Pizza

Whole wheat-sesame-bran crust, olive oil, thin sliced tomatoes, spinach, walnuts, lots of stinky blue cheese, and mozz.

Yumm.

I'm psyched to eat more pizza, soon, and at last.

Snow

It is out there.
Just not that much of it. The Lolo Pass area is still feet short of this time last year. Moreover, the pass has had little precip to mask the impacts of the masses. Things were very tracked out near the road, and the skin track/boot pack up to Snowboarder ridge was doing it's best to imitate a luge run.

Amid all that, we strangely saw very few people, M and I, on a supremely atmospheric day.
The black knight approacheth, without removing her kicker skins.
The above traverse and descent were on protected aspects, and had some good (soft) snow once we got the requisite 3/4 mile away from the parking lot , and thus the domain of the crowds. Traversing the drainage and heading up the other side, we found the other reality.
Sun and wind crust. And some cool micro-rime on trees.
The descent off that hilltop was horrendous, unskiable breakable crust. I still have a lot to learn about predicting snow conditions.

M laughed as I, forty feet off the summit and trying to hop-turn for all I was worth, stuffed a tip and went over the bars in a cartwheel that stuffed snow down my neck and sleeves. I grumbled, mumbled, and got up, and waited for her to get her share. Which she did within a few minutes, have to flail around just as I had to excavate all needed ski and pole parts up from the dense crust.

And while the day favored shuffle and glide to turning, it was all so very worth it.
We had enough fun to deserve a reward. Maple Walnut for him, Mexican Chocolate for her.
Go away! I just want to hang out in bed in my shell clothing, eat, and blog about my radness!!
I think I can be so bold as to deem it a successful lesson for me, in the realm of the best ways to encourage an S.O. to join in and appreciate a passion with you being to NOT jump headfirst into the gnar with a why-aren't-you-as-fit-psyched-and-aggro-as-I-am (??!!) attitude. This is not the first, nor will it I think be that last, opportunity for me to learn this lesson.

Chicken

With lemon zest, sesame seeds, sea salt, pepper, and a red wine glaze, you cannot go wrong.

At last!

Good skiing found today!

As in: rippin' and linkin' turns! brah!
M dropped me off in Pattee Canyon, and I headed up and up, eventually arriving at the saddle between Mitten Mountain and the next knob/mountain to the east. Good skiing was found above the road in an open clearcut. Just enough of a base and 2-8" of fresh powder on its way into corn. Cowder? Powrn? Quality, sez I.

More fun was had dodging stumps and deadfall short-cutting down through the Sam Braxton area, but the surprise of the day was the gasline cut dropping into Crazy Canyon. Much more and better snow than I had expected. Don't underestimate western aspects this time of year.

I hauled skis for a portion of the traverse over to the Maurice Avenue extension, then thought p-tex be damned and put 'em back on for some fun tight turns down the road and trail onto the golf course, then a final hike home along Higgins in tele boots. The diagonal ski carry works very well.
I got home, quite and pleasingly tired, and drank some beer.



I also have a new, and simple, recipe to share. Plop the (contents of) one can of beans in a pot. Black beans or black-eyed peas would be my preference. Add one whole bottle of beer. Dark, ideally. Bring to a boil. Watch the foam! Add a heaping tablespoon of chili-garlic sauce, juice and zest of one citrus (lime or orange), and many bountiful fists-full of the green of your choice. I used spinach, but you could get old school here. Stir in the greens until they're well and wilted, then keep cooking and stirring it until it has been boiled down to your desired viscosity.

Consume as is, with rice or couscous, or spooned onto a cheese and avocado quesadilla, as I did this evening.

Enjoy.

In the hills

There be monsters!
What's that blue shit up there, anyway?
Ahhhhhhh!
Yes, it'd be cool (now) if town were at 5.3k rather than 3.3k, as we'd have skiing all over. But then the biking season would be even shorter. In any case, it was a good afternoon to go walking.

Projects

To be done betwixt readings, many readings. Most important, digging out the old instep crampons, sharpening them, tightening the bolts, finding straps, and taking a hike!

They were my parents, and are older than I am. They work very well, and 24" Voile straps are perfect. Course, if BD made some out of no-stick stainless that'd get my attention.

Next up, the pack. While I was re-sewing the strap attachment I figured that I might as well bite the bullet and put a better belt on. Starting the Parcour I had around 30 pounds, and the webbing belt did fine, but it was a pretty compact, stable thirty. More gangly loads, like carrying skis, ski boots, and ski shit on a long day, feels heavier even though it isn't. No good.

