[+] …of 2008! After several warm sunny days, the snowpack has settled a little, and I finally got out into the backcountry for the first time this season. Here’s Jeff Skoloda hauling some ass through the firm powder.
Have a fun News Years Eve! See you next year.
[+] On my way home today from Midway, Utah (near Park City), I made a detour from Moab and drove up to the Island in the Sky, in Canyonlands National Park. There was still lots of snow on the ground, even two days after the Christmas dump, and the roads up there were sheets of ice! After a slippery drive to the Grandview Point overlook, I donned my down jacket and snowboard boots, and hiked a mile along the rim to take photos of the evening light and sunset.
More photos below.
Merry Christmas from a very snowy Midway, Utah, where it has been dumping snow nonstop. Tomorrow should be a great powder day!
[+] Colorado’s avalanche danger has been high recently, due to a rotten lower snowpack topped by the recent snowfalls of the last few weeks. Today at Silverton Mountain, I snapped this photo of a good sized avalanche crown, most likely triggered by the ski patrol’s bombs. The largest part of the crown here is probably about 5 feet deep, in an obviously wind-loaded part of the slope (roped off of course).
The tender snowpack has drastically curtailed our backcountry possibilities. While last year at this time a thick, stable snowpack had everybody skiing huge lines all over the place, this season hardly anybody has been going out, and the mountains remain mostly unskiied while we wait patiently for more snow and hopefully a thicker, more cohesive snowpack.
I got my first powder day of the season on Sunday at Silverton Mountain. Supposedly 20 inches fresh, though it was blown around so much that some ridges had less, some gullies had more. Not much terrain was open yet, but it’s supposed to snow all week. We’ll be back soon.
Somehow I’ve managed to sort through over 3200 photos in less than a week since I’ve been back! I’ve posted my favorite photos from my New Zealand trip on my gallery site… check it out!
The first few days back in Colorado I was whupped by the altitude and jetlag, or some nasty combination of the two. I’ve never really felt affected by the altitude before, but this time it nailed me good. Anyhow, during those days I just rested and made some good progress on my photos. Since then I’ve spent some really late nights plowing through them. Funny how it’s nearly impossible to resist this… it’s almost as fun as taking the photos!
Anyhow, enjoy the photos.
After a seemingly endless series of flights, followed by a harrowing late-night drive through a blizzard, I have made it back home to Ouray! Thus ends my 7 week adventure in New Zealand. I woke up today to waist deep snow… oh yeah. Gotta love coming home to a place that is just as beautiful as any other place you could vacation to in the world.
It’s a bit daunting to try to ease back into the swing of things here. Heaps of emails, phone messages, print orders, and web projects to get moving on. And last but not least, 3200 images from New Zealand to go through! Where to begin??? I’ll probably start posting a few new photos on my gallery site every day or so, and I’ll hopefully be able to launch a complete New Zealand gallery page within the month.
And of course, with all this new snow, I hope to be making some turns soon. Glad to be back!
Over the last four days I’ve been hiking the Milford Track, perhaps the most famous of New Zealand’s Great Walks. This walk belongs in its own class of Awesome, and all the other “Great Walks” I’ve been on should be renamed merely “Good Walks” in comparison. This is truly a world class hike!
The Milford Track starts from an arm of Lake Te Anau and heads up a long valley into the heart of the Fiordland mountains. The peaks rise up incredibly steeply from the forested valley below, and huge waterfalls pour off from the sheer rocky faces on all sides, one after the other. I’ve never seen so many waterfalls in an alpine setting… it is a true fantasyland.
