Evening Ridge-near nelson bc

A great cup of coffee and breakfast sandwich at Oso Negro with Dave. We toured up evening ridge. Skied off the backside fora arun. Sketch!!! Had to negotiate around some bad aspects. But with a bluebird day and the storm having passed, we were psyched to be out in the sunshine. The perfect pb&j lunch and then down a 1000 foot beautiful tree run. The snow was very spongy and the drifters floated. Out to prepare final fixins for dinner. Well actually Ian took care of that.

Stormy Stormy

Skied Whitewater-full on lift service . Bell to bell. Pillow lines deep cream cheese. The wind was howling.
A lot of discussions between Andrew and the other guys coming with us about when to go to the hut. The weather was real rough all day. We decided to delay our trip to the Asulkan hut by a day to be safer. Tomorrow a tour...

Border bs

Driving Driving Driving. 13 hours Rotated through drivers during fill ups. Border gurds slowed us down. After pulling us into a side area and searching a couple bags, talking mountain biking, skiing and keeping in touch with old friends on facebook, they had enough and let us go. A minor pia. Arrived in Nelson in time to see the entire Creighton family before they headed off to Vancouver early the next morning.

Wed January 13th

We had hoped to ski the resort today but it just doesn't have the snow. So we toured again on Teton Pass with Dave, Tom McKay "Crawdad", and Ian. Tom put a couple of roses in a tree in remembrance of Big Wally and Jay Moody . We went out to Edelweis Bowl and skied The Nose. It was again variable and we all managed to find some good turns. A nice pb&j lunch and a great day to really get the skins under us. Tomorrow the drive...

tuesday january 12th

Woke up at 4:20am and Ian and I arrived at the Newark airport early for our 7am flight. That was the theme for the morning. Arrived ahead of schedule in JH and Dave took us out for an afternoon tour on teton pass. We skied in some real mixed conditions with a very low snowpack. But we managed to acclimate a little and get our kits together. Exhausted, we crashed early, but only after Ian made a killer fajitas dinner that we shared with Dave and his girls. A good start to the big tour coming up in Rogers Pass. Received a text message from Nina- 'what- you are driving to Canada?! Yep in two days...

Sunday's Ski Race

Nina raced her first usssa gs race. It's really strange taking my daughter to a ski race. The parent trap of wanting her to have fun and do well. The adventyure began when Nina got carsick 15 miles before we got to the ski area. We pulled over on the side of the road in Warwick, NY.-done, still on schedule and it's only 7:45am. After we got to the area, Nina noticed that she didn't have her glasses. She said they were in the door pocket. Well, the only time we opened the door was... yes 15 miles back up the road. The coaches said don't worry we got Nina while I hustled back to the "spot" and drove slowly on the shoulder until I saw the glasses in the snow. I rushed them back and Nina was just going out for course inspection. I The coaches were great during inspection.I helped out a little but my duties were to be a dad. So after Nina's first run, I was waiting at the bottom and she had a nice run. She was crying and saying that she fell on her way skating out of the start on the way to the first gate. I told her I was proud she finished the run. She said her hands were shaking in the starting gate and she was really nervous. After wiping her tears and a cup of hot chocolate with her friends and teammates, she said she was ready for the second run. She skied it well and asked if she could do more races. "Dad", she said, "Ski racing is really obsessive."

Coaching...

The tuesday and thursday night training sessions have begun at campgaw.

Summit Elevation: 719'

Vertical Drop: 269'

Skiable Acres: 15

Trails: 8

Lifts: 5

Snowmaking: 100%

Night Skiing: yes

Community based skiing in one of the most crowded areas of the world! First night out I skied the voile drifters with my ten year old racers. They liked the big wood skis. And we made fun big turns with snow guns blasting...lots of ankle rolls to go with our california rolls, sake and sashimi.

Thursday I worked with the j2 girls getting ready for their local gs race. And when the ten year olds saw me without my drifters they shouted, "bring back the big wood ski."

Happy New Year!

Skied Alta for 5 days with a beautiful 17" storm right in the middle of the trip to set up a perfect full moon torchlight parade for the New Year! Family time was super sweet. Mom at 70 got into Eddies High Nowhere from the Gunsight entrance. Les Tate guided her and was super patient. Dad at 74 was sure footed on his new Mantras and tore up the groomers. Brad was scheduled on the calendar to join us. We all thought about him a lot since he was with us last year. Les and I got first tracks in Gunsight during the powder dump on BOTH days. Entering from the rollover on thirds we powered straight into the barrel of Gunsight and looped matching arcs on the far right wall. Face shots surrounded us and the new Drifters skied perfectly. Nina, at ten, hiked to Catherine's for the first time and it was like she found Jurrasic Park. She continued to hike and ski it each day leading friends into her newly discovered playground. I did get "Tatered" on the first powder day with an incredible morning with Leslie Tate and then some power laps with Mike Tate in the afternoon. Ed and Abigail stopped by from Solitude for a bluebird powder day on New Year's eve. From Ballroom to West Rus, Stone Crusher and Greeley to a final trip out to Catherine's to end 2009. Happy New Year!!! And...

May Your Turns Be Deep And Ever So Sweet