K-9 Uphill

On Sunday, I took a much-needed break from the relentless tax work I've been dealing with to join the rest of my family for the K-9 Uphill Race at Buttermilk mountain. Buttermilk closed last weekend, which left the mountain free for 200 and some odd owners and their dogs to hike, frolic, and poop where they may (the dogs, not the owners).

Here's Lauren, getting Maci ready to roll. Maci has probably summited Buttermilk over 20 times this winter, so she didn't have much in the way of nerves to deal with prior to the race start. She knew the course well, was adequately hydrated, and her resting heart rate of late has shown that she was fit, strong and tapered for race day.

Some joker thought it would be funny to sneak a horse into the race. Wait....what? A dog? Really?

Mommy and puppy at the starting line. Maci relieved to have avoided being selected for random pre-race drug testing.

As the gun goes off, Lauren and Maci sprint to the front of the pack. I, on my skis, languish 50 yards behind. The look of disgust on my wife's face as she peered back to check on me was one I won't soon forget.

Lauren getting pulled uphill by Maci, who is, uh, "checking out the competition."

In the deeper snow, Daddy takes over and leads his puppy through the steeper section of the climb.

After I gave Maci back to Lauren, a rather large and unleashed Burmese mountain dog decided to walk over, draw a deep breath, and promptly go to sleep on my ski tips. It took us a couple of minutes of cajoling to get Otis moving again.

At the top. Unfortunately, Lauren's old war injury starting acting up late in the climb, and we were barely edged off the podium by 200 or so of the 22o competitors. Maci was so embarassed by Lauren's effort she couldn't even bring herself to look at her.

At the finish line, Maci finally got to make the acquaintence of the freakishly large Great Dane. Here she is, cowering like a Frenchman.

Once at the top, Maci and I ditched Lauren like yesterday's newspaper in order to ski down. Here's an idea of just how much snow remains on April 13th of Aspen's greatest ski season on record.
Back at home, we rewarded Maci for her efforts by letting her pick a treat of her choice from the pet store. Click on the picture if you can't read the letters.

24 Hours of Sunlight: Update 3

Alright...camera is busted. Don't know why but I'm not happy. I am happy about potentially being half way done my obligation for the day however. Four laps down, four to go. With the exception of the first lap, where I got way too excited, I've been pretty steady and feel like I have four more just like it left in me. But who knows.

The team is surpassing all expectations, currently in line for a podium finish in the Mens Senior Category and a top-1o overall finish. But again, ANYTHING can go wrong seeing as though we're only seven hours into this thing.

My next two shifts will be at roughly 11PM and 12:40AM. Ouch.

24 Hours of Sunlight: Update #2

That's me in the middle. The one with the qualtity hind quarters.

Time: 12:48.

We're two laps in. I went out WAAAAY too fast and clicked off a 37:35, and Nick came through clutch with a strong 41:46. Right now we're sitting in 11th place overall, but more importantly, we're coming through with good times, and if we keep that up, the rest just takes care of itself. The climb is pretty mellow, easier than some of the local climbs we train on. The descent, on the other hand, is a bit hairy. Fast and steep in parts, with 300+ racers on it, it will be an ice rink by about 9 PM.

Todd is out there now. In the meantime, I need to get my boots dry, skins dry, body dry, and refuel. Next lap coming up in an hour or so.

24 Hours of Sunlight: Post 1

Time: 9:10 MST

Just arrived at our B&B, and it is PLUSH. Fireplace, two bedrooms, heart-shaped hot tub*, the works. But most importantly.....WIFI. So I will do my absolute best to live-blog from the race when I'm not out climbing or descending. Here are a few pics of our posh pad.

That's Nick. He's a key part of the squad, and he's been sick as a dog all week, so he's got a tough task ahead of him. We're still waiting on our other two guys. We've got 1 hour until the race meeting, then I'll be starting my climb at 11:00 sharp, so I'll get back to everyone soon after!

Wish us luck!

* May not be true

Silverton Trip Report

So I wrangled up seven other guys from Aspen to make the five hour trek to Southwest Colorado in order to ski the lift-accessed backcountry terrain of Silverton Mountain. Skiing Silverton is as close as most of us will ever get to skiing the big lines of Alaska, and it's always worth the trip.

We shot down on Saturday after work and pulled into town soon after six. When I tell you that this photo captures all of downtown Silverton, I'm not kidding. The town is literally five blocks long. Five blocks of stunning beauty, but five blocks nevertheless. That is NOT the ski resort in the background.

The architecture on Main Street has remained untouched for about a century or so. The main bar in town still has bullet holes in the walls.