While I was at it, I sewed on an upper tab to allow for a diagonal ski carry.
Here the pack is test loaded with a tarp, a full trad rack (2.5 sets of cams to 3.5", nuts, and 2 dozen draws), and a down coat.
Even thought the diagonal puts the weight of the skis further away from one's COG, it seems more stable, and is certainly quicker to load and remove. It also promises to definitively not thwack me in the back of my calves when I hike, but the jury is still out on that.

Opinions? Eric?

In the background of the above you can see a mini-project, the addition of a bunch of red reflective tape to the Takara. Don't get run over by hog farmers, ya'll.

Back to the belt. I had an old one from an ancient Mountainsmith bag I bought for pennies at the used gear store last year. A design I've always liked, the wide all-fabric deal. I added a piece of thin foam (yoga mat) to the lumber region, then removed all the extraneous straps (removing back tacks, woopie!!), and sewed it to the pack only on the sides.

Brown tacks, below, are the only points of attachment.
Having it not sewed along the back panel does allow the rig to sag a bit under load, but also allows for a good amount of give during action (esp. leaning forward). I think it will be a good feature, but we'll see. This pack is a learning opportunity, and will likely never be totally finished. In the future, I may or may not add pockets to the new belt.

Yesterday I did get out for a loaded pack and crampon test.
This time last year we had finally lost the good, low altitude snowpack that made close-to-town outings possible. Unless our fortunes change, that isn't in the cards for this year, and means that a good 30+ minute drive it required to access good turns.

I thought I saw some Bill tracks in Crazy Canyon.

Missoula in the winter is pretty cool, nice moments to be found amongst the haze.

Of course, there's always something around to tempt you with the other side of the argument. Winning is impossible.

PS:
It should be noted that the blue coat in the above self-timer shots is the new Primaloft One Patagonia DAS, got with the gift card I received when I returned my down anorak after one of the baffles unraveled. It's great, a super tight low CFM shell fabric, and the P-One is crazy warm for it's lack of bulk. After Sunday's outing I was soaked, between butt sliding down icey trail and sweating uphill in 30 degree snowfall, and the parka soaked up little of the moisture, and dried freakishly fast. More on this as the winter progresses, but I'm psyched!

This morning

I made some pancakes.

Saw evidence of sticky fingers.
And thought about the future. The adventuring future, specifically.

Registration for the Bighorn 100 opened today, which was on the to-do list this year. I do want to do Hardrock eventually, and need a resume for it. But the entry fee for Bighorn is 225 bucks. No frickin way. I'm not saying I'll never do a race with an entry fee again, and I've never paid money for a race and felt like it was ill-spent, but that figure still just sticks in my throat. So I'm not doing Bighorn.

So besides Transiowa in April and the best mountain bike race ever on March 27th*, what to do with myself? I need a long, adventurous something starting in late May or early June. I wonder.... Maybe. The no-job timing and riding progression make it seem possible. Possibly.

I've been a grumpy little bitch for most of the last week. M and I walked through the snow to get ice cream yesterday evening, and got to talk about what ails me. Uncertainty, in a word, and all the fears or failure, success, and execution and process that go along. Leaving school will be tough, because I'll be done. Judgment will be passed on whether I used the time wisely, I'll have to get a job, and even if we stay in Missoula, will be leaving behind the fantastic community of practice into which I've grown in the last 15 months. All for the better. Just like doing the TD, it's a good sort of contemplative uncertainty.

In other news, I went skiing yesterday.
It snowed lightly from daybreak until midnight, and still only accumulated a few inches in town. "Light snow mist" wunderground poetically called it.

For some silly reason, I've managed to seek out crappy conditions almost every time I've gone out skiing this year. A few times it was not planed, but by starting at 4100' yesterday, I knew I'd be dealing with thin cover and no base for several thousand vertical, and that I was unlikely to get high enough for really good skiing in the time I had.
Throwing fuel on the fire of my ressentiment, the right strap complex of my all-pack ripped out a bit when I heaved it on at the car. Really? Your dumb ass neglected to put a bartack there?! I was pissed at myself, mortified, embarrassed, and glad it hadn't done that in the Bob back in October. In addition, the second mile of trail had thin cover, and I took my skis off to walk up the narrow and steep switchbacks only to discover what I ought to have expected: 3" of overnight powder atop 2" of bullet ice.

