Category: Skiing
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Alternate Entertainment
I have some work that must be done on MLK day, so cut time by going skiing this morning. Brown Mountain lookout trail in GNP. TH at 3.4k, lookout at 7.5, rain/snow line at 5.9. As one of my Juneau-raised co-workers said, vintage SE Alaska weather = fucking nasty. I thought I had enough time to…
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Crucial time
We had an exceptional start to the ski season this year. Early snow and lots of it prevented the pattern of anemic snowfalls interspersed with cold spells that made the base of last winter’s snowpack so sketchy for most of the winter. Even better, the high altitude rain I trekked through back in November soaked…
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Disregulation
Since I began doing social work post-undergrad, in 2003, it hasn’t been unusual for my work to adversely influence my sleep. Either the quantity, in the form of insomnia, or more commonly the quality, in the form of peculiar dreams and nightmares. There are many reasons to not blog, and a number of the classics…
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Fat
Todays skiing, and this evenings post, bring you two lessons: 1) Fat skis are good. 2) Perseverance pays off. Let us address each point briefly, beginning with the first. Hiding up in those white’d out little trees was 2-3 feet of the purest cold smoke. More in spots. The pitch in the far looker’s-left of…
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Testing…
My mom, who got me into this whole outdoor adventure thing in the first place, worries about me. So, my holiday gifts this month consisted of a MEC Reflex down parka and Patagonia Micro Puff pants, the better to stay warm and safe out in the cold, and the better to extend our Western Mountaineering…
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The question of laziness
After getting my ass kicked the last 4-5 times out skiing (or at least not feeling like a powder slaying god), moral has been low. One result is that I’m going through a period of nostalgia for summer. Thinking about mountain biking on dry dirt, or catching trout in clear water. The other result is…
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Arts of learning
Fat ski skintrack on a wooded ridge at 6500′ today. Backcountry skiing is hard. It’s worth letting that simple statement rest by itself, because just as backcountry skiing is about using fancy sticks to go up and down hills, the meanings of hard have infinite variation. When the snow is good, like it has been…
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2010: in review
Running through all these Christmases is the sense of an emotional cadenza at the end of the year, a braiding of feelings like hope, renewal, nostalgia, love, joy and exhaustion. Yet in the stories about this holiday, it’s surprising how often we’re reminded of a darker life, full of isolation, penury, greed, despair and the…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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