Sunday morning, it was up at seven and at the "resort" by eight. This is the base village. Seriously. It's a yurt where you sign in, prove you have avalanche gear, and sign numerous release forms absolving the resort from blame should you go out and get yourself killed.

There is one lift at Silverton, and really all that does is save you a two hour hike. There really is no skiing under the lift. Instead, the lift grants you access to a ridge, which grants you access to acre after acre of unbelievable hike-to skiing. There really is no other place like it in the U.S. This time of year, all skiing at Silverton is guided, so you basically go where the guide recommends. On this day, our goal was this large couloir in the middle of this photo, aptly named the "Grande."

In order to gain access to the Grande, we had to hike to the high point along the ridge, to an elevation of roughly 13,000 feet. Here is just one of the dozens of breath-taking photos I shot from the top on a typical bluebird Colorado morning.

From the top of the ridge, we had to ski down about 1,000 feet, then traverse over to the bottom of the Grande, before beginning the long and arduous boot up the couloir. This was the line we dropped into to access the traverse. Snow was nice but variable. If you loook in the middle-left of the photo, you'll see the precipice of a cliff band. The other side of that cliff drops over 100 feet straight down. Don't want to catch an edge up here!

Once beyond the cliff, we traversed over to the start of the 2,000 foot climb up the Grande, strapped our skis to our packs, and started the long, slow boot up the shin-deep snow. About 500 yards from the top, I turned around to shoot this pic of the guys behind me. Sorry about the quality, but my camera was in my chest pocket and the lens got some condensation build up.

From the top of the Grande, at roughly 12,700 feet, the view down the line we would be skiing. Relatively steep at 42-45 degrees, but not as steep as some of the bigger lines we skied locally here in Aspen last spring and will be skiing again soon in a couple of months.

Finished up around 2:30. Looking back at the Grande. Green line is our ascent route, red line the descent. Snow was a mix of powder and breakable crust, not the greatest skiing in the world.
At the end of the day, though, a trip to Silverton is usually more about the experience than the snow qualify, and this one was no different. Good buddies, great skiing, amazing views. I'm already looking forward to next year!

Hello??? Is Anybody Out There?

Slacking on the updates. It's been an epic winter, and with the snow finally relenting for the past few days, I thought I'd get everyone up to speed.

I've spent far too much time in ski boots this year, and my poor feet have bore the brunt of all this playing. They're more or less destroyed. Doctor's advice: they'll heal over the summer. Thanks doc!

Last weekend, me and seven other Aspen locals took the five hour trek to Silverton Mountain for some quasi-Alaska big mountain skiing. I'll post a trip report in a separate blog entry.

Lauren has been doing quite a bit of skiing as well, and is really starting to improve. She did her first black diamond yesterday, though it may have emotionally scarred her for life. We'll see how she rebounds.

Maci is having a blast in all this snow, and celebrated her 1st birthday on February 11th by sharing a big steak with her daddy. Good times.

Aspen Update

Snow -- an abundance of snow -- has been the theme here this winter. One hundred and nineteen inches of the good stuff fell in December alone, accounting for over one-third of the typical annual snowfall for Aspen in less than 30 days. Since January 1st, we've seen another 60 inches, so winter hasn't exactly slowed down. In your face Al Gore!

The wife and I set out to make some turns on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Here's Lauren showing exceptional form, as always. This day would see her graduating from green circles to blue squares, a big step up in ski parlance. If she continues improving at this rate, we'll soon be moving on to the black diamonds, yellow moons, and purple horseshoes.

A Maci update. Here she is learning to share with my buddy's dog, Kya.

No real news on my end. With an epic winter, it's pretty much been working or skiing for me. With time as valuable as it is, I've done everything in my power to minimize wasted motion. Hence the fine looking contraption you see hear, which allows me to cruise the three blocks to the gondola in relative comfort and speed. So on my lunch break I can do this...

Just another day in Aspen. In some seasons, days like this would be a once-a-season luxury. This year, I can honestly say I've had 8-10 days like this or better.

Of course, early in the AM I still make time to take the puppy skiing. Here she is working her way up Buttermilk one fine, fine morning.

And here she is hauling ass on the way down. Looks fun, doesn't it?

Another glory shot of Lauren. Cutest thing on the mountain, she is.

On Saturday, I was up at 6:30 so I could climb the full 4,000 vertical feet of Aspen Highlands before it openened. After skiing down, I shot over to Buttermilk and met Lauren. We skied for a couple of hours, and by the time we got home, it was nearly 4:00 and Maci, as you might imagine, was a bit excited to get out and play....