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Marshall and I decided to go ski on Hyalite peak yesterday. It wasn't particularly early, around 9 am but it was early for us. We anticipated skiing out in the dark and were well prepared for the adventure. The road was in pretty good shape but there was a kind of giant five foot spaced snowmobile washboard that made it a slow drive. Two hours later we had parked the car off the road by backing over some two by ten boards laid out over the soft snow. Boards like those are a key tool to have when venturing up Hyalite road in the winter. We also had 3 good shovels, two tow straps and four tire chains. We were prepared. We started skinning (skiing uphill with tracion "skins" stuck to skis) up Hyalite lake trail. It was 5.5 miles to the lake but we figured we could still get a run or so in before it got dark. Three hours later we were still skinning. The giant snowmobile washboard covered the trail so we were skinning up and over two foot high mounds the entire t...

Rob, Marshall and myself did some skiing/snowboarding at Big Sky yesterday with Marshalls GPS tracking us. This is a map of all the ground we covered, about 40 miles and 20,00 vertical feet total.

Eric (raced with him this summer) and I went on a night bike ride tonight.. It was just below freezing, which made for fairly non muddy trails, and some interesting ice encounters... The hole in the ice behind me in the picture where I'm standing is from my shoulder. There was a bit of bushwacking and climbing over raging snowmelt, but I also got two cool timer shots with 15 and 13 second exposures, ending with a flash to get the cool transparent effect.. Enjoy

Some extreme geekery I forgot to post before.. The first one is faked, but I think it's fairly close to the path I took. If marshall would get me the gpx file it would be real. (transferring blame) Flagstaff is across the street from Alta in Utah, one of only two ski resorts in America that still outlaw snowboards... Oh well, our tracks were much more fresh than the crap the rich skiers were on. The second one is from Teton Pass out side of Jackson, Wyoming, we hiked from the highest point of the road, descended down the path, and hitchiked back to the top. Car assisted backcountry, brilliant! don't forget the photos from the trip here

Finally got the pictures up from the ski trip... I'll upload them to webshots now. Be sure and check out the Flagstaff Peak ones, I did some cool photoshop work. (photos on right)

Pictures from the multi state snowboard trip to come soon... 

Mount Superior across from Alta ski area. The top has an altitude of 11,050ft. Great snow in the shade and crusty turning to soft snow in the sun. Our route went down the shade on the main face in the picture below. Summit picture. Ian shredding some lines. I rule.