Aiden’s first summit

Here is  Aiden stomping the last few steps to the sub summit of Mt-Mackenzie. His first peak experience. I carried him up the first 435 feet and he climbed the last 15.

I think it meant more to me than him as when I asked him later what he liked most about the day. He replied that he liked the big jump we took, and I had to coax it out of him that we had summitted  a “mountain”. Somethings we do for ourselves and others we do for our kids.

Blind Date

I have only been on one real blind date in my life and it was a disaster. It was in Australia and with a teachers daughter who, for whatever reason, needed a date. So I went and ended up with BO and wanting no part of my date. So I have been a little against blind dates.

But today’s date was not necessarily blind, we had exchanged emails and probed into each others lives through Facebook. So I kinda knew what my date was all about.

But not really. Paul has been riding for awhile but has just converted over to the dynafit splitboard set up, and he is psyched to get after it. So with no real understanding of his comfort levels, physical fitness or snowboarding abilities, we headed up and into the white out. End destination Ursus Minor.

Paul followed us up and around through the whiteout with no real idea where we were taking him. Just an undeserved faith that we would bring him home. He did well. He toured fairly quickly, did not falter at some of the exposure through the small rock steps, and was excited on the summit. He then followed us down the ridge and into the south chute. Which had some pretty decent skiing in it.

I think it will be fun for Paul to return soon and see the terrain he traveled through, since we really saw none of this today. I hope he enjoyed our first “date”.

Breathing deeply

As i mentioned I am pushing hard to finish this month on par. So I didn’t call anyone and headed up solo to Balu. So many skin tracks in anydirection, sometimes its hard to choose. I headed up Ursus Minor, which is always fun and the headed down a new direction to set myself up for Video peak. The ridge ski descent was okay and was a great way to link up to Video. Heading up Video peak I was excited to go ski any aspect, but somehow I couldn’t resist the untracked north chute. Its been 7 years since I skied this line and it felt great to ease into it. Short but steep I would love to really shred this line under nice light. You could let her go and  just enjoy the speed. Today the light was flat so I skied slowly and enjoyed each turn.

Great times and then a loop back around and up 8812 for the third summit of the day. Good turns off the north side and then down Balu. I had hopes to ski up Grizzly but the day was waning and so were my energy levels.  11500 feet of good times.