EHL Finalé Camping Trip

Well I think I can still feel all the shotguns from that day, damn you Danny. But it was a hell of a time seeing all you guys again! Thanks again everyone (especially Tyler and Ryan, not Connor) for getting my car unstuck out of the snow, twice, in Washington, in late May! It was a good last hoorah and something I'll miss for the next couple of years. Stay in touch!
Ryan getting a quick mount on Billy

Back in Copenhagen

Yes, yes, I was lucky enough to get a chance to go back to the land where the beer flows like wine and the women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called Denmark...

Thanks again to all my Danish friends and family for being the most hospitable people in the world and taking me out to experience the real Denmark. You know; Tivoli, water park, firing oranges out of a canon, having a drunken day of school in Haslev, you know whatever...

OK Try This

While sitting in your chair lift your right foot up and make continuous clockwise circles with it. Now in the air with your right hand write the number 6. Can you keep up those clockwise circles?

OR

Read this text out loud as fast as you can

"Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen't mttaer, the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy."

Now read this text again, paying attention to each word and you'll probably notice "some" typing errors ;)

OK one more fun one, can you spot the face?
Once you've spotted it once it will jump out at you every time you look at it.

Random Question of the Month

If you were an apiarist what would you be doing for a living? Feel free to answer in the comments link below and try not to google it!

San Joaquin chute

This is a picture of the San Joaquin chute which is the slit down the middle of the circus tent rock wall. I took this from the top of See Forever which is the run that runs the top ridge of the resort and this was taken off the back side of it. Over the course of the season I made friends with some locals who skied the 'dark side' exclusively, one of them being Jaime the crazy hippy who invited me to come telemark some backcountry with him and a couple of his friends. So we exited the resort through the backcountry gate at the top of lift 14 first thing in the morning. We alternated between skinning and bootpacking around the various bowls and finally the right ridgeline all of which took a few hours and we ended up summiting around midday.

This was taken by Jaime about midway down the chute. Lucky for us the three inches of snow we got the day before had windloaded the chute to about six or seven inches. It is not as much of a hairy kitchen wall as it looks from a distance but is still a no-fall zone for the most part. The only really sketchy part is the pitch next to the rock outcropping in the very top right corner of this picture where it gets about as wide as a ski length and briefly becomes a 50 degree slope.
















To the left is Jaime with a view down valley toward Utah's La Sal mountain range (on the horizon). And above is a shot of me, from midway looking down the chute. I decided to put these up because it is probably the most intense thing I've ever skied and definetly the most fun.

Telluride

These first few posts may be a little out of chronological order but oh well. These couple of shots are from Telluride, CO where I worked as a lift operator (lifty) from Nov. 2005 to April 2006. They place is amazingly gorgeous, some of the best mountain scenery I've ever seen. Combine that with over 300 days of sunshine a year makes it quite pleasent.

This is a shot from the top of lift 7 down toward the town which is contained in what is known as Box Canyon. The population is only around 2,400 but could be much higher if rich people actually lived in the expensive houses that they have bought there. A lot of people who work in Telluride can't afford to live there and are forced to live 'down valley' in the towns of Sawpit, Placerville, or Ridgeway and commute everyday.




This picture is from the top of lift 9 shack on a perfectly clear morning without a whisper of wind. The peak in the background is Mt. Wilson. One of the things I liked the most about being a lifty was getting on top of the mountain before anyone else to enjoy the sunrises and 360 degree views especially from the top of lifts 6 and 9.