Colder

Today was even colder than yesterday (-6F/-21C at 6.30am) and only 10F/-12C when I went out around 1 pm (and no sun). I should have stayed in, but I had some adjustments done on my boots overnight which I really wanted to test today; that they made a big improvement sort of made freezing my butt off worth it.

I did enjoy a hot chocolate when I got home, but the funny thing is I still feel like having a cold beer now.

Here's today's track. 4053 vertical ft (season total 44,603) in 45 minutes. Just enough to test the boots and no more!

Cold

It was cold today, around -1F/-18C when I got out of bed this morning and still only 10F/-12C when I went out around 11:30 am.

On a day like today when the snow is less than good and it's that cold the only thing to do is ride the gondola. Which is what I did today (twice) and that was it. It was actually very nice inside the gondola with the sun out - a bit like sitting in a greenhouse.

Here's the track. 4,379 vertical ft (40,336 season total) in 46 minutes.

First week

Once more, today was much like yesterday except colder, especially at mid-mountain (and it's forecast to be even colder tomorrow).

Here's today's track: 4,168 vertical ft (35,956 for the season to date) in 46 minutes.


To see how repetitive this week has been, look at the track for the week.


Fortunately it's forecast to snow for the next two days so hopefully there'll be some new terrain open by the weekend.

The same, but not

By all objective measures today was almost exactly the same as yesterday, but for some reason I skied much, much better and not surprisingly enjoyed it a whole lot more!

Here's today's track. Same runs but a few more repetitions for 8,254 vertical ft in one hour and 40 minutes and a season total of 31,789 vertical ft.


I rode the BC lift today with the president of the ski area who I know from other activities I've been involved in - it's a small town so even an anti-social geek like me knows a lot of people after five and a half years living here - who says the snow will come on December 12. I don't know if that's a promise or a prediction.

Just the numbers

Today was so much like the last few days that I can't think of anything original to say, so I'll just give you the track and the stats: 59 minutes for 5,371 vertical ft and a season total of 23,535 vertical ft.

Deja vu all over again

With a couple of slight variations, today was a repeat of yesterday. Now I'm really hanging out for it to snow so some new terrain can be opened!

Here's the track. One hour and fourteen minutes and 6,139 vertical ft for a season total of 18,164 ft.

More of the same

No new terrain was open today, so today's skiing was very much like yesterday except not as good since it was overcast rather than sunny and being Saturday more crowded.

And if I was bored repeatedly skiing the same intermediate runs yesterday, I was even more bored today, so much so that I even skied a couple of beginner runs. Actually I have goal of skiing every named run on the mountain at least once this season. For the beginner runs, once will be enough. But hey, it's still skiing and before you know it the powder will be here and I'll be ready for it!

Here's today's track. One hour and three minutes and 4,453 vertical ft bringing the season total to an unimpressive 12,024 vertical ft.

A little more

Today the Gondola and Burgess Creek chair were opened adding a little more terrain to yesterday's very limited skiing.

Today's track consisted of three times on Rudi's/Lightning/Ego followed by a home run on Heavenly Daze and Vogue for 5,332 vertical ft in one hour and four minutes. Total vertical for 2009-10 is now 7,571 ft.

It's back!

Today is opening day of the 2009-10 ski season in Steamboat.

It was cold early (9F/-13C) so I waited until mid morning when the sun had time to do its thing and it was a toasty 25F/-4C before heading out.

Only the Christie Express is running today and the only decent runs open were Vogue and See Me, so I did each once and then called it quits after a mere 38 minutes and 2,239 vertical ft, which was fine since I always intended to ease into the season. Even though I worked harder on my fitness this summer than in previous years, it's hard to fully cross-train for skiing; there are just some muscles you don't use for anything else.

The great thing about a season pass and living in a ski resort is you don't have to go flat out on day 1. There's always tomorrow (at least until the end of the season).

Word is the Gondola will open tomorrow.

Here's today's track.

Mum Visiting

My Mum arrived from Australia today.

She arrived via the Amtrak train from San Francisco, with Qantas taking care of the Sydney-San Francisco leg thanks to the miles I used to get her a business class ticket (I think she liked that a little better than flying at the back of the plane).


These long distance Amtrak trains are a black hole for taxes; but if my taxes are going to be wasted, they may as well be wasted on my Mum!

Beaver

We were out for a walk this afternoon passing by Casey's Pond when some movement in the water caught our attention.

Anyone speak Swedish?

If you do, I'd like to ask the Nobel Committee the following question:

What the f... were you guys thinking?

