Tuesday, February 16, 2010

We’ve been keeping ourselves busy in February.

I’m in Australia this week. Melbourne right now and I am leaving for Brisbane in a bit.
The last week in January I did a trip to Hemer, Germany. It was 50 hours, from Wallingford to Hemer and back to Wallingford. We had to drive 3 hours each way in Germany from the Frankfurt airport to Hemer. It snowed like crazy the entire way, but the traffic moved briskly the entire time. That was fun.

The Sunday after I got back I skied the Slot Couloir at Snoqualmie with some friends. That is an amazing couloir, especially the fact that one can be standing at the top of it after only 1 hour of driving and 3 hours of climbing.

Heather and I have some ambitious ski mountaineering goals for this spring. So we have started an 8 week training program using this book. It is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.
Last weekend we practiced skinning and doing kick turns at Hyak. Formally a ski resort but now a clear-cut and empty parking lot for backcountry skiers. We were going to return last Saturday, but we figured doing a run in the rain in West Seattle would be more fun than skinning in the rain.