Category: Skiing
-
Sperry
I’ve been experimenting with ways to not be cold and damp on the drives home. Today’s method, stripping down to capilene outside and cranking the heat all the way home, worked better than layering a belay coat over damp layers. But as I drove along the shore of Lake McDonald, drying quickly, something was wrong. …
-
Marquette Backcountry ski: out o’ the box
Enter the clown shoes. Those are 185 Guides. Inserts make mounting dead easy. I did need a longer screw for the front, to use the Voile wedge. Fine threaded, takes a 3mm allen. Big fishscales. They have a bit of camber. They’re also very stiff, by any standard. Not plastic noodles. Lots of tip rise.…
-
Ghosts
On the Swan Crest looking NNW, two weeks ago. The sun actually came out today, I wore shades driving to appointments this afternoon. That hasn’t happened much in the months we’ve lived in the Flathead. I’m adapting better than I would’ve thought possible, years ago sunniness on par with Arizona seemed like a prerequisite to…
-
Karhu Guide ski review
ExecSum: This neo-classic ski, currently living after the demise of Karhu as the Madshus Annum, is the proverbial jack-of-all-trades, master of none. If you want one ski that will work for 40 degree powder fields, 20 miles of rolling trail breaking, and everything in between, this is the ski. The facts: My Guides are 185…
-
Enduring
What matters in life? A redundant question, as thinking that something would matter outside of life (which is to say, existence) not only makes no sense, but is quite unthinkable. Life is an echo chamber, where meaning is discovered like a skier in a whiteout: unable to see anything, the skier yells out, listens, and…
-
What I wore this past Saturday
As has been acknowledged here and most everywhere else, dressing for ski touring is a challenge. Strenuous, slow ups, fast and cold downs, and rapidly changing exposure to sun and shade and calm and wind make maintaining a safe level of warmth without sweating quite the puzzle. I had a pretty good setup going this…
-
The interloper
Danni Coffman skinning Big Mountain this past Friday morning. Competency is one of the larger burdens/insecurities I carry through my life. For exactly, the fear that I will be incompetent and be experienced as such by others. Sometimes these two are the same, sometimes they are very, very different. Provided that in work and in…
-
Perhaps this weekend?
Trip planning is an equisite art. The mechanical side has, and continues to be, revolutionized by technology. Six years ago M and I lived in Moab, and quickly stockpiled USGS quads because they were the only source for detailed topographic information about most of Utahs backcountry canyons. That is no longer the case. Travis from…
-
The Ultimate Trip and Gearlist(s)
It’s 2F outside as I sit here in the comfy chair, sipping coffee from the 28 oz Yellowstone NP trout mug. Our neighbor two house down just, as he does whenever snow gives him the chance, cruised by in the process of snowblowing the entire sidewalk on this side of the street. He greated/accosted me…
-
A tale of two windshirts (thoughts on winter clothes)
After a week of steady snow and temperatures in town flitting around the freezing mark, winter emphatically arrived last night. Up in the foothills (West Glacier ) evening lows are forecasted solidly into the negative single digits. Might it be time to go camping? The skiing up on Big Mountain has been excellent this week,…
Bedrock & Paradox 
You must be logged in to post a comment.