That's my reaction to Obama winning the Nobel Peace Price.

I voted for the guy, and whilst I've been bitterly disappointed with his economic policies, I generally think that on foreign policy he's on the right track. But if this were a 400 metres race, he wouldn't even be through the first turn.

Things are better in Iraq but it's still only the sort of peaceful where people die every day in political violence.

Afghanistan is going the other way. It's one hell of a mess on the way to being a disaster of biblical proportions.

North Korea and Iran are still making nuclear weapons. Burma is still run by a repressive military regime. People are still being persecuted and dying in Darfur.

Obama's approach on all these issues is measured and considered and patient (unlike his predecessor who showed all the patience and consideration of a teenage boy), but it will be quite some time before he's achieved anything lasting and substantial.

Update 10:30 am Mountain Time: Ok, it seems need to translate "What the f... were you guys thinking?" into Norwegian. It seems that the Peace Prize is awarded in Norway, unlike the rest of the Nobel prizes which are awarded in Sweden.

Thank you Comcast

Those are words I never thought I'd speak. Comcast have been my cable TV provider since 2002 and my high speed internet provider since 2004 and in that time have managed on many, many occasions to annoy the hell out of me.

But last night they redeemed themselves. I was able to watch the Australian Football League ("Aussie Rules") Grand Final live on ESPN360.com which I only discovered earlier this week is available free to Comcast subscribers.

I have a computer connected to my big screen TV that I used to watch it, so apart from the occasional jitter it was as good as watching it on TV back in Australia (apart from being the middle of Friday night instead of Saturday afternoon, but hey you can't have everything).

To obtain this level of performance ESPN must mirror the feed from Australia to the US and then serve it to end users from here, because I've tried streaming football video from Australia before and it's been unwatchable (bandwidth across the Pacific is lousy).

So once again for the record, just in case there is any confusion; Thank you Comcast.

First snow for '09

It's 66 days until opening day for the 2009-10 ski season and we had our first snow last night. Only a light dusting but it still counts (there was still snow on the rooftops when I got up at 6.30 am). There's probably more at the top of the mountain but right now you can't see that for the clouds.

Terrible jet lag

We arrived back in Steamboat on Wednesday after four weeks in Australia. For some reason we're suffering from jet lag far worse than we ever had before; awake until 3 or 4 am and then sleeping until 10 or 11 am.

It normally takes at least a week to adjust to a time change this big (eight hours in the northern summer), but by now we should at least be sleeping a bit better, yet last night was still a shocker. Hope it improves soon - I've got a trip to San Diego on Tuesday, with a 9.30 am meeting on Wednesday morning!

The best hot chocolate. Ever.

Last year I wrote about discovering the perfect cappuccino.

Today I had the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted. Not best by a little bit, but the best by a long way. If this was a ten, the best I'd had before was a five.

Where was this? In Canberra, Australia at a place called Koko Black.

Winter?

It's still summer in Steamboat with highs around 30C / 86F, and it's supposed to be winter here in Brisbane, but yesterday it was 36C / 96F!

Lions great escape

I went to a Brisbane Lions game last night for the first time in two years.

At quarter time when we were 47 points down I wondered why I bothered.

But the only thing better than watching a game that you know from the start your team is going to win, is watching a game that looks lost but ultimately isn't. The Lions looked a different team after quarter time and whilst they didn't hit the lead until well into the last quarter, by half time I was confident that they would get up.

Final score: Brisbane 16.11.107 d Port Adelaide 14.8.92

Go Lions!

Yale is a joke

If the fact that George W. Bush is a graduate wasn't sufficient evidence that Yale's claim to be a world class institute of higher education is a joke (motto "if your daddy is an alumni or has enough money, or better still both, we'll graduate you"), this act of moral and academic cowardice seals it.

Why would anyone spend money, let alone serious money like thirty or forty grand a year, on attending such a place? Sure some employers will continue for a few years to be sucked in by the brand, but if you're actually worthy of an Ivy League education you'll spend the rest of your life knowing that you're associated with a sham.

By the way, here's those notorious images. Like WTF is all the fuss about? And screw you Islamic fundamentalists. And Yale. Seems like I've got more courage than you.



HT: Coyote Blog

Balloon Rodeo

This weekend was Steamboat's 28th annual balloon festival.

I've blogged on this before. But I never get tired of walking out on a beautiful cool and clear summer morning to see the colour and drama of a mass balloon launch.

