Ski Bum Grins

      "Damn! Why now?" No sooner did these words come out of my mouth as I watch my ipod go dead from a low battery. I keep questioning myself as why this day had to be the day my trusted companion gave out on me. The mountain had gotten 13 inches of freshies, and the snow was still coming down hard. How could I enjoy the pow without Bob Marley, Wolfmother, or Sweatshop Union keeping the rhythm going? My friend looked over the car roof with amusement as I stared at the black screen. I dreaded the thought of not having my music all day long. A casual glance around the parking lot showed several others with white headphones drooping out of their hats and helmets, all jamming to whatever is on shuffle. A sour start to the day.
      With the line being long, my friend suggests we take the singles lane. Being separated by a couple of chairs is a small price to pay on a pow day. I slide in with a trio of older guys, and quietly get on the chairlift next to them. Slipping my mirrored goggles on, I casually glance at the three men. All of them wear standard ski clothes bearing mellow black, green and grey colors. In comparison I look like a character out of a Dr. Suess book with my brightly colored Jacket and pants. Wanting to see what skis they ride, my eyes are met by an arrangement of 80's edition Rossingols and K2 skis. Each one bears unique damage to it, evidence of the long days and many seasons it has enjoyed with it's master. Chunks of P-tex are missing in random place, areas of paint are starting to chip, the sidecut have a---
     "Them beuties ain't they?" Snapping out of my trance I am greeted with a bearded face and a open smile absent of a tooth or two. I notice glasses behing the scott goggles on his face.
      "Yeah, pretty rad. How long have you had those?"
      "Since '89. These babies have helped take me fr'm Colorado to Europe. Havent giv'n up on me yet!"The conversation carries on as we fly above Ptarmigan bowl. Jokes are exchanged complete with laughter you swear would be out of a Clayton Moore western movie. A story is told with the involment of buddies, interrupted on to give an occasional whoop and hollar at someone shredding under the lift. I quickly bring up the question;
    "So where have you guys been skiing today?"
    "Try Langley or Elkweed, they always still have good snow at this time of day. Com'on, we'll show yeh!"
    Off of the lift, I am led off trail through slots and narrow trees to a home-cut powder field. Funny i've skied by here a thousand times and never thought of going through there. A few high fives are exchanged and we push off down the slope. The powder is unbelievable. My ears bear witness to a thousand snowflakes flying overhead coupled with the sound of hollers from the trio and the sound of carving skis through snow. While I swerve around a group of trees to avoid wrecking, all three thread the needle into the cluster and emerge a few turns ahead of me. Showing off, I throw a butter 1 on a pillow into soft snow, but curses I am upstaged again! One of the friends throws a massive spread eagle over a lip, and whizzes past me. Try as I may, I cannot keep up with them, and I find myself falling behind. How could I have missed this area? I keep thinking. Exhausted, I stop to catch my breath and give my burning thighs a rest. Staring in defeat, I wave a friendly good bye at the three skiers who keep pushing on down the slope.
     As the panting subsides, I hear silence. No music or ipods, just the sound of snow falling upon the ground. My back makes an unusual sounding pop altered by the cold. The sound of the slow breeze is momentarily interrupted by a faint holler trough the trees. I think of the scraggly beard and hand-knit sherpa hat on his head. Glancing back I see where I had come from, by a rowdy group of skiers only a short while ago I was afraid to look at. My conscience thanks the pitfall of electronics. Having had my ipod with me, I would never have talked to the trio, or found out about this place. The snow keeps on falling. Down below me lies the rest of the open slope, eventually being swallowed by the the trees. Somewhere below that lies the cat trail, and my way back to the lift. For now I just listen to the silence around me. The snow falls harder now, the storm is moving in and the forecast is calling for another foot.  That will be later, for now I stand knee deep in snow.
I am alone.
  

The S-Jenk

And here comes winter

The weekend ended up with me being stuck in the church parking lot, a foot of snow on my car with ice on the windshield, trying to tackle clearing the windshields before too much new snow accumulated on the windshields.Oh, and thanks to the unsightly humor of the snow plow guy, I had to figure a way to break through close to 2 feet of snow surrounding my car like a medieval fortress. The whole time my mind was thinking about a lost weekend of skiing to serve, the reason behind this snowfall, and the possibility of taking Monday off to ski.

But lets step back a little to friday morning....

Waking up that morning to a fresh dusting seemed a surprise to me at the time."That's odd, the snow wasn't supposed to hit yet."Soon enough, I ran upstairs to check the NOAA forecast. The wether had begun to turn in our favor even more. Originally the weather was going to go one way or another: either warmer temperatures and heavier snowfall, or colder temperatures with lighter snowfall. Mother Nature gave up the perfect medium, an Occulted front. An Occulted front is when you have the collision of a high and low pressure front over land.

With an occultation, the cold air mass will dig underneath the warm air mass, forcing it upwards. The forcing of the moisture upwards will cause high amounts of precipitation for the area, and in the case of a cold occulted front, the cold temperatures will mean snow. Lots and lots of snow. 

These weather anomalies are the cause behind the massive dumps in California, and the Sierra Nevadas.
Normally the southwest mountains are warmer and have much more moisture. Often it takes a cold front to hit the region right before a storm system arrives, so they can have their epic conditions. A week ago a colder storm system had hit the region, and some ski areas received as much as 40 inches of snow! The storm also caused snow in much of arizona, nevada, and the midwest. Now it is our turn. The only backlash to an occulted front is the possibility of warmer temperatures. That may become a possibility for later this week, but, knock on wood we've made it good so far. Keep on Praying for snow!

Looks like God has been gracious with this snow. Let's hope the cold weather holds!

The S-Jenk

12 months of winter

After 12 months of working, determination, hiking, and of course support and help by friends and family. I finally accomplished my year long goal: Skiing every month out of the year. How, you ask, are you still able to still ski when the lifts are shut down? We are fortunate enough to live an area where (some) snow decides to stick around for the year. I of course, am talking about Jewel Basin, Big Mountain, The Great Bear Wilderness, and Glacier National Park. The year started off with skiing at the Big for three months, up to the end of march. Even after the lifts closed in april, you could still skin up to the summit for some post-season turns. Once the snow started disappearing around late april, I turned to the Skiuma and Rescue creek basins just south of Nyaak, where winter still sticks. In June I hiked up Jewel to keep it going. For three months it was skiing at logan pass, and was to be for september, until we got screwed by snowy roads. Ironic eh? A last ditch effort ended in a sneaky trip up to Jewel where a long hike to picnic notch held a strip of drift snow clinging for dear life. From there Jewel began to get snow again, and enough snow to ski. Two months of jewel kept the streak running. On December 5th, my goal was reached where it began: back at Big Mountain.

Of course you need some sort of proof.

 

           

Pray for Snow!

The S-Jenk