Solstice Ski

Happy Winter Solstice everyone!  Bring back the light!

It's still early season out there folks.  I headed up Hiland Road for a quick tour and wasn't very impressed.  Despite the cool temps and consistent snowfall, the snowpack is still pretty shallow.  And now even shallower above tree line due to the sustained winds and the availability of loose snow for transport.

The South Fork is officially wind eff'd.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.  Ski fast, take chances.

Gone With the Wind...

Reports for this weekend were epic.  We got the goods on Friday, but made a poor terrain choice on Sunday.  I heard that the "Two Bowls Path" skied great with "at least 10 face shots."

So Tyler and I headed out with Eric and Storm.  Eric calls the lookers left bowl off of the main Harp drainage "Lynx".  I think this is just an extension of the main area known as "Harp", and Lynx is actually the bowl to the lookers left ridge of all that stuff, which terminates on Lynx Lane.

As expected we found boilerplate wind slab in places, and the TRC ("Thanksgiving Rain Crust") everywhere else.

I did a hellacious Crossfit workout the day before, and was in the rear with the gear.

The high pressure was great, but made the turns extremely difficult - early rise tip, or not.

For about half of the run we found some decent blower pow.  Tyler enjoying said blower pow.

With the visibility still 100%, I took LB out to Arctic Valley for a quick skin.  It was hella cold in the flats, -2F by my count on the "Delta Tango."

I found pretty much the same conditions.  Decent (said tongue in cheek...) blower pow, intermixed with 4-6" windslab.  I skinned for about 45 minutes up into Center Bowl until I couldn't take the subzero windchill.

Alpenglow was pretty much wind f'd.

LB is back on the injured reserve.  She won't keep her booties on, and the breakable crust tears up her nails-skin.  Anyone have any ideas?  I am worried about the booties being too tight and cutting off her circulation - i've done that before.

Notice the Coombacks, lower right.  They are all fixed and race ready.  Lobita....not race ready :-(

Oh yeah, she got a new collar too - its pink.  Guess who bought that for her???