Last snow

I've been watching the last of the snow on the mountain melt over the past couple of weeks. The last tiny little patch located near the bottom of the Chutes appears to have melted since yesterday. That's OK, since it's only 145 days to next season!

My nephew the photographer

I've previously posted excellent photos taken by my nephew Julian, but now he seems to be getting very serious about the art. Check out this fantastic shot of the Gold Coast.


Here's his technical commentary for those who understand such stuff - it's completely meaningless to me; I've not mastered anything more complex than an auto-focus point and shoot digital camera.

• "Taken using a 1976 Pentax SLR... looks like the 30 year old shutter mechanism and light meter are working perfectly... :)"
• "It's exactly what I wanted, dark contrasts, bright borderline over exposure that brings out the highlights and reflections.. I ran every shot at just above neutral values..."

United still sucks

I've blogged before on how hopeless United Airlines are.

I've just returned from a one night/one day trip to Washington DC. I managed to use some miles to upgrade to what US carriers insist on calling "First Class", but the experience still managed to remind me how bad these guys are.

In United's defence let me begin by at least admitting that the attitude of their staff has generally improved over the past couple of years. I think they've finally woken up to the fact that their jobs are on the line. I should also add that this is the first trip I've taken in ages when every flight was on time, no connections were missed and no bags were lost (the latter helped by only having carry-ons)!

But the cabin environment and especially the food continue to put United at the bottom of the heap (right at the bottom now that Northwest have been absorbed by Delta). On the way out dinner consisted of a salmon salad which was basically some very sad looking lettuce leaves and what looked like the lowest possible quality tinned salmon. On the way back "dinner" consisted of a ham sandwich on the driest most unappetising bread roll I've ever seen.

Watering the cat

Two things to conclude from this photo: my sister-in-law's cat is weird and very spoilt!

Oxford

We visited Oxford today; lunch with some friends and then a bicycle ride around town which is the best way to see the town, especially the areas around the university colleges. Fortunately we had good weather, not something you take for granted here in England!

What global economic crisis?

If there's a global economic crisis going on right now (not to mention a flu pandemic scare as well) then nobody told the hordes of tourists who overran London this past weekend. Sure it was a three day weekend, but there were plenty of Chinese and Indians amongst the crowds and I'm pretty sure they didn't just pop over here after work on Friday.

We were part of the horde as well (here for a little longer than a three day weekend, on my way back from South Africa). On Sunday we visited the War Cabinet Rooms where Churchill and the British War Cabinet ran the British war effort during the worst of the German bombing. It's one of those fantastic sites where you really have the feeling of walking in the footsteps of history. The fact that much of it was simply closed up on the last day of the war and left that way until the mid-1970's, unseen and untouched, is amazing.

Where's the cloaking device when you need it

Only our homeland security overlords in Washington DC could be stupid enough to think that flying a 747 over New York was a mission that could be kept secret. Or perhaps the cloaking device they borrowed from the Star Trek set didn't work...oh wait, that's science fiction and we live in the real world, but clearly someone in Washington doesn't.

More Pretoria rugby

I attended another Super 14 Rugby match in Pretoria last night. This time it was the Bulls vs the Waikato Chiefs, again from New Zealand. The score was close right to the end, which is always good for maintaining interest. The home team won, which is also good for keeping the crowd in a good mood!

The weather was ideal, until one minute from the end when there was an unseasonably late thunderstorm. Not quite like the awesome summer thunderstorms here, but we still got soaked walking back to the car. It was still a fun evening though.

Thanks to Pieter for the ticket and the company.

Paying an eToll in a rental car

I noticed this sticker on the window of the car I rented today to drive from Steamboat to Denver to get my flight via London to Johannesburg.


(apologies for the quality of the image; due to the slope of the window it was difficult to get a shot without the sunlight behind the subject)

I wish Avis in Australia did this. Sydney in particular is a pain with a rental car because there are toll roads everywhere and all of them are electronic payment only. If you don't have an eTag unit (as you wouldn't as a tourist) there is a process to register online to pay the tolls, but the user interface is lousy and in my personal experience it doesn't actually work; the one time I used it, I received an unpaid toll notice even though I'd registered.

New countdown

The counter at the bottom of this blog page has been updated.

Only 226 days to the 2009-2010 ski season (but who's counting!)

And so it ends

Today was closing day for the 2008-09 ski season here in Steamboat.

I went out on principle, expecting it to be mediocre at best, but I must say despite being a bit damp (being warm enough to rain at lower elevations) it was OK. It's wasn't great, but it was good enough to ski Closet, which is not bad for April 12.

Here's today's track for 10,374 vertical ft.


And here's the consolidated track for the season, a total of 450,000 vertical ft in 35 days of skiing.

Five years

Today we've been living in Steamboat full time for five years (notwithstanding the amount of time we spend on the road, it's our permanent and only home).

We owned a condo here since July 2002, but we were living in Singapore at the time which is even further from Steamboat than Australia.

Birthday skiing

I only went out today because I like the idea of skiing on my birthday. I didn't expect it to be great, but it was probably the worst day of the season. We had a warm day yesterday and then the spring slush froze hard overnight, and now it's not warm enough today to soften it again.

So only 5,102 in vertical ft in 45 minutes. That's my least vertical of any day this season. But you know what they say; the worst day of skiing is still better than the best day of whatever...

Abysmal user interface design (but that's not the surprise)

Here's an example of abysmal user interface design. That's not surprising; I see this crap every day. But this is from Apple! (it's part of setting up the "Genius" service in iTunes)


Is the second box for your password or does it have something to do with AOL? And what on earth does the red arrow mean?

This could easily have been fixed by putting the two radio buttons to select whether to use your Apple iTunes Store ID or your AOL ID across the top horizontally, keeping this selection visually separate from the entry of your user ID and password.

Cream cheese

Today's post is not about food; "cream cheese" is an attempt to describe the texture of the 6 inches of new snow that fell overnight. Whatever you call it, in my five seasons skiing this mountain, I've never seen snow quite like it. Usually with conditions like they were last night - the temperature around 30F, the humidity higher than usual, and windy - what we end up with is cement; heavy, sticky and very tiring to ski. Today's snow was definitely crusty, but somehow it wasn't all that hard to ski. In fact it was an absolute hoot.

With the wind, the gondola was still closed when I arrived at the base around 9.30 am, so it was the Christie Express and then across to Thunderhead. It was a little slow, but so much better than the days only two seasons ago before the Christie Express when a closed Gondola meant an hour and a half to get up the mountain.

When I jumped on the Storm Peak Express the word was that Sundown was closed, so I skied Closet with the intention of traversing through Rainbow Saddle back to Storm Peak. But when I hit Duster and saw Sundown running I knew I had to head down that way and ski the trees some more. Almost exactly like Wednesday, from there it became Sundown Express, ski the trees, repeat (six times). The Priest Creek face is the best tree skiing in the world, so who can blame me!

Here's today's track for 17,980 vertical ft in 2 hours and 53 minutes. The final verdict; a better day than I expected and much better than April 4 has any right to be!

Close but no dice

Monday's declaration as the best day of the season stands, but only just. There's been another two feet of snow since then, but the difference today was that it was a little windy and not so cold overnight, so the snow was heavier.

I was in the gondola line at 8.10 am anticipating a big powder day. I began with a traverse from the top of the gondola to the lower half of Whiteout. Days like today make skiing the big bumps seem like cheating.

Then it was onto the BC chair for fresh tracks down Sunnyside. And then, unlike Monday where I circulated on the Pony Express, today it was the Sundown Express. Ski the trees. Repeat. Six times.

After that I decided to head down, but couldn't resist a couple of circuits on the Thunderhead Express. I'm glad I did because the best run of the day was in the trees to skier's right of Ted's Ridge where the snow was untracked and waist deep. Whoa!

Here's today's track for a total vertical 21,498 ft in 3 hours and 10 minutes.


Update (21 April): Just uploaded from my phone (self-portrait). Here I am waiting for the bus after skiing. Looks pretty wintery doesn't it?

Best day of the season

There's nearly two weeks left in the season, but awesome powder days are rare in April, so at the risk of being premature, I'm going to declare today the best day of the 2008-09 season, at least for me (since I missed so much of this season I won't be so bold as to declare it the best day, but I don't care about those days I didn't get to ski...)

The 5 am report said 15 inches (yes 15) of new snow overnight. Unlike many Spring storms it was cold enough to give us the true Champagne powder we love and crave.

On a powder day I usually start on the Pony Express. Today I started there and continued there. When it's deep the run underneath the chair is just awesome, so today I did it three times in a row.

I didn't ski many trees today - I twisted my knee slightly on Thursday so I was trying to take it a little easy - but I didn't need to because there was plenty of fresh, deep stuff out in the open.

Here's the track for 17,952 vertical ft in 2 hours and 35 minutes.

Travel plans go bad

I was supposed to travel to DC today to attend a meeting with my bosses tomorrow morning.

