The Beauty of Snow and Trees

This season I've been seeing a lot of snow but I still get slapped on the side of the head almost every day by a chunk of beauty. Here's one chunk. (Click on image for full effect.)

Here's another chunk.

A great ski weekend (part 2) and first bump runs

Mia's been working on tele'ing the bumps lately. I haven't. Not really anyway. Bumps are tough if you're a below knee amputee skiing with free heel gear. (Some would say telemark gear instead of free heel gear but telemark is a friggin' turn not a piece of equipment. Get with the program!) Anyway I've been trying to improve my skiing - bumps were just not on the agenda. I've been watching Mia close though ... and others in the bumps - just in case ...

Well at Mary Jane on Saturday, Mia did her first expert bump run. Yeah, conditions were soft but still ... I started following her on the easier bumps and listening to her advice. (She's been reading the Paul Parker book: Free Heel Skiing, when she sits on the can.) It was frustrating but I was starting to figure out the intermediate bumps. Sometimes it's just scary because I have this big ass board strapped to my wobbly prosthetic / leg connection and I'm going way too fast. I'm worried about blowing something out, like a tendon or knee. It was also just too cold and windy to take off my leg and reset everything in case of a torquey crash.

Back to the Wallace cabin for dinner and great company. Their place looks just like you think it should at a ski area. Lot's of snow encroaching on life. (Click on picture for full effect.) Mare & Tom totally spoiled us, especially with the hot tub. Julia had a great time.

Mare volunteered to sit Julia on Sunday. We know that kid sitting = spoiling Julia rotten but it's worth it so we ski together. (Thanks Mare!)

Sunday, I really worked it with Mia and Tom. Tom showed us many good runs we didn't know about. I tried for the balance of technique, speed and control that would allow me to ski bumps without crashing. It sounds like hocus pocus but it worked, especially when I pretended I had a submachine gun strapped over my shoulder and was sneaking up on the enemy. (yeah - no kidding). I don't know where I get this stuff ..

So I did my first expert bump run, then another. Yeah, conditions were soft but it's a good start. I'm pretty pysched!! What I'm really dreaming of now - is getting up high on the ski mountaineering tours. Tom wants to come too! Did I say I'm pysched?? Now I can put one of those "No Pain, No Jane" stickers on my truck. Hopefully Tom doesn't get into the backcountry thing too much. He'll have to trade in his Acura SUV for a truck or an old Landcruiser or Jeep. You can't be a serious backcountry skier with an nice SUV ;-)

... long before my accident I used to ski bumps. Not with style though. I was just stronger than Zeus back then and could muscle it through. Now I have to ski smart and use technique. We'll see where it leads.

A great ski weekend (part 1)

We were invited to stay with the Wallaces at their cabin in Winter Park (google map) last weekend - and go skiing. It was not so easy though. We had just received a decent snow and the wind had picked up. The snow was drifting bad - covering the roads and shutting some down. The wind turned a 2 hour drive into a 4 hours. CO-93 was shut down by the drifts, so we took a parallel road to the East, Indiana. Bad choice. We should have went even further East. By the time we reached 72, I was sick of traffic. We drove West on 72 and quickly learned why 93 was closed. Sometimes we drove in a total whiteout. Scar-rey! We reached 93 and continued West. Up and up until we reached 119. Then South towards Rt 6 and Blackhawk. Lot's of whiteouts. Lot's of driving which would be fun if we weren't supposed to be in Winter Park already. Yeah, we were bringing the dinner!

Finally, we reached I-70 and drove 40 towards Berthoud Pass (topozone map). The pass was pretty nasty too. Lot's of whiteouts. Luckily no Californians or N'Yorkers were on the road. They were in the ditch long ago .. ;-)

Finally we found the cabin and life was good. A beer put everything right and we hit the sack.

The whiteouts on the drive up probably ranked in the top 3 worst I've experienced. The other two required head out the window driving - Yikes! (Good fodder for a future post)

reduced snow forecast for rest of season because ...

We finally did it - bought a snow thrower. This pretty much dictates a lower than normal snowfall for the rest of the season!

Although shoveling a 325 ft. long drive is great excercise, it's tough when I have to balance problems at work with shoveling. When Mia can't get out of the drive, shoveling takes precedence. Also, it's not great on a marital relationship if the spouse's shoveling strategies DO NOT MATCH. With all the snow this season, this was a problem .. and the real reason we broke down and bought one. ;-) No more problems now. When it dumps, it's MY job. Probably better that way, anyway. I like the outside chores.

Oh yeah, the specs - 9-1/4 HP, double stage, 26" width, 6 forward gears, 2 reverse. It even has a "locking" differential. Wish my truck had it so good! Should be fine for most storms. If it's not, I'll let my displeasure AND the brand be known!

snow, cold & blue

Lot's of sun but not much is melting. Yesterday was a heatwave at 10 deg F. Nice to look at though.

Here's another nice one of the sun rising under the Ponderosas.
Both of the above were taken from close by the house.

The wind, the snow

Wind was forecast all weekend. Bad in some areas, very bad in others. We decided against skiing at Winter Park (official ski area site) on Saturday. This turned out to be a >very good move< since a large avalanche hit Rt. 40 near Berthoud Falls (Yahoo Map) about 10:30am Saturday. No one was killed but a few cars were tumbled down the slide path and their occupants sent to the hospital. If we had skied, we would have to drive all the way around through Kremmling to get home - and there were whiteouts that direction. Yep, we were lucky.

So far Boulder wasn't windy - even by Sunday. Sunday night was forecasted for 105 mph winds. But it was still nice so we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park. A little sledding, a nice hike around Bear Lake etc. Well ... it was very windy up there. Our hike was 3 minutes long and ended as Julia started blowing away like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz. Mia caught her and we carried her back to the car. We found a scenic pullout for our bag lunch and enjoyed the view of Longs Peak and Mt. Lady Washington. (Click on image for full effect.)

It was also a good day to visit the new Fall River Visitor entrance. Normally we never do this stuff but when the wind blows ... Julia had fun trying on the pioneer dresses. We headed home and the drive had already started to drift. I was proud to get the Focus up after the 3rd attempt. It turns out I should have left it at the bottom of the drive.

The freight trains visited Sunday night. I knew we were hosed. That little 10" of snow we received on Thursday .. and we had neatly shoveled aside .. well it was DRIFTING bigtime.

By this morning, the drifted snow had setup as concrete in our drive. It was between 10" and 35" thick. About 20lbs per grain scoop full. (That's what I use for a shovel.) Normally we'd say screw it and pick away at it for a few days until we could get the Focus down. Today, though, was Julia's first swim lesson at the Rec center. We couldn't miss that.

Mia and I shoveled the 50 foot section that had drifted 35" deep. Then I chained up the truck and let 'er rip downhill. Pretty amazing what kind of torque a 1000lb diesel engine can provide when it's sitting on chains. Not much problem going down. Coming back up was like riding a bronc. The truck was jumping all over. Mia took a picture before action was even good. Still shows some flying snow though and the driver loving it. (Maybe the Dodge boys will sponsor me after seeing this - Hah!) Note that the air dam is no longer under the front bumper. I removed it before the snow could rip it off. Only a flatlander would design something like that.