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.