Mini-Medical School

I am happy, mini-medical school starts in about 40 minutes. I am here at Coffman Union at the U and I am patiently waiting for "class" to start. Mini-med school is a 6 week lecture coarse put on by the University of Minnesota Medical School. It is put on twice a year fall and spring. This is my 3rd time and I love it, it is really interesting and very well done. The topic of this series of lecture is Healthy Kids, Healthy Communties, it should be interesting.

Snow is gone.... Boooooo. Oh well bring on biking I guess.

snow is gone

The snow disappeared in record time. Wow it is gone. I am mourning the death of Minnesota ski season, a few of the hills are still open but there is no way that the remaining snow is any good at all...

I am a little bummed. Oh well I am actually looking forward to biking this spring and summer so that will be fun when that gets rolling.

But for now, I already miss the snow.

Still Raining

I can't believe it, but it has been raining here pretty steadily for 6 days. Ugh... The snow is pretty gone which is a huge bummer. Ski season ended in a huge hurry which really sucks. Seems like I hardly got out this year.

In other news Twins season is right around the corner. Sweet! Our season tickets came in the mail the other day. So we are ready to go. I am really looking forward to the new season in the new park. We got tickets for the open house next Sunday so that will be awesome. We are looking forward to baseball season to get going.

Wow what a blah day...

Melting

Sadly thr Minnesota ski season is quickly fading. The snow is melting really fast due to some unseasonly warm weather and rain. Bummer, is all I have to say. I guess skiing just wasn't to be this season. I got out a lot but, not as much as I wanted. My trip was awesome so I am glad to have those memories to carry me into the spring and summer...

Not much else going on, I am thinking it is going to be a quiet uneventful spring.

We are starting to think about our summer trip, which is beginning to look like it will be awesome. More on that later.

Last Days

Well, the last few days in Big Sky were awesome. Wednesday was a short day of skiing. Due to my broken windshield we had to make it back to Bozeman to have it fixed. We skied at Moonlight Basin for about 3 hours. We did a few of our favorite runs and just took it easy and enjoyed just being there. It was really nice. After that we left and headed to Bozeman for my appointment at the windshield place. We got the car there at about 230 and they got it right in, told us it would take about 2.5 hours to complete. We walked down main street while my car was being repaired and looked in the shops and had a pizza at McKenzie River. Even though it sucked to have a broken windshield it was nice to take a break from skiing and get back to Bozeman for the day. We headed back to the shop and found that my car was done, everything looked great and we headed back to our hotel in Big Sky. We got back got to our room had some snacks and that is when it started to snow. We spent the rest of the evening watching the large fluffy flakes coming down and thinking that our last ski was going to be awesome.

Thursday we got up to about 4 inches of new snow at the base, which meant much more higher on the mountain. We headed to the lifts and headed straight to the bowl. Yup, it was perfect, finally Montana powder in all of its glory. So nice and soft. It was awesome, craving turns in that perfect snow always brings a smile to my face. We lapped the bowl a couple times. It was heavenly. I really wanted to head up the tram, but the line was the longest I have ever seen and I over heard someone say that the line was about an hour wait. Melissa and I decided that we did not want to piss away that much skiing time so we passed and continued on skiing untracked powder the rest of the morning. We skied fresh lines on Gun Mount which is a new run for us this year. Lots of fun. When it got to be about lunch time, I told Melissa before lunch I wanted to ski the Country Club off of Challenger Lift, so said OK and she said that she was going to pass, she wasn't feeling it for Challenger, I was bummed but better to pass on something if you don't feel comfortable with it. So I headed up alone. The ride up was amazing, so beautiful, you get a whole another vantage point of Big Sky and Moonlight Basin. It was awesome. During my ride up I was studying the run back down and picking my line. It was great, I had the whole line in my head as I got off the lift and started down. I made the traverse over to the starting area of Country Club, it was awesome and huge black diamond snow field. Lots of powder. It was such a fun run. I was so glad that I did it. It was steep but so fun. After I got down Country Club I made the entry into Freeway and made my way through what seemed like Volkswagen sized moguls! They were huge and deep with lots of good snow around them. It was so fun. The entire time I was making my way down these two runs, I kept thinking how much I loved to ski, how besides scuba diving it has got to be the most beautiful sport of all time. Being in the mountains is always just so perfