Ski Extravaganza

Last week I finished my job with the BLM. My position was a 4 year term and the time had expired. I am looking forward the time off to go on my hike and do all the things I used to dream about. True to form, I worked ten hour days so I could take Friday off to take advantage of the new snow and go skiing. Everyday I stopped by In and Out for a burger.




Friday morning I headed off to Kirkwood with Matt. It's a drive to the south, but worth it for the skiing they provide. It's a real skiers mountain with everyone looking for that untouched powder. We hit up the backside first along with everyone else on the mountain, and were a little disappointed to find the wind had packed down all the snow before we could get there. In the afternoon we skied the gullys and a shot through the cliff band and had a good time exploring.






Saturday we went up to Rose, the locals mountain. Tara came with us and we met up with James. The chutes at Rose are quite unique and amazing. The snow wasn't fresh, but still soft. Pictures can't really capture the steepness of the terrain.








Sunday Matt and I headed over to Heavenly. We had each bought passes to Kirkwood at the end of last season for a steal, then Vail corp bought them so our pass was good at Heavenly and Northstar, the cheapest epic pass ever. Heavenly was good, some of the people there were annoying, but we found great chutes and snow over in Mott Canyon. It was good, but would be amazing in a regular snow year.







Monday I went to Diamond Peak. It's not a huge place, but they had a deal for 25$ ticket with a pass to any other mountain. The snow went from icy to slushy in an hour. I got a few good runs, but the real jewel of the place is the view of the lake from the mid-mountain bar.





Monday night it snowed and they were expecting winds for Tuesday, so I headed to Northstar, so I wouldn't have to feel bad if I had to bail. Reports said 3-6 inches of snow, but the backside had at least a foot, going up to knee height in places. It was amazing. All day I skied trees making fresh turns in fields of powder. It was on top of poor snow coverage, so I hit a few rocks and tore up the bottom of my skis but it was glorious. I heard later that the windchill on top was -6, and it probably never got much over 25, but that kept the snow nice and light. I couldn't stop and didn't take a break all day, it was awesome.








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Trail Update

After posting my trip plan, I started thinking, I need to do a warm up hike. Why not do the southern 100 miles of the Idaho Centennial Trail (ICT). Mallory can give me a ride, we can drop water along the way and it will be a great shakedown. That became part 0. Then I figured, why not do the entire ICT, instead of skipping the northern 200 miles as I had planned. So now I have planned out a summer of hiking 3700 miles, even. I will be amazed if I do everything I have in mind. Plans will change because of snow, drought, fire, fatigue and some things that I can't imagine. But there will always be another option to consider.



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Portland/Boise

Mallory came out to see me in Portland one weekend and I was in Boise later that month. It's hard to do a lot in a weekend, but we usually have fun.

While Mallory was in Portland, we met up with friends for drinks at a Peruvian restaurant and I had my first Pisco sour. I hope to have another in country sometime. The next day we went to McMenamins at Edgefield, and enjoyed walking around the grounds and the neat Grateful Dead room in the old basement. They were playing constant Dead videos.


In Portland, Mallory took on the challenge of making a chocolate meringue pie and it was delicious. The next day I challenged her to make fried chicken after I had some amazing chicken at a food cart in Portland. We went on a little snow shoeing adventure. I was also able to get a lot of work done on my trip planning.





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Final Countdown

This summer I am heading off to hike the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). I'll be starting April 15, 60 days from today. I've been planning and preparing for the trip for the past couple of years and now it's time to get the last details in place. The countdown has begun.



After I graduated college I hiked the Appalachian Trail and loved it. I've always wanted to take on the CDT, and with my job coming to an end, it seemed like a perfect time to take off a couple months. The CDT is a little different then other trails. It isn't completely defined, and there are a couple of alternates that are more popular then the official route. So I took a lot of liberties when planning where I wanted to go. Below is a map.


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A few large variations I made include hiking: the length of the Sangre de Christo range in New Mexico; the Great Divide Trail to Jasper, Alberta; and part of the Idaho Centennial Trail. The plan is to start at the southern end at the border of Mexico and head north (green). When I get to Rocky Mountain NP, I'll bounce up to Helena and continue hiking north (yellow). In Jasper, I'll flip around to Spokane and hike south through Idaho (purple). I finish up there in Mountain Home where I'll get a bus to West Yellowstone (blue) and finish on top of a mountain in Rocky Mountain NP. All said it's about 3300 miles.

At least that's the plan. My schedule currently has me finishing by the beginning of October. During the trip I am going to be carrying a SPOT gps that will send out my location daily and update the map on the right side of the blog as well as facebook. I hope to occasionally blog from the trail. Should be a fun summer!

Reno Visit

I made a quick trip down from portland to take care of a few things before I had a tenant move in.Mallory came to meet up with me and the major project was tiling the counter. Mallory took the lead while I worked on other issues. By the end it looked great, and I was impressed with all we got done.






Halfway through we took a ski break. It's been a pretty bad snow year, but we had fun. We took off early and drove the scenic route back past tahoe.