Costumes, Telemark and Backcountry

Lots to report this week. first of all, our snowpack here in CB is transitioning to spring conditions, going isothermal, but not quite. One day you are carving corn and the next a blizzard. Friday started out balmy, as we taught 17 media folks a backcountry refresher course - from Ski to Men's Journal to the New York Times. Quite a mixed group, some fresh to the BC and some experienced veterans. Lots of development on the women's scene, as both Powder and Skiing Magazine will be doing women's issues next season. Powder Mag is interested in covering our Kashmir expedition next month, which would be rad. After the course, we headed up the infamous Red Lady Bowl - full of molybdenum deposits, a steel hardener, and years of fighting of the town against the mine. The BLM pulled a fast on last year, selling 155 acres of our public lands and favorite ski terrain for $5 an acre with no public notice. With a 1/8 acre selling locally for 500,000 bucks, it was not only a bad deal for America, but could then be resold by the mine to developers! Hopefully this case will make it all the way to the Supreme Court, because it sets a real prescedent for local lands.

Well, back to skiing Red Lady Bowl, we skinned up with the media group, with the upper group making it to just below the top. Sunny skies turned gray and the corn turned to crusty cement as we meandered back down. On the final pitch, we set up a mock avalanche rescue with two backpacks as bodies. The group was quite impressive, and had them both dug out in less than 7 minutes.

The next day dawned the sunny finals of the US Telemark Extreme Freeskiing Championships, held on Crested Butte's infamous Dead End Chutes and Body Bag Glades. My friend Karen Reader, had made it to the finals, and we were able to cheer her on as she ripped Dead End in the morning run. I had to run to teach our Babes Mini Telemark Steeps Camp. 17 women had signed up, so it was a busy day. The girls were fast learners - amazing to see a lifetime's worth of improvement in four hours. When i returned to the base area, i discovered that Karen had fallen in the super finals, but not just a fall. she had cartwheeled hundreds of feet down dead end and over all the rocks and cliffs. As i madly dialed her phone, she casually described that she was without a bruise from the episode.

Sunday brought snowy skies and high winds, suddenly the spring of Saturday seemed like a distant memory. The "funnest day of the season" was now dampened by the weather, but 250+ folks couldn't resist the challenge, so they added a few layers to their skimpy costumes (or not), and charged up the North face on skins. I thought my lungs would jump out of my chest, and the belt of my neon Bogner one piece only added more pressure to the situation. The skies cleared as i reached the summit, ripped my skins off, and charged down Hard Slab, and Old Pro. Throwing a shoe on the last steep really pissed my off, as I was so out of breath that putting on my ski became an Everest-like task. Miraculously, no chicks passed me and I skated up the finish to a screaming crowd of friends and 7th place out of 88 women. Costumes were amazing as usual - my favorites being Lady Godiva, Ducttapeilicious, and the screaming chickens.

survival in the mountains

Just back from the Tushar Mountains in Southern Utah. 40 inches of new snow in four days on top of a lean shallow snowpack made for a poor introduction to the area but promised good powder. The town of Beaver is 85% mormon and the old ski area has been closed a few years. The 19 mile drive up the unplowed canyon made me glad to be sporting my studded snowtires!

The next morning we slogged up the 4.6 mile trail while snowmobiles ferried our gear to the yurt. Blisters began to emerge on many after a few miles, but spirits were high. Arrival at the yurt proved to be a bit of a shock, as the yurt was one of the smallest models ever made and i wondered how we would all drink and dine. Some of the tents looked like they were salvaged from the Vietnam War, and some were missing their poles. I was glad to have brought my MSR Wind 4 Burly Tent at the last minute and minus 40 bag! The next shocker was to find that the outfitter had only 3 pots to melt water AND cook for us all. I could see the work piling up already as we scrambled to dig snow pits for the tents and figure out how to melt water, make hot drinks and feed the hungry tired group.

Dinner took about three hours to serve, but we were surviving. I was quite dehydrated and hungry when i crawled into my tent. Breakfast was a repeat of dinner, but we just kept dealing as best we could. After some more beacon practice we headed out to explore the area and test the snowpack on different aspects. It was bonding better than expected on the hefty suncrust so we were able to make two mellow but longer laps on a NE aspect. In the afternoon, we dug a full profile snowpit. I taught everyone to do Tilt, Compression, Shear, and Ruschblock tests. We got an easy tilt a 20cm, moderate compression and hard shear failure on the suncrust and a two moderate shear failures on the depth hoar. Not your typical pit for Utah - as it looked way more continental than intercontinental due to the lack of snow. For those of you who don't know why shallow generally means a weaker snowpack, well, the long and the short of it is that the rounding and joining of snow grains happens when temps are around freezing and the snowpack is deeper. When the pack is shallow, the vapor pressure difference between the ground and the air is able to overwhelm the vapor pressure causing the rounding of the flakes. Therefore, the flakes start to go square or cupped instead (depth hoar or faceting), which reduces bonding potential. I like to think of the faceted snow as being similar to the pen of balls that children jump in at the county fairs.

Back to the yurt for more slave labor melting and heating water to keep people warm and hydrated. Then the epic for dinner. Added to the spice this evening was the addition of a broken stove, which we certainly couldn't afford, and now a storm was moving in with high winds to top things off and test the tents. The group was all smiles in spite of it all. Luckily no tents collapsed, but some did get quite wet. The morning dawned clear with about 7" of new powder and Leslie I set up two Avalanche rescue scenarios.Some of the fake victims (backpacks with beacons) did not get rescued in time, and everyone learned lots about what not to do in the future. We then headed of for some turns in the trees. As people faded and started drinking beer, a few of usmanaged to sneak in some extra runs. The sun was setting on our final run and the conditions were perfect - glowing orange snow and stellar views. After the best snow of the trip, we merged with the 4.6 mile track which had become a bit of a iced bobsled run. Half way down we discovered a pile of blood where Frank had caught and edge and landed on his nose. I felt lucky that we had survived a potential touchy situation, and managed to have quite a bit of fun on top of it all.

US of A

Back in the country, slam bam into Bush's wonderful proposal to sell our public lands to help fund our schools. So forward thinking! Big impact here in CB as one of the parcels is our only public access swimming lake. Also, local mining for cromoly is heating up and they want to start the ugly process again.

Had a great session in Ventura California doing 2D design review for Patagonia. Too tired to write any more!