indiggio

Is it winter yet?

Tell them to install these, no more whooshing.... http://www.vortexbladeless.com/

Always think this one is pretty cool when it pops up on FB... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Let's hope so!

NOAA issues La Nina watch... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/04/14/noaa-issues-la-nina-watch-as-tropical-pacific-temperatures-tank/ Hope so after this year's fuckin' El Nino!

http://unofficialnetworks.com/2016/04/breaking-news-jay-peak-inc-busted-by-sec-as-a-ponzi-scheme

Never seemed to warm up enough for the snow to reach spring conditions. Lots of boiler and push piles made iit not uber-fun. Was fun skiing around with Blue crew, but would have enjoyed it far more if temps came up enough to soften everything up. Regardless, it's hard to beat $35 lift tickets.

Left the house around 12pm and after a stop for cayshe and gas, started the drive up. With no one but my thoughts and Sirius, the ride wasn't bad as traffic was light. Stopped at market in Rutland to pick up some groceries and continued the journey. As I approached Killington area, a light snow started falling which was pretty nice. Unfortunately it won't be anywhere near enough for tree skiing!! Had a couple of beers and now heading out to Yoshi Sushi for the pre-comp party to see what's shaking there. Tarponhead should be rolling in in a little while. Can't wait to see what conditions are like tomorrow. Sounds like there's a pretty good Blue contingency up here this weekend. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Small thermonuclear device would work well, oh wait, that wasn't until 1945... Nevermind! Far cry from 2014...

Probably with slide-rules and paper blueprints, no calculators or computers.

It is one remarkable piece of engineering. Really something to see if you get an opportunity.

I still have the hard-hat from the tour I went on where we walked through the dam itself. I believe they stopped doing that tour after 9/11.

The Hoover Dam was constructed yesterday, wow!

I thought it was Cuba?

We're vicariously living the Doug lyfe...

There's something soothing, relaxing about waxing on, waxing off.

Plumb Bob Squarepants

That's what I do, take a gummy stone to the edges to get rid of any rust. Put a heavy coat of wax on making sure to cover the edges (obviously don't scrape) and put them away.

I am now...

Couldn't sleep and fueled by multiple espressos.

3/25/16 Alta Received word that mbike-ski, MrsSnowBunSki and son were coming out to Alta today, so the plan was to ski with them and try to show them what little I know about the mountain. Got down to the Collins lift and saw mbike walking up. A light snow was falling and the clouds were pretty low which were obscuring all the peaks. MrsSnowBunSki was meeting a friend, so it was just the men for the morning. After a quick piss stop, we rode the Collins up. Pretty much everything was white on the ride up. You couldn't see Superior, Baldy or the High Traverse ridge. Decided to make a bee-line out to the Supreme lift area to check it out. We lapped the Supreme all morning, heading down a little tree chutes that had plent of wind blown drifts. Made our way out to Tarponhead labelled Elephant's Butt Crack rock and too the obligatory pictures. On one of the rides up Supreme, the clouds broke out over Catharine's, so we decided to make the trek up. After the short climb, we headed out to the boundary line to find some totally untouched snow out in Snowshoe Hill area. The run was well worth the hike. After breaking for lunch, mbike decided to ski with Mrs, so I was to try to keep up with the teens. Oi! Looked up again at High Traverse, but it was still socked in, so we rode up the Wildcat to check it out. The kids found lots of interesting features off the Wildcat and wanted to return. However the clouds finally lifted enough on High Traverse, so we decided to hit it and return to Wildcat later. Off the traverse, we turned back and went down Gunsight, across Greely and up over the hill and found big piles of freshly deposited snow in the North Rustler, High Nowhere and Eagle's Nest trees. We lapped this a few times and headed back to Wildcat. Back off Wildcat, the kids were hitting jumps galore and amped me up enough to do some cliff hucking. There were some wild kids throwing double backflips off a huge kicker which was crazy to watch. We lapped Wildcat until close and came down to see mbike coming out of the Goldminer's Daughter. We headed in for a beer to see Mrs & her friend and all agreed that it was one awesome day at Alta. At the Crack... Tree jumping... Goodbye Alta...

At the summit, down the canyon to Salt Lake... Bottom of Adager with heli in upper left... Down Upper Silver Fox... Through the tunnel...