Things started to go south when American Airlines called me this morning at 4 am to tell me that my flight via Dallas/Forth Worth had been canceled. They managed to rebook us on a flight via Chicago, but with only 80 minutes connection time between flights.

That's important because the inbound flight from Chicago was delayed by 80 minutes. I've done this plane trip caper a few hundred times before, so I knew immediately that even if they made up a little time on the turnaround, we'd be left with less than half an hour of connection time in Chicago. Even if by some miracle we made it the chances are our bags wouldn't and there's nothing worse than doing a 9 am presentation with nothing to wear except the smelly shirt and jeans you wore on the plane the previous day(yes, that's the voice of experience as well). So we made the call about 2 pm not to even bother going to the airport.

What is one to do in such circumstances? Go skiing of course. I was on the mountain by 2.20 pm skiing the foot of additional powder that had fallen overnight. Since I started very late (and skied hard yesterday on the assumption that I wouldn't be skiing today) I only managed to stay out for an hour and forty five minutes. Even so I managed 11,117 vertical ft. Basically I did four circuits on the Sundown Express skiing the trees and then I ended with my favourite lower mountain run, Vertigo.


So today was a complete bonus, not only because I was supposed to be traveling, but also because when my Mum called just before Christmas with the terrible news that my Dad had cancer, I mentally wrote off the rest of the season (and I'd only been home from South Africa and Rome for a week at that point). But as much as I love the powder, I'm with Inigo Montoya on this one:

Inigo Montoya: HELLO! MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA! YOU KILLED MY FATHER! PREPARE TO DIE!
[Inigo corners Count Rugen, knocks his sword aside, and slashes his cheek, giving him a scar just like Inigo's]
Inigo Montoya: Offer me money.
Count Rugen: Yes!
Inigo Montoya: Power, too, promise me that.
[He slashes his other cheek]
Count Rugen: All that I have and more. Please...
Inigo Montoya: Offer me anything I ask for.
Count Rugen: Anything you want...
[Rugen knocks Inigo's sword aside and lunges. But Inigo traps his arm and aims his sword at Rugen's stomach]
Inigo Montoya: I want my father back, you son of a bitch!
[He runs Count Rugen through and shoves him back against the table. Rugen falls to the floor, dead]

Real powder

After yesterday's psuedo-powder day, as forecast today was a real powder day. Another five plus inches on top of yesterday five and colder temperatures meaning drier snow set it up perfectly.

And the other element in the mix? There's nobody here. I didn't get out until 9:45 am and I still got fresh tracks everywhere and even by the time I finished at 1:15 pm there where still plenty of unskied stashes to be found. It was probably the least crowded powder day I've ever seen.

It's hard to say on a day like this what was the best run of the day. The trees to skier's right of Rolex were good enough to try twice so that probably wins, but it was all good. Christmas Tree Bowl (double black diamond) was definitely the most exciting!

Here's today's track. 22,907 vertical ft.

Almost powder

By the standards of late March, and compared to the weather we've been having the past week with maximum temperatures around 60F (16C), today was pretty close to a powder day with the temperature around freezing and 5 inches of fresh snow overnight.

That's not enough snow to cover up the hard pack on the groomed runs, but certainly enough in the trees, especially if you picked the spots where the wind usually blows the snow into deeper drifts. So today that meant Triangle 3, Shadows and two slightly different runs through Twilight (2:20 and 2:40 trees if you like).

Rolex was terrible - a thin covering of snow in big, ugly, crusty bumps, but I found a glade of aspens to skier's right of the bottom half of Rolex that I've never skied before for some reason and it was pretty good.

Fortunately the forecast is for it continue snowing tonight, so there's a decent chance of a real powder day tomorrow.

Here's today's track. Something went screwy with my GPS - the additional corrected track is in yellow, and ignore the track circled in magenta. Total vertical of approximately 13,000 ft.

Snowshoeing Howelsen

Marie and I snowshoed the Nordic trails on Howelsen Hill today.


It's not as pretty as Spring Creek or Rabbit Ears, but it's right there in town meaning you can easily take a one hour walk at lunch time, which is exactly what we did.


As you can see, it was warm - t-shirt warm.

Airline customer service

I recently had an interesting (positive) experience with one airline's customer service which contrasts with some similar experiences that were handled poorly by other airlines.

