Smithbrook Feb 16, 2008

So, a few things. Being from the midwest, it's difficult to 'excel' at skiing since much of what we have is man made frozen ice crystals deposited on man made trash heaps. Anyway, I did learn (but not enough to excel) in yearly trips to CO and the wretched midwest skiing. So after moving out on my own, I really found out how expensive it was and never continued to ski, since mommy and daddy weren't supporting the habit anymore. Oh, and graduate student stipends don't really support many expensive hobbies.

So, I've been out in WA state and have skied twice out here before this year, once at whistler and once at Snowbird (good use of a scientific conference). But what finally convinced me to get back into it was winter/spring climbing and the fact that you can cover so much more terrain on skis when there's sufficient snow pack. So I started acquiring gear. Woman's tele skis from my sis for x-mas (all skis are created equal unless they have flowers, woman's symbols, and "she's piste" printed all over them - but I'm secure in my masculinity), Dynafit bindings (gulp, full price), Scarpa boots "60% off at the REI garage sale), and finally (almost unused) skins from craigslist. So after skipping the gear improvements of the 90's and early 00's, I finally have decent gear again! Time to use it.

So I've gone a few times at the resorts (Baker, alpental, and Steven's) to get used to the whole gravity pulling you down the hill on slippery things and found that I could almost keep up with Lucas and the others that are accomplished in the art. Friday I convinced Shelby to blow off work (actually sckool; otherwise frequently alpental-itis hits the city of seattle on good snow days) and we cruised up to the pass. It's been crazy here, we have had SO much snow that the passes (interstates) have closed for 4 days twice, including last weekend. So shelby and I made it and had a great morning of skiing. During the escapades Shelby was following and missed my line by a 6 feet or so. So instead of hitting a nice runout slope on snow she hit a 5 foot cliff. The site was priceless. HUGE grin, then all of a sudden a look of total surprise when the ground disappeared below, and crash! Adding to the scene was the chairlift just to the right, letting out a seemingly coordinated, "oooooouch!" Classic. I dubbed it a "shelby." So after lunch we were getting soaked with rain and made one more trip down the slopes and called it a day ending at the Rogue, Issaquah, scheming about how often we can get back up there.

Then yesterday Lucas and I decided that it was time to use the equipment for the reason why we bought it. So we went just past Steven's (long drive) with Eileen and Julie (Eileen's sis visiting from NY). We got a pretty late start but that was ok, we just wanted to use our skins (I have never put them on) and climb a bit - hopefully getting some turns in. So we cruised up the forest service road, buried in snow and had some lunch. After lunch Lucas and I donned our skins and started climbing off trail and on the road as the girls turned around on their snowshoes, calling it a day. We started climbing and now i know what Blythe was saying when she felt like spider(wo)man with her skins sticking to the hill, schik, schik, schik, up. It was great! After climbing about 1250 feet (a complete guess), we had climbed up to the ridge way above us and it was time to get down. We took the skins off and skied down. The snow sucked but we were making virgin tracks that we earned. It was a great feeling and good practice! .... and at the end of the run I pulled a "Shelby". Serves me right for laughing with her on Friday. It was a great day - we would've been out there again today were it not for the very extreme (at least for our comfort) avy prognosis. Lucas and I decided that getting hit by this would not be fun: SR20 avy (that was a bit N but still pretty recent)

Anyway, again, better stories to follow, as of now we're getting the lay of the land.