A Sunday not spent on the slopes

Since we were at the All Blacks game last night, we couldn't go skiing for the weekend. Bryce still managed to fit in some snowboarding related activity:

Out in the shed waxing his board with his music going.

The mountain that we ski on (Mt. Ruapehu) is so rocky that there are tons of huge gouges in his board. He found a couple of rocks that are wedged in so badly that he can't even take them out. ahh, North Island skiing.


Off to have Beef and Guinness pies at a friend's house in Porirua :-)

Snowboarding, continued

Sunday, Stevens' Forecast: Rain
Well thank goodness for inaccurate forecasts!
I've never had a stellar day at Steven's. Bad timing I guess. This time we had a triple certed(Skiing, Telemark, Snowboarding) level 3 instructor at his home mountain.
Needless to say it was fun. We had to kill 20 minutes to get our lift ticket coupons so we practice on some pvc pipe for freestyle. 50/50s and a couple mediocre FrontSide board-slides.
Third day out of four I ended up in a natural half pipe created by a deep cut creek bed. That right there made the 10$ lift ticket worth it. Then we dropped another run with warning for cliffs through the trees(jeez this weekend was fun and tough!). More chutes/ double diamonds. Some food after 3 hours of leg burning laps on some of the best/hardest terrain at Stevens. Time for some freestyle.
Got our park passes and hit it. Rusty at the pipe. But hit the mid-sized hits cleanly with just straight air. BS 180s off random hips. Need to work on bringing the A tricks to the bigger terrain.
Got some credit on my riding again for fellow instructors. It's nice to here from peers or people I consider better some props. It's been a lot of work over the last 3 years to unlearn and relearn snowboarding on challenging terrain.
Got some good pointers too.
Over all this week I rode thousands of vert, lots of diamonds and double diamonds(WA double) at three major resorts. Did some huge drops, free style, 3 different natural pipes, three different tree routes. It felt great to slay to three resorts in Washington. Some great narrow lines including the middle stretch of Chute.
One of my best weekends or riding, in terms of fun and in terms of quality of my skills. Rode a ton of terrain.
Now time to bring it for the exam.

Long Time, no Blog

So it's been a long time since I(Bryce) expressed any adventures or thoughts.
My life has been consumed by way too many hours behind a desk and too few on the snow(thought I've been super busy with that too)!
Lots of teaching adventures to share at a later date, but I want to share my weekend first and foremost.

So on adventures:
This week I took Thursday and Friday off. That was the smartest thing I've done in a while. We lucked out and Julie had Thursday off so we went with Ted (whom I encouraged to take the day off as well). A powder day on Alpental was a blast. Ted and I have very similar riding styles/instincts. Face shots, cliff drops, stump booters. I felt like I was in a video at times even when I got bogged down in the wet snow or had heel slide a 6 ft wide gulch between two cliff bands.
Friday I followed it up with an early start and long car ride up to Mt. Baker with Ryan and Ted. While the snow wasn't exactly fresh or uncut, the weather was beautiful blue skies and the company was awesome. We rode our asses off on any thing from groomers to iced out tree runs to small powder fields(3 turns max) to soft but cut chutes.
Highlights: 19$ ticket, first run, some beautiful control dynamic turns down a 12 foot shoot rated double diamond, watching people drop the backcountry, 3-beer lunch, dropping a ~10-12 drop into cut powder then an accidental somersault but ending right back onto my board, the weather, the lift convos, jamming out on the way into and out of the parking lot, and finishing the day down the canyon in the sunset...
Yes a whole paragraph of highlights.
Saturday was some casual turns at Alpy with Julie and her work friend Karen. A good time. Karen was super jazzed to ride some Washington snow and it was infectious. The girls both had energy and it helped because I was tired. Met up with Nate(another ski school friend), and got a few turns, even found 3 more powder turns. Finished the day with some yummy Ethiopian food and an early bedtime.
Sunday was a clinic at Stevens...
More to come on that, too long of a post and it's bedtime.

