Home Turf

I have been a little remiss on getting back after my goal as well as writing in this blog. Home has been great so far, friends, family and comfort.

The snow has been a little slow in coming. I have managed to ski 5 days and summit my 66th mountain of the year, Macrae. At 8200 ft its quite a small mountain but it still challenged me quite well. I had not been up there in 7 years, and I remember the summit ridge but it seemed easyish. This year there was very little snow and it made for rocky, slabby climbing. I would have preferred snow to slippery rocks. the boys were laughing at me as I crawled to the summit. Still great to add another peak onto this mission.

There is a nice 700 ft snowpatch on Macrae that attracts lots of people in the early season, this day there was 30 people coming in. We managed to go earlier and do two runs before anyone else and then we were gone by the time the hordes arrived. What I found amazing was that I knew only 2 of the 30, the times are changing around Revelstoke.

Yesterday we headed out to and skied a nice north line, enough snow to cautiously shred the alpine.

Photo :Joey Vosburgh

So there is some good skiing to be found, it is that its only for 800-1000 feet and be wary. We have about 60 cm of snow but I am hoping for more soon.

Here is a link to an article on freeskier.com. Its a decent article but the first sentence is a little off. I mean, insane?!?  Ok maybe a little crazy but….makes me think of the saying” normal to a crazy person seems insane.”

http://www.freeskier.com/articles/article.php?article_id=5548

Also big thanks to Harvey for his donation, much needed and appreciated, especially since he suggested it go towards coffees and apple fritters.

Last summit in Chile

Well all good things must end, and so this trip down in SA is almost over. It has been exactly what I had hoped it would be, four months of ski touring in ranges I had never seen. There was a tonne of challenges right at the start, with crazy wind and weather, but there were also some amazing volcanoes. Some great runs and some absolutely terrible ones. Bariloche was great, a fantastic house for the family and some small but beautiful mountains for me. Las lenas was huge and amazing with not very much snow. Then a few different volcanoes, a steep descent off Sierra Velluda and  I finished off with some serious vertical in las Trancas.

In the last 3 weeks I have skied 18 days, 16 of them above 10 grand, 2 others not so huge, for a total of 183 010. I had dreamed that I was going to hammer for these three weeks, but these dreams are challenging to realize, but I did I work my butt off and pounded skin track and it has payed off. I started off the month 4 days behind and I am now 7 days ahead, which will get eaten up quickly but the week off will be thoroughly enjoyed. It looks like the snow will start this weekend and Revelstoke should get up to 50 cm by Wednesday, not a huge amount but I will try and get out and ski on next Thursday. There is a spot that I have not skied at for 7 years that is perfect for early season turns.

Anyhow my buddy Frank asked me to pull a big ol daffy for him. Since this was my last run in Chile I set up my camera and got an ok one, not huge air though, the run in was a little short. 

Needless to say I am excited to go home and see my wife and kids. Life will have meaning again.

Drunken induced despondency

Like most people I enjoy a drink here and there, and a long time ago while in university I  used to enjoy many. Saturday night I joined some frenchies for a barbacue and some wine, many hours later I found myself quite tipsy and I silently exited stage left, so that I could get up and ski yesterday. But when I awoke, I was a little hung over but more I had lost my “joie de vivre”. There was so little in me that wanted to do anything, I simply wanted to curl up watch some movies and make time pass so I could head home. Alcohol, can be so much fun, yet so depressing the next day.All day I tried to summon my psych but nothing ever came, so I loitered and wasted a beautiful sunny day.

Got back after it today and skied 10 620 ft which was great, and now I have 3 days left before I head home. That is exciting!

Thanks to Gilles le skieur for his donation, gilles runs a blog in Switzerland and skis some gnarly lines. His website is gillesleskieur.com

Also thanks to George/Hoarhey Myers, he is helping me get an article in the Chilean newspaper, it would be great to have an article in a language I cannot read!