Somebunny Loves Me!

Yes, I received a Valentine from our friends Bunny and Llama:


For Valentine's day we skipped work and went skiing at Winter Park. Conditions were packed powder, quite a change from the deep backcountry powder of the past few weeks. I took advantage of this to focus on skiing faster, and on curving my upper-body into a "C" to get a better grip for my edges. Weekday traffic was very nice-- we got there in just under two hours. Oh, and the lift tickets cost $20 with our 4-pack.

I'm hoping to write up and post another episode from the "Austria Vacation Log" over the weekend. But the mountains are getting another foot of fresh powder tonight, so no promises...

The Sacred Trees

On Sunday, Dorinna and I set out to ski "The Sacred Trees", a secret Telemark ski spot up in Cameron Pass. We had a dry week in Colorado with lots of wind, and I figured that above-treeline spots would probably be windblown, so we headed for this spot. It's a slope that is tree-covered and sheltered. The trees are fairly widely-spaced, so the skiing in still easy. (This is often a great spot to visit when avalanche conditions are bad, although they were fine on Sunday).

Unfortunately, the secret spot is a little too secret, and we weren't able to find it. We skied another slope where the trees were quite a bit tighter. The snow was deep enough that we were able to maneuver around them however. We dubbed the spot "Purgatory Glade."

Below is a shot of Dorinna on the trail to our secret spot. When you notice the railings on this snow-covered bridge, you have some idea on how much snow we've gotten this year.

Deepest Backcountry Snow EVER

Last week I joined a bunch of friends to ski Montgomery Pass, a backcountry spot up near Cameron Pass. It was without a doubt the best snow I've ever seen in the backcountry. Untracked waist deep powder all day. Every turn I took sprayed powder snow up into my face. I did two runs on the main slope, shown below.


We then moved to a second slope, called "Mr. Big". This was a longer slope, but the snow wasn't as good, so after two runs I moved back to the main slope for two final runs.

Nokhu Crags in the background- same mountain as my previous post

I have never been more tired as I skiied down the hiking trail back to our cars. Thankfully, conditions were good, and it was possible to slow down in the powder alongside the trail.

My friend Dean took some footage with his digital camera. By 10:30 the next morning he had built a ski movie on his Mac and posted it to the web. He did a really good job- definitely did more to sell the Mac than any Apple advertisement I've ever seen.

Avalanche Class

Immediately after returning from New York, Dorinna and I took an avalanche class, along with our friends Sara and Rick. The class was at the Mountain Shop, and was taught by instructors from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. On Wednesday night, we had a 3-hour classroom session, and on the following Saturday, an all-day field session. It was a cold day up in Cameron Pass, especially since we spent alot of time standing around and listening to the instructors. We practiced with beacons, and dug a number of snow pits. The prognosis was good, so we got one nice run through thigh-deep creamy powder.

Nokhu Crags

Trip to NYC

The weekend of January 21st saw us in New Jersey for Maria's baby shower. We spent the weekend with Dorinna's family, then went to NYC on Monday. We took the train into Penn Station with Dorinna's Mom, then rode the subway to the Guggenheim museum. Unfortunately, they were between exhibitions, and only a small number of rooms were open while they tore down one exhibit and constructed another. We did have a good conversation with one of the guides about modern art, including this piece by Kandinsky:


After leaving the Guggenheim, we took the subway over to the Museum of Modern Art. After a fruitless search for pizza (How can you NOT find pizza in New York?????), we spent the remainder of the day viewing the collections. Here are some of our favorites:

Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh


Christina's World, Andrew Wyeth


Dorinna spent alot of time at a special exhibit of Odilon Redon


And I (somehow) learned to appreciate Jackson Pollack:


We ended the day with dinner at Blaue Gans (Blue Goose), a German restaurant in TriBeCa. It was a busy day, but we had a great time, and we both became "experts" on the NYC subway system.

Oops- Time for a New Car

Back in mid-January, we lost the Rav4 to a stretch of icy road up in Cameron Pass. Nobody was hurt- the car was pretty well designed, and the passenger compartment was intact (didn't even trigger the airbags)

The car rolled over onto its side, and was mostly flipped over when it came to a stop.

We replaced it with a Subaru Outback.