Neff'n but a good time

[Atop Mt. Dan. Oh Yeah!]

Sitting here watching the Storm Of The Century swirl around my downtown window and having a bit of trouble focusing on work. Snow goes left, snow goes right, snow goes up (?), snow goes down - well it sort of goes down. Good. After boarding moguls in the backcountry yesterday (Sunday) in crappy weather before bailing and heading home, I'd be pleased to have any of this spinning snow cyclone actually land.

My thoughts are on two things:
1. Will I be able to get the Prius home in this snow? (no) And
2. A WAY SWEET day skiing in Neffs Canyon on Saturday.

[A classic shot of the backside of Mt. Olympus and the sprawled valley of The SLC taken from the (apparently) unnamed (now Mt. Dan - Oh Yeah!) peak at the very back of Neffs. The Oquirrh Range can be seen in the far distance - and in the middle there? No, it can't be... but it is! It's Mt. Dan - Oh Yeah!]

You are saying to yourself: "Self, didn't this guy - this AMAZING guy - didn't he just barely ski in Neffs last Sunday?" Well listen here, Self - if that is your real name - I'm not gonna take any more of your guff! I have all the guff I need as it is (in the handle-pits of the car doors)! I will ski Neffs two weekends in a row because that's what I'm gonna do! You can cram your guff where the sun don't shine! Besides, this time we skied all over the place in Neffs and then dropped out the bottom to the car. And that's Totally Different.

[The Final Push. One of several final pushes actually. This time: Summit Fever: Mt. Dan Style - Oh Yeah!]

[A glance back at our beleaguered troops.]


[Earth To Scott! ...Helloooo? ...Trying to take a picture here, dipshit...]


[If you prick Evan with your avalanche probe, does he not bleed?]


It's that same damn guy again! Stop smiling at me!!!


[Even more fun than it looks. :)]





9 Miles, 6300 Vertical Feet. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it! Oh Yeah!

There's more where that came from! Oh Yeah!

Milkshake Explained

Ok, so it turns out I have completely unplugged-from-pop-culture friends. I posted a great picture of [name omitted] in full-on voluptuous profile and included a reference to Milkshake by Kelis. You know (or probably don't) - My Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard... etc. That song is from like 2003 or something. Anyway, my post gets a rather subdued response. ...Crickets... I, however was rolling when I posted it. Nothing. Oh well. But today I'm skiing with [name omitted] again, and she tells me she saw her picture on the blob, along with - ready for this? - "that nice poem" (!) WHAT!? I am dumbstruck. But then - this is great too - Matt also would like to understand the origin of my clever verse(!) And EVERYONE else I've spoken with since is just as clueless! Holy Hell! Looks like I'm going to have to tailor more carefully my Gazongas references from now on.

Here's some reference material. Educate yourself:

Wikipedia: Kelis Milkshake

Music Video (YouTube): Kelis Milkshake

Where The Down Boys Go

Where do the Down Boys go?



The Down Boys go DOWN on the Shoreline.



In Dry Creek.



With the Elks.



Till the sun goes down.



And the Rock Stars come out.



Not to mention The Mighty, and The Strong.

westporterneffsthayne

This was a good day. All new to me, never been up West Porter, not yet dropped into Neffs, Thayne completely unknown. Some serious shit up there.

More pics, if you please. More pics, if you don't please.

From my *private* collection

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,
And they're like
It's better than yours,
Damn right it's better than yours,
I can teach you,
But I have to charge


(Love you much, of course.)

Again with the skiing!

These weekend ski barrages leave me scrambling to keep up with the pictures and the blobs.

Take this weekend for example: First Bart and I spent some quality time getting to know one another on Saturday up in Maybird. I was all like "Bart, let's ski that sweet chute in Maybird after checking out the Pfeifferhorn!" and Bart was all like "Don't have a cow, Man!" and I was all like "Dude that's sooooo original and I've never heard that one before" and then we skied the sweet chute and he's like "Cowabunga!" and so was I.

Later, Bart found a Teepee (for real) in Red Pine. He was all like "How, White Man. Come smokem peace pipe and shreddem gnar slope. Tatanka."

