed was her problem, so she went about twice as fast the second time and sent it huge. Her landing zone was a body length further down the slope than mine was.

Tournament Final

The Black Diamonds ended up getting second place in this weekend's tournament. Good job ladies.

Deep April

I've been spending the last several hours trying to think of a better day of skiing than today, but I have come up completely blank. Our group of eight rippers (well, seven rippers and me) started in LCC, skinned up Flagstaff, skied a lap in Day's Fork, then skinned up and skied the Hallway, then skinned up again and skied a shot in Cardiff. At this point, half the crew was shot and skied out while the other half did one more Cardiff lap on another slope. Total for the day was 7800 feet of skiing with around 12 miles of travel. And about every other turn was a full-on over-the-head face shot. Really, how can you beat that?