Back in February I was on a flight from Johannesburg to London with British Airways (on my way back home to Steamboat) when the in flight entertainment system failed completely. Those of us in business class received in flight shopping vouchers to the value of £75 (roughly $US108) whilst the economy passengers received £25. The interesting thing is it was an overnight flight and I went straight to sleep, so I wasn't going to watch the movies anyway!

As good as that was, I had an even better experience in 2003 with Singapore Airlines when they sent me a voucher for $US100 when I had trouble with the movies on a flight from Singapore to Seoul - the difference was that I was flying economy and the total value of my ticket wouldn't have been more than $US400.

By contrast, the last three long haul flights I've done with Qantas I've failed to watch a complete movie due to problems with the in flight entertainment. What do they offer by way of compensation? Nothing, nada, zip. I have the highest tier status with Qantas which means that they treat me a lot better than the average passenger, but I don't even bother complaining. My experience is that Qantas customer service have a form letter that they use to respond to every complaint, which translated from airlinese into English basically says "the dog ate our homework".

Apart from venting (which is cathartic but otherwise unconstructive) I've actually been thinking about why the Qantas system is so unreliable. As best I can tell, their system is supplied by Panasonic. Enough said. Japanese consumer electronics firms are abysmal (on a good day) at software and user interfaces.

I also flew business class with South African Airways from Perth to Johannesburg back in February, and whilst I didn't have any technical problems, it's the only time I've not been able to find anything worth watching on a system with 50 or more channels on demand.

Brian the Freak

I skied today with my downstairs neighbour Brian.

I last skied with him in December when he'd skied a total of seven days (ever) and could already ski the trees with a reasonable level of confidence and competence. Nicole and I immediately named him "Brian the Freak" - meant in the very nicest way.

He's now skied 50 days. He's pretty good. And eighteen years younger than me, naturally athletic and fearless. Hmmm. I'm four years short of qualifying for Steamboat's "Over The Hill Gang", a bunch of over 50's who ski together, but I have no doubt I'll be ready to join as soon as I'm eligible.

Anyway I managed 16,725 vertical ft chasing him around the mountain looking for the spots where the Spring snow was not too crunchy, not too slushy, but as Goldilocks would say, "like porridge" "just right".

Best comment on the current economic crisis

I've been reading a lot about the economic crisis, including a lot from economists who are universally pessimistic about the Administration's response. I've avoided commenting for want of something original to say. But this blog post summarises the situation so well I have to repost it here:

Money flows out to the folks on Wall Street who bankrupted their firms, to schoolteachers who’ve failed to teach their students, to government workers who feel that simply showing up to work is a heroic achievement, to executives and union workers in America’s oldest and least competitive industries. If times are tough and money is tight, that means almost nothing is left over for productive investment. What would have been a short recession will turn into a long depression and decades of higher taxes and slow growth to pay for all of the cash ladled out.

Slow start

The plan today was to go with our friends with their kids to the top of the gondola for lunch and then to ski the softening snow after lunch. I discovered just how long it takes to order and eat a burger with a couple of toddlers!

The plan worked though, because by the time we were done the snow was just right to ski an easy 14,511 vertical ft.

Texans in town

In addition to my sister-in-law who lives in Beirut, friends from Texas are visiting this weekend, so today was like the opening line of a joke: A guy from Australia, a guy from Texas and a girl from Beirut get on a ski lift...for a total vertical of 11,262 ft.

March madness

A storm blew into the valley last night, quite late since we'd already gone to bed, and dumped a foot of fresh powder on our mountain. So today was a full on powder day, with surprisingly light snow for mid-March.

As usual on a powder day I started with a few circuits off the Pony Express before moving across to Storm Peak Express. The one bad thing today? The wind. It was bitterly cold at the top of the mountain, so after warming up with a hot choc in the Four Points hut we decided to ride the Four Points chair which is old and slow but also sheltered from the worst of the wind. And I'm glad we did because we found some wonderful untracked snow in the trees between Nelson's Run and Twister and between Twister and Hurricane.

After that, it was across to the Sundown Express to try Twilight which was fantastic, and a couple of runs off to skier's left of Sunnyside before the legs gave out completely.


Total vertical of 18,890 ft.

Spring returns

Spring was back in full swing today, although the forecast is for more snow tonight.

My sister-in-law and I only managed 12,896 vertical ft (compared to yesterday's 21,884 vertical ft), but we skied harder terrain today, including hiking to the top of Wake Up Call.

Super Sunday

We had a two hour blizzard last night, just as we were driving to the airport to pick up my wife's youngest sister, Aline. It made the driving hard, but it was worth it because today we had six inches of fresh snow. Fortunately the snow was wet enough to stick to the hard pack underneath, so we avoided the dreaded dust on crust.

