pregnant turns

I toured out solo this morning to pound off a few laps at the fingers, ideally being called midway through and told that Tracey is in labour. Never happened. I enjoyed two great runs in the fingers and then followed some friends up to the womb. I pulled one more lap in the higher trees, which was cold deep powder that had a way of sneaking its way up my jacket with every turn.

But I joined Ryan and Anne-Marie at the top of the womb. Anne Marie is 7 months pregnant and when they mentioned that they were heading towards the womb I felt compelled to join them. Here they are getting ready to drop in.

Revelstoke has an amazing amount of strong women who get out and do this sorta thing while pregnant, imagine what her kid will get up to in his life!

My fifteenth 10 000 footer came and went with some fabulous skiing. I am loving this goal, each and every day is a challenge with some huge rewards.

p.s I am experiencing some photo issues. hoepfully I will fix these tommorrow.

balance

Balance,

Today was all about balance. Wind had played havoc with the snow, creating large drifts, random windslab and some great snow to ski. So I had to be balanced on my skis to not get caught too far forward. I realized this as I was tumbling head over skis into the deep cold snow. But all in all the skiing was great once I figured out how to find the cold deep powder stashes hidden along the tree edges.

No pictures today because I had a solo day up on the fingers. I had to balance my obsessive desire to get my goal accomplished with some daughter time. I questioned taking my daughter Charley out ski touring today but when I saw the -6’c temperatures I decided against it. Instead I hung out with her in the morning, and headed out at noon.

I hadn’t accomplished a ten thousand foot day in under 5 hours this season. But today was the day; I headed out with temerity and didn’t let up. The skin track was already in so all I had to do was blast upwards. One 15 minute break in the middle made me think I might not make it but at 4hr 52 min I was back at my car.
The fourteenth 10 000 foot day came easy.

A little first descent!

I am always amazed at how many different lines there are to ski. I have spent days upon days skiing on Macpherson, exploring all aspect of it, always looking for something new. The last day that I skied the womb, I turned and looked up this chute and wondered how I could locate it and ski down it.It seemed impenetrable, surrounded by massive cliffs, yet there must be a way through it.Today Scott Newsome and I toured up the fingers and to the top of the womb, the upper slopes were looking windloaded and scary so we turned our tips down hill and shredded some great trees. Then we toured around and found the secret entrance into the aforementioned chute. Steep snowfields led to sketchy sideslip and we were in.
Great turns led us down and into the womb. Absolutely no complaints with snow quality.
I then toured up a couple of thousand more feet and turned my watch over 10 080 feet and headed home.
I threw in two shots of Scott because I could not decide which one was better. Scott is an amazing snowboarder who has been out on his splitboard for years, and last year he became the first snowboarder to pass the Association of Mountain Guides assistant ski guide exam. He is taking the splitboard to the next level.