Good to be alive.

Welcome! I just walked into my straw bale house from a backcountry ski with my girlfriends up Snodgrass Mountain in Crested Butte, Colorado. Days like this make you feel lucky to be alive! We have been getting heaps of snow, one of the best years since 92-93, and the powder is deep and the skies are blue. The avalanche conditions, or should i say lack thereof, made this really cool pillow line skiable today, which is normally too dangerous to even ponder. Yesterday was a sick powder day again on the CB ski area, which was rewarding after spending all day Wednesday working on my non-profit, The Office for Resource Efficiency, or ORE. We aim to be a one-stop-shop for energy efficiency and alternative energy, such as wind, solar, and hydro. We are growing so fast that we are hiring a new building director, to help take some of my work burden away. We also just completed a partnership with Crested Butte Mountain Resort, which is super exciting.

The last two weeks have involved packing in lots of skiing, teaching (my Rippin Chix Steeps Camp and a Babes in the Backcountry Avalanche Level One), and working until late into the night on my computer. Between my volunteer work in affordable housing, ORE, and green building, writing, photography, making films, planning expeditions and ski camps around the globe, and working for my sponsors, I can certainly say that life is never boring, as each day brings a new adventure.

My boyfriend, Jason and I, snuck off to Michoacan, Mexico for some surfing during Christmas and New Years. Great waves, but Mexico likes to party for its holidays, and it was anything but quiet and romantic. Our particular favorite was this guy learning to play bongos 24hrs a day right beside our tent - note to anyone, do not learn to play a musical instrument at 4 in the morning.

Now my tan is fading, unnoticed beneath my Patagonia wool and Capilene underwear, and I'm prepping to head to the Ski, Travel and Outdoor Retailer travel shows in Vegas, Salt Lake and LA. It has been a fun season with my sponsors, as I'm living a lifelong dream of actually designing products. Fox River will be showing my fun new ski and snowboard socks and Osprey my redesign of the Switch Snowsports backpacks. For Head/Tyrolia, I'm part of an 11 woman international team - with one of girl from each country that Head does a significant business in. We designed the latest line of Head's women skis - we all had to agreee on style, color, type of ski, etc, which was truely an amazing feat. What surprised me the most was that we are all so similar in our tastes, regardless of age and skiing ability. Finally, women designing women's products -seems so obvious, doesn't it? With Patagonia, we now meet several times a year - the pro skiers, telemarkers and snowboarders (ambassadors, they call us) and we have moved from tweaking the lines of 05,06, and 07, to actually developing new revolutionary gear for 07-08. Patty G has always had the best fabrics on the market, and now we are bringing in key fashion and ski/snowboard specific funtion - whether it be in the park or powder.

More later, gotta pay some bills, eat some food, and catch up on my inbox.
cheers, alison
www.alisongannett.com