You want more pictures? You can't handle more pictures! (But you can try by clicking here)

Cardiff To Mineral

We marched our ski-touring army up Cardiff Fork. We drove ourselves up the Western Walls of Montreal Hill. Traversed the ridgeline. Invaded Mineral Fork's George's Backside Gorge! Unstoppable up the Great East-Facing Monolith of Mineral's Unnamed Death Slope! Past unknown horrors lying hidden in the lair of the elusive and unphotographed Snow Hare! Not... one... more... step. Uncontrollable raging mad-tastic descent! Deep breathing. Tarzan beating. Again! Too much too soon. Agony. Enervating unending assault up up and up again! Fading fast. Topping out. Done - downtime. Onward! To The Mouth Of Mineral! Banshees! War is hell.

(Montreal Hill it turns out, to settle debate, is the official name of the small nodule in the middle of Cardiff - we skied above it.)

See some pictures why don't cha! (link to gallery - FYI.)

Skied at Alta on Sunday - wahoo, what a time!

LOST in Powder Park

Out for a quick pre-work lap on Short Swing this morning with De Fur Man and ol' Splitty.

Decided against quick pre-work lap on Short Swing and opted instead for six hours of trail-breaking in a foot and half of new snow. That was ol' Fur Man's idea.

Happily broke trail past the Short Swing turnoff (which everyone else on the planet was taking) and headed toward Powder Park One. I know where Powder Park One is - in the sense that I know of it, and have some reason to believe it exists. Dave however knows where it is, so no problem. Blizzard conditions abound, we are undeterred, unthwarted. Snow Leopards and The Arctic Fox match our gate, I'm sure.

DFM has us hellbound. I am uncomforted by his wanderings, meanderings, murmurings, and the not-so-rare "Where the fuck?..." self-mumbles from his direction. I have fear. Dave would go all Donner Party on you at the drop of a hat. That's his style - ask forgiveness over asking permission - to eat you. But I will not go down without a fight. I concentrate on excreting toxins for a little while, but have no real idea how. Damn you, Amazon frogs! I scrunch my face up horribly - certainly I must appear unpalatable. He's hanging back and watching me with apparent reserve. Haha! I got my eye on you DFM!


Here we see Dave enjoying himself in the snow!


Self-portrait (note the rock-hard abs!)


Ah! The sun came out for a minute later in the day!

Snow Patrol

Rots and rots o skiing this weekend. Elevated avalanche conditions pushed us into low angle trees on Saturday: Little Water, BCC/Millcreek. No matter: there be piles and piles of fast new snow. In the afternoon, the raging storm let up and we had some really nice weather. The five of us: Matt, Paul, Evan, and Mandy kept up a pretty good pace and managed to get in 6 long runs for a days total of 11.5 miles and nearly 7000 ft of climbing in a quick 8 hour jaunt. My heart nearly failed on the last climb, but everyone else was in impressive marathon form.





On Sunday, after some confusion about the days activities, Paul headed again to the backcountry with some of his other, better friends, and Matt and Martha and I went up to Alta to have a resort day with John and Sandy. I had a blast up there, and I think (hope) it was a day well spent for reminding/teaching me how to actually ski. Paul claims he had fun, but clearly he couldn't have had as much fun as we. He heads back to Idaho today, but I hope we'll see him when we make our Canada Ski trip in the next few months.

Soldiering

Eric and I went out on New Year's Day to play in the Treehouse, skiing canyon-to-canyon. Heidi Beth informs me that declaring things a "Hoot" is one of my obnoxious habits. (My only one.) This expedition was not, then, a "Hoot". What the hell is a "Hoot"? From owls? The only other noise I can think that an owl must make is a retching sound as they hack up hairbone "pellets". Yum. So what then, our snow-day was a pellet retch? Sure it was.

Saturday I skied with Paul, Dave, Scott, Gordon, Pete, Sheldon, Jane, and Tim. We climbed up on the nose of the west side of White Pine - west of Scotty's bowl. We skied in Scotties, upper Scotties (Columbine?), and the west wall of White Pine. Great. Retch.

Sunday the avy danger was rated pretty high, but Paul and I decided against the more conservative Little Water option and hiked into Red Pine with Bart. We were flying a little blind since Paul and I had only been there once before each, the high winds and new snow had erased much of the skintrack, and stormy weather compromised visibility. And it was butt-cold. Regardless, we had super super awesome skiing - steep trees, North-East facing. Retch Retch.