I arrived at Snowbird early enough to catch the first (public) tram to the top of Hidden Peak. Mineral Basin didn’t open yesterday, so I figured its south- and southeast-facing runs would be loaded with powder snow because of the storm’s strong west-northwest winds.
I was right. The 19 inches of fresh powder on White Diamonds was some of the deepest I’ve ever skied.
Last weekend (April 21–22), I participated in a Ragnar Trail race on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu.
The setting on the North Shore near Turtle Bay was very nice. The weather, however, was not nice. It rained the whole time (off and on). Sections of the trails were covered with puddles and ankle-deep mud, especially the yellow trail. Although the conditions weren’t at all what I was expecting when I signed up, the event was awesome.
To make it easier to do work on my ski boots, I needed to build a ski boot spreader board. A boot spreader board provides solutions for a couple problems:
A boot spreader board is not always necessary when doing work on your ski boots, but it is nice to have available, and it is easy to build one at home. Here’s how I built and use my boot spreader board:
I took the day off work to go skiing at Snowbird. My goals for today were to ski the Upper Cirque and to film the view from atop some of the Upper Cirque chutes. I succeeded on both accounts, but I didn’t ski my run very well. The conditions weren’t great, and it had been a long time since I last skied anything that challenging, but I figured I could put it all together for one run. I did not, but that’s OK. I also accidentally passed the chute I had planned to ski. It’s one of my favorites, so I cut back across the next chute to get to it, which didn’t make for great footage, but I wanted to ski that chute because it was more familiar.
Our big trip this year was to Washington state in July. During our ten days there, we drove over 1,600 miles. We flew into Seattle and watched the Mariners play the Angels at Safeco Field. We visited Olympic, Mount Rainier and North Cascades National Parks, Vancouver, British Columbia, and we spent time exploring the area around Mount Baker.
I was most impressed by the incredible scale of the Cascade Range, especially Mount Rainier. Photos of Rainier’s somewhat rounded peak do not do it justice. Although Rainier’s profile isn’t as jagged as other peaks I’ve seen, nothing can compete with it on sheer vertical. While sitting on the porch of the National Park Inn inside Mount Rainier National Park, I was in awe that Rainier rises almost 12,000 feet above.
Just press play and let the stress melt away.