The theme of this winter, on foot, skis, bike, or truck, has been FEAR THE ICE. Don't leave home without your crampons, idiot!

As bad as it was on the up, it was far worse on the way down. Butt sliding with skis strapped to the pack is not very effective.

But the trail doesn't care about my internal conflicts, and I knew I ought to just get over it and enjoy the gorgeous day, and take the combat skiing as it came. I am getting better at skinning over deadfall, a unique and varied skill.
I'm also getting much better at skiing itself, as witnessed by the tough conditions, and the fact that I only fell twice in 1500' of descent, and both times pretty softly.

Dodging logs and stumps in clearcuts and on narrow trails with minimal snow and no base is not a task to be laughed at. I did have to do a bit of edge work for my trouble last night.

So, life continues, homework gets done, skills are built, and I'm improving the all-pack as it gets repaired. And inspite of a long absence, a surprise move, and my crankiness, our marriage gets more and more enjoyable and rewarding, often at the same time! As Mike said so well, life is good:



I am also proud to report that Renan is tearing shit up. The whole set of dispatches in this series are worth watching, but this last one takes it:



Off the grid indeed. We should all be so lucky/purposive from time to time.

*If you know, you know. I'll be there, of course, riding the loop I want to. In this case, it is the original loop, plus the deal-breaker dirt climb, riding Green Dot and Blue Dot (all), and not metal masher.

Riding is awesome

I almost said that bikes are awesome, and they are. But I spent some time looking for cheap parts this morning, as reshuffling parts for Transiowa bikes has once again left other bikes bereft of parts and unridable, an ultimately perpetual state, methinks. The pursuit reminded me that, as fun as building bikes is, riding bikes is far superior, a potential state of bliss that occasionally I fear I am inadequate to.

However, I got out and rode hard for a few hours this afternoon. And it was good. I've got a few Transiowa training rides in the bag in the last week, and am thoroughly enjoying the return of the slowly persistent and inexorable burn of the legs which upon return to a warm and stationary house, migrates upwards to the cranium with dizzying effect. There is quite simply nothing like it, and I've missed its presence in my life.

Of course, the machine is also important, as I found out today when I climbed up into the south hills. There is actually a neighborhood up there south of town called "Mansion Heights." Today I learned that it isn't just a piece of the vernacular, they have a foreal sign up there! It's a stunningly un-Montanan gesture. Yet I do like to call Missoula the northernmost city in Colorado (which along with insulting Double Haul IPA is a good way to pick fights in these parts), so perhaps it makes sense.

The thing is, Mansion Heights does in fact have a pretty righteous view. Which was relevant to me, beyond the outstanding views of Snowbowl and Stuart Peak, in that I had to go back down on my stupidass freewheeless bike. Spinning like mad at 20+ mph is something at which I need practice. I also need higher bars for more comfortable braking (the same thing that, the other year, caused Matt Chester to display that bent brake lever that be presented with priceless words I cannot recall). So, back to ebay for another 1" quill stem.

Goridyerfuckbinke!

January in Yellowstone

Almost didn't happen. I had business at the legislature in Helena yesterday, and was not feeling energized after a day listening to a committee hearing. But I had to keep the streak alive, so off I went.



It was good to camp out, I slept like a rock, and while I didn't have the energy/will to ski as far as I wanted to today, it was a beautiful day with almost constant, varying snowfall.


I do not envy the bison. Our snowcoach driver/guide last month said that May-November bison live on all-you-can-eat cereal. Right now, they're eating the box.

The trick in the next few weeks will be jumping back into school, making good progress on my portfolio (so it can be done in two months, on schedule!), and getting a reasonable level of fitness back. At present my raw material is lacking, or at least well in hiding. That I've slept for 11 hours every chance I've had in the last week shows that I'm yet out of the vacation-induced hole. No better leading indicator.

Speaking of which, 2100 is past my bed-time.

Moved

We're in the new place, which is very nice. Plenty of boxes yet to unbox, but it feels like home. M has working overtime to make up for lazy me. I've been lucky to be awake past 2000 all week.

The house was built in 1951, and has a bitchin' vintage kitchen.

Upheaval breeds restlessness, and I decided a few days ago that the K Monk just wasn't feeling it as a TI6 rig. So the commuter got a upgrade, and a facelift.

Some new components. The Woodchipper is rad.

Voila.
35c Speedmaxs, fixed at 39:18. All in.

p.s.: Even went for a ride today.