Goals

So I don't beleive in N.Y. Resolutions.
I read someone quoted as saying they're a procrastinators excuse and while I'm the ultimate procrastinator I don't partake. I like to pick any day to make a change.
However it just so happens to be the 4th and I'm thinking of goals. I'm going to keep the published ones limited to physical goals.
My life has changed a lot since the last time I really made a goal list. I decided to start the climbing that I've always wanted to do last year but I haven't truly made a goal list...
So here I go...
Use ellipses less in my online posting... J/k
Run a new type of race, I've ran two 1/2 marathons now. I've improved and want to continue to improve but need a new challenge. See below post...
Get a stamp on my passport Julie encouraged me to finally get my passport, now it's time to use it. The worlds an amazing place, or so I've read and heard.
Snowboard my rear off 360s, boxes, big air grabs, exiting a super pipe and carving the Nat(sh). A late start of the season is no excuse to not hit 40, and why aren't I hiking more once the lifts stop.
Climbing is my summer snowboarding That means train, study, get better, stronger, faster, etc. I need another volcanic summit this year.

Turns

Ryan and I decided to get up early and head towards Muir Sunday to see about earning some turns. So after a long drive we at Longmire at 7:00 to a....... closed gate bearing a sign suggesting and opening time of 9:00 am...
The worst thing is I had read online people complaining about the gate opening late for plowing, but I had no idea when "late" was. Now I know.
So we had two hours to kill in a wet, dark Longmire afte 4-5 cups of coffee in a Subaru with no cell coverage. Needless to say a level spastic bored ensued for ~60 minutes when we got suspicious that the gate may be open(we weren't in clear in sight). Sure enough they had opened the gate at ~8:00 and we were on our way, though we'd lost the right to be the first car up.
We arrived at a snow covered lot and low vis conditions.
We donned our gear and headed up slope. Following the normally familiar Skyline Trail was slightly more challenging with out 400 ft vis, and ground conditions between 1 inch of ice and 10 inches drifts of powder but we managed to follow it almost the whole trip. We arrived at a snowfield under the step ascent to Panorama Point and confirmed our decision to not bother going higher. A solo skier right behind us and 5 minutes later 4 hikers proceeded on to Panorama point. We saw both return within about 30 minutes reporting a near white out, not surprising given the lack of features past pebble creek and the sub 1/4 miles visibility and 20+ mph wind.
We dug a mediocre protective trench out near a large bolder(probably not good protection after all), removed pack and proceeded. The medium depth powder and gentle slope led to little excitement though a pleasant run while dodging scattered rocks. We did a second lap and decided that we needed a kicker on a short steep section. 1 hours later we had a knoll of loose powder and scatter old corn. This "kicker" offered a distraction from the conditions as we were sheltered.
After giving up on that we returned to our packs above and met some rocket scientists in frozen jeans. The winds had increased and the temps actually decreased through out the day. We ate lunch as we watched them ascend to P.P. (I later estimated the windchill to ~6 degress) till we lost sight in the swirling snow. After our Ramen and tall can of Busch we heard said geniuses hooting and hollering their way down and wining about their frozen jeans. We broke "camp" and rode down our slightly farther than we had, but no where near as far as Julie and I had 2 Julys ago(within 200 of the lot). I proceed to put a gouge in my board. Down hiking is not fun but at least we were leaving the coldest parts behind.
A quick load of the gear and we headed to Ashford
Copper creek (a climbing class discovery) blackberry pie and stew provided after ride refreshment capped a rough day of riding but alas a still good day.

First Turns

Notice that coldness in the air? That chill that bites the cheeks. The numbness that starts in your fingers..
Winter is pushing Fall through as fast as she can.
Warren Miller tickets... check
Looking at new gear almost every day... check
Hiking till I can find even a 500 ft run...coming
The subie's gassed, the pack is (over)packed, time for breakfast and hiking.

P.s. While I'm no turns all year type*(yet). I am carrying on my new tradition of snow every month. Last month was Jule's and I wintry(30's, snow/sleet/rain/fog) hike at Sunrise.
Today, well I'll leave the decision to Ryan, Either Baker area or Camp Muir.
* Turns all year are fanatical skiers and boarders that make a goal to ride every month. No matter how much hiking or how bad the snow. Some guys are over 180 months. They post at turns-all-year.com and maintain some of the best NW Mountain weather links compiled.