3/24/16 Snowbird. On the advice of the guide we had, he suggested doing Snowbird on a sunny, well lighted day. Since they were calling for snow Friday and only partly cloudy today, this would be the day to go. Stopped at Collins ticket window and got our add-on for $33 each and waited for opening. Funny how Alta has its regulars who are first in line and save spots for their cohorts who just jump in when they arrive. Crowds were nowhere near as big as yesterday's pow day so we got 4th chair. We made our way up and dropped into Mineral Basin which was mostly chowder and a little firm which didn't make for a whole lot of fun. We rode up the Mineral Basin lift to the summit where the winds were howling. We made a quick descent to get out of the wind and get out bearings. On Tarponhead's suggestion, we looked to head down Road to Provo, but it was closed. As we looked, two patrollers with large backpacks were headed under the rope to most likely charge the area. Not really knowing where to go, we headed down Regulator and such down to the base, deciding to do the obligatory tram ride. Having missed the proper catwalk while high-speed cruising, we were forced to take the Wilbere lift back up a bit to catch it. We packed into the tram like sardines and rode up. Luckily we were near last to get in so we were right at the door to depart. We agreed one ride in the tram was enough. I had read about the runs off Gad 2 chair so we made our way there. We ended up lapping this chair a few times, as we found Gadzooks, STH, Bananas and the trees around there to be quite fun. There was still some decent snow to be found in the trees. We made our way to Mid-Gad for a bite to eat and decided to head over to the Peruvian lift area for the remainder of the day, as that would be our way out eventually anyway. Since it was semi-blue bird, the Powderbird helicopters were flying nonstop out of the base. A few times it seemed like we were in an Apocolypse Now scene as they would cruise down the valleys and pull up at the last moment to bleed off speed and attract attention. We lapped various runs off the Peruvian lift, none of which really standing out, but all of them fun. At this point it was around 3pm and the Baldy lift in Mineral Basin stops at 3:30pm, so we did the other obligatory thing to do at Snowbird: Ride the tunnel. With snow in the forecast, clouds were moving in and the light was bad flat, so we headed down and called it. Last stop, hot tub and beer! I know there's a ton of terrain we missed at Sniwbird, so we'll just have to save that for another trip. Regardless, we had a fun little excursion and would definitely head over again.

Heading to Gunsight with guide... Clouds rolling in... Checking out the cliffs... End of probably the best ski trip day so far...

3/23/16 First day of skiing we were met with 11" or so that fell overnight and still snowing during the day. This is going to be awesome! Since my son is graduating high school and his birthday is coming up, this trip is his and in addition I got us a guide for the first 3 hours of our day. Having someone who know the mountain like the back of his hand, especially on a powder day, is priceless. Not to mention we get to skip right to the front of the lift lines, avoiding the massive crowd that has shown up for the storm. While standing in line, avi guns are going off continuously throughout the canyon. Pretty much all of the best places are closed due to the danger and even delayed the lift opening 10 or so minutes. Ridng up Collins, the winds were pretty strong and the face is all wind-blown crud. Guide said we weren't going to bother with that. Took a warm up run to get some powder legs on down Spring Valley and got some pointers on how to ski powder, but I told the guide we get chest deep blower back at Blue all the time and I didn't need no stinkin' instructions! Since the winds were blowing hard from the West, the best snow would be on the other side of the ridge, so off to High Traverse we headed. We lapped Greely Bowl and up over Greely Hill to North Rustler and High Nowhere. Yes, all the powder was over here, from knee to hip deep. Decided to change it up a bit by pulling a U-turn and lapping Gunsight a few runs for some steeper terrain. We then headed over to Sugarloaf lift and lapped Razor Back, Amen, Extrovert and Chartreuse. It was time to say goodbye to the guide, so we headed back to the Peruvian for the lunch spread them headed back out for the afternoon session. We rode up the Collins and were met with very low clouds rolling in with falling snow. Taking the traverse was a mistake as it was white out and had a difficult time following it at all. We made our way down Sunspot and decided to try Wildcat instead. Top of wildcat was also socked in, but we were able to head down int the trees for some contrast. Checked out a tempting cliff to huck, but with no run-out, decided not to chance it. On one run down, we met up with another family out from Blue, so we skied a few laps off Collins and Wildcat with them. While skiing with them, we ran into another group of race people also out from Blue and did a run with them. Crazy! Last run of the day, we headed down and into Goldminer's Daughter for beers. They kicked us out of the lower bar and we called it a day. 11" overnight and another 7" during the day made for some very weary legs.