I racked up 4,000 vertical ft in 38 minutes on the Christie Express while waiting for Aline to get her snowboard and lift ticket organised. Fresh tracks down both sides of Voodoo was a great start to the morning.

Once Aline joined me we managed another 16,884 vertical ft (for a total of 20,884 vertical ft for those who are mathematically challenged). We had some great runs in the trees in Wally World, plus a couple of super runs in the trees to skier's right of 2 O'clock and 1 O'clock, skier's left of lower High Noon, skier's right of upper Concentration and skier's right of middle Vagabond. Basically in the trees all over the place!

Day 21

Wednesday's heat wave turned back to winter yesterday with temperatures around freezing and an inch or two of snow. It looked this morning like that was going to continue so I nearly didn't go out, not wanting to ski "dust on crust".

But by 10 am the sun was out so I headed out around noon. I almost gave up after half an hour because the snow was still quite crusty and I'd dressed quite lightly and was feeling cold, but then I found some spots with the right aspect to catch the sun and where the snow was starting to soften and I could just soak up the rays, so in the end I was out for a couple of hours and a total of 11,391 vertical ft.

Here's today's track. Sunnyside and lower Vagabond were particularly good.

Warm Wednesday

Our unseasonably warm weather continues. But despite that the snow was surprisingly hard in places, even late in the morning. So I ended up putting in a few extra runs on the lower mountain where the Spring slush was just perfect. An easy 11,795 vertical ft in the sun.

Warming up

Today was a real Spring day. I thought I'd dressed appropriately but in the end I cooked. The snow was a little firmer than yesterday, but when the weather is so nice, it doesn't really matter. Total vertical of 10,727 ft.

Back on skis

Today was my first day back on the mountain after six weeks away, in Australia saying goodbye to my Dad and then in South Africa for some work (so I ended up flying around the world - Denver to LA to Brisbane to Perth to Johannesburg to London to Denver).

I promised my wife I'd take it easy today, which I don't really know how to do any more, so instead I skied hard but only for about an hour for a total of 7,000 vertical ft.

Spring is just about upon us, but on the upper mountain the snow was perfect; smooth and buttery.

Cloud face

Here's a little gadget from the Emirates web site - you upload your photo and it turns your face into a cloud.


Not quite sure what this has to do with promoting an airline, but it's cool in geeky sort of way.

Pretoria rugby

I had an invite to a corporate box at Super 14 rugby match at Pretoria's Loftus Stadium last night. The local team, the Bulls, defeated the Auckland Blues resoundingly. I'm an Aussie so when a South African team plays a New Zealand team, I'm supporting the referee, so I didn't mind the result.

This is one of the main stadiums that's going to be used for the Soccer World Cup next year and they've got a bit of work to do before then. The worst problem is the transport and the parking. It works fine for the locals because they just arrive two hours early, find a spot and pull out their braai (barbeque or grill). I can't see visitors from overseas wanting to do that.

There's other little things that are annoying but easily fixed (which in a way makes them more annoying). For example, your ticket has a gate number on it. Of course when you get the ground the gates are not signposted with their number!

Update (21 April): I had this photo of the stadium on my phone which I only just uploaded (yes I did forget it was there).

Dad's final farewell

We laid my Dad to rest today. Fortunately he'd had a chance to discuss his wishes with my Mum so we were able to give him exactly the send off he wanted.

Even though it was incredibly hard to keep myself together I felt it necessary to deliver a eulogy to my Dad; there were things I needed to tell the world about the most influential man in my life. Here's what I said:

How do I sum up my Dad’s life? I can’t really stand here and tell you the story of his sixty-nine years because he lived far too full a life for me to do that in just a few minutes. And whilst Dad had strong opinions on many things, and was more than willing to share them (‘like father like son’ I can hear a few people saying), I don’t really have any pearls of wisdom he shared with me.

But I can tell you how he lived his life and that’s what matters, because ultimately the measure of man is not his words but his actions.

If you’d known Dad in his youth he would have seemed a pretty typical working class lad from the inner west of Sydney; he left school at 15, completed an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner, meet my Mum and married and started a family in his early twenties.

True to his roots Dad enjoyed life’s simple pleasures; a beer or two, or more; throwing a line into the water and pulling out a fish, even when all anyone else was catching was a cold; eating too much of one of Mum’s roast dinners; growing a ‘few’ veggies in the back yard; and most of all just spending time with his family.

