Yesterday was epic

My brother Josh got in Monday and will be staying for about three weeks. Determined not to let work get in the way too much, I took a personal day yesterday and we headed out for a little backcountry skiing and exploring. Here's Josh leading the charge:When we started, visibility was mediocre and there was about six inches of fresh snow from the night before. By day's end, the six inches had grown to fourteen and the light was about as flat as it gets.

After skinning about a mile and gaining modest elevation, we came to our destination--the steep slope I watched snowmobilers wallow around on a few weeks ago. Since reports indicated the snow had stabilized, we hoped to get some steep turns in. We dug a snowpit and performed a compression test. Things were looking good. Nothing sheared during our compression test until we hammered on the snow as hard as we could repeatedly. Onword, searching for a way around a band of rocks:We eventually abandoned the skins and booted up the final pitch:Getting beat by the wind on the way up:After poking around a bit on the top trying to figure out the best descent line, I dropped in. As expected, there was tons of sluff from the new snow--much more than I had ever experienced. When combined with the steep pitch and my alpine-skier-in-telemark-gear getup, skiing the initial pitch was one hell of an adrenaline rush--more than I had had in years. Josh followed and met me at a safe spot beneath some rocks half way down the initial pitch:With the poor visibility, we never were able to get a good picture of the entire pitch. However, Josh caught this gem of me making turns near the bottom of the face--check out that ridiculous grin:The snow was incredible--you could have used a snorkel. Here's Josh reflecting on the best turns either of us ever had:With the light getting poor, we had just enough time for one final run through the trees. Here I am trying not to run into the largest snowflake ever:A very good day, indeed.

Alaska bound

The Wife and I pulled the trigger yesterday and decided to accept a new job in Anchorage, AK! I'll start in a couple months and there's at least a small chance that The Wife can retain her current employment (although in a slightly different capacity). It's all very exciting.

Alaska

I spent much of the past week in Anchorage chasing work and hanging out with friends. Having never been to Anchorage this time of year, I was eager to experience the cold and daylight (or lack thereof). As expected, the temperatures were cold, with highs around 10-15F. The day length was tolerable--getting light around 8:30am and dark around 5:30pm.

After a long day of travel and a drink with my good friends Ashley and George at Humpy's, we were greated by two moose on our walk home--both were right downtown. This guy was munching on shrubs in Ashley and George's neighbor's yard. The second moose, a giant cow, scared the bejesus out of us when it made it's presence known by jumping through a hedgerow and nearly landing on top of us. I may have to think twice about making fun of stupid tourists in Yellowstone that get too close to animals in the future...

After a day touring around Anchorage, we headed out to Alyeska to take advantage of a superbowl two-for-one deal on lift tickets. Althought the snow was a bit tracked out, we had a great time. Heading up the lift:Ashley and George trying to stay warm:Even with skiing, we were able to take in the epic fourth quarter of the superbowl before heading back into town. I flew out of Anchorage on Wednesday after scoping out town and meeting with a few folks regarding possible employment (another blog post to follow, perhaps). I got to meet up with a few of The Wife's friends, Megan and Steph, and managed to explore a few of Anchorage's many parks. All in all, a pretty good trip.

More goodness

A few of us went out skiing this past Sunday. It was quite a bit colder and grayer than our prior outing, but visibility was good enough and there was some sweet new snow. We parked near the large bend in the road near the bottom-center of the map and skinned northward toward the peak at the top-center of the map (the dashed line designates the Wilderness Area boundary).

With Aaron leading the charge, skinning was easy. We worked our way up a snowed-in creek bed, and through a few clearings......eventually working our way up through a timbered slope (which we later got some great turns on...Keri and Joy on the way up:Eventually, we worked our way through the trees and got to the base of a steep, open face. Since the snow has been marginal all year, we dug a snowpit and performed a compression test. After getting a clean, smooth break about two feet deep on the third elbow tap, we decided we were high enough and pointed our tips down.Heading up for another lap:
While we were heading up for our second lap, we got inundated with snowmobiles. While snowmobiles are an unfortunate fact of life while skiing Togwotee Pass, we had hoped to avoid them this day since we were on the border of Wilderness Area (where they are outlawed).

Sometimes I think there must be something about riding a snowmobile that makes people stupid. As we approached the top of our run, near where we dug our snowpit and found the avalanche-prone layer, a snowmobiler blasted up the steep slope we turned away from and got stuck 90% of the way up (right where you might expect an avalanche crown). Despite the clinic these folks administered on what not to do in avalanche country, the slope held. And its a good thing it did. On our trip out, we ran into a few people from their party--all very rotund individuals without any apparent avalanche knowledge or gear.

With dark lazily approaching, we took two short laps through a steeper timbered slope and headed for the trucks, tired and ready for a beer.

Nothing to see here, move along

Well, Lander graced the pages of Fly Rod & Reel as the top trout town in the Northern Rockies. Sure, Lander is a great place to live and has wonderful fishing, but the top trout town? Who knows. Maybe.

A couple things are certain though, we do have several "local stream options"--it's just that despite what the article says none of them are "Red Creek." What's more, although "the Magpie" may have been "a natural place to hang out, eat breakfast and caffeinate before heading out on the stream", don't search too long for it because it burnt down about 8 months ago. Oh, Mr. Thomas, did you actually visit Lander?