Yet in a sense Dad was also ambitious; not for fortune or fame, but simply to make the best life for himself and his family that he possibly could. He never complained that he didn’t have an ideal start in life. He simply made the most of what he had and got stuck in to making it better.

One of the most enduring lessons I learned from watching my Dad is that there is always something you could be doing to improve your circumstances. All you needed to do was gather a few bricks and bits of tin and wood and whatever else you could pick up for a bargain, and there wasn’t any reason you couldn’t turn a two room shack in Dunalley into a palace. In fact I can’t ever remember a time when Dad wasn’t building or fixing or improving something.

He had an amazing range of practical skills that he’d picked up over the years and he was always acquiring more. I don’t recall ever seeing my Dad reading a novel, he didn’t watch much telly and wasn’t a big sports fan, but if he needed a new skill or to fix an unfamiliar piece of equipment he’d bury his head in technical books until he found the answers, and before you knew it he was an expert on some new subject.

Dad was a bit too rough around the edges to ever be called a “sensitive new age guy”, but the other thing I learned from my Dad’s example was how to treat other people.

In my forty-five years I never once saw him say or do anything that indicated that he thought for a moment that someone’s nationality, or race, or gender or anything else like that was important.

Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of people he didn’t particularly get along with, but he always judged individuals as he found them.

He never resorted to or advocated violence as a solution to problems. I never saw him take advantage of another person or abuse his authority or power over those weaker than him.

And he was a great role model as a husband, creating a true partnership with my Mum and always treating her as an equal in whatever plan or project or journey they were embarking upon.

By the way he lived his life Dad was a man worthy of respect and admiration. But most of all he was a man worthy of our fondest remembrance.

Good bye Dad. We love you, we’ll miss you terribly and we promise we won’t ever forget you.

Goodbye Dad

My Dad passed away early this morning.

My Mum, my brother, my sister and my wife and I were all with him at the end.

It was way too soon for him to go, but in the end he was suffering and now he's at peace.

I already miss him more than I could have imagined.

Just a photo

I took this on a walk near my parents house (with my phone - apologies for the quality). The way the sun was shining on the grass caught me eye.

Good things come in threes...

...like three powder days this week. Today saw another six inches at 5 am with a consistency somewhere between the Champagne Powder we had on Tuesday and the heavier stuff we had on Thursday.

I've got some things to do today so I could only stay out an hour and a half. Whilst I only skied 8,716 vertical ft it included three great powder/tree runs - Triangle 3/BarUE Liftline, Kuus' Cruise and 2:45 trees (that's the trees between 2 O'clock and 3 O'clock to skier's right of Twilight).


The run home on Valley View and Lower Valley View was also nice.

Thigh burn

It was another big powder day in Steamboat - 25 inches in the past 48 hours - so it was even deeper today than yesterday.

It was also heavier snow since it was just a little too warm overnight to produce the Champagne Powder. That means a lot more thigh burn. A lot more. So I only managed 11,247 vertical ft compared to 18,000 plus yesterday.

I was a little late getting to the gondola so I skipped that and headed for the Christie Express / Thunderhead Express combo and began with a deep, deep powder run down Concentration by which time I was in need of a new pair of legs. After a quick run over to the Pony Express I decided it was time to revisit my favourite tree runs - Shadows and Closet - by which time I only had enough left in my legs to get home via Oops and Vertigo.

Update: here's the map which a technical error on Blogger was preventing me from uploading earlier.

Powder Tuesday

Today was one of those days you live for in Steamboat; deep light powder and it's still snowing. The 5 am report said nine inches but it seemed like a lot more than that.

It was great everywhere, but especially on Pony Express where I was on the fourth or fifth chair for the day and got plenty of freshies, to skier's right of the Sundown Liftline, to skier's left of Sunnyside and to skier's left of Westside where there was still thigh deep untracked powder after midday when I was heading home.

I could have stayed out longer, although 18,279 vertical ft is not a bad total, but I wanted to keep some fuel in the tank for tomorrow!

Deep Freeze

Today was one of the colder days I've skied - it was a chilly -13F or -25C when I awoke and it didn't get a whole lot warmer even when the sun came out mid-morning. So I only managed 8,519 vertical ft before I decided I'd rather be at home sitting in front of the fireplace!

Day 13

The weather today wasn't nearly as nice as yesterday, but Michael and I still had a great time on the mountain skiing a mix of bumps, trees and groomers for a total of 11,469 vertical ft.


Now we're just waiting for more snow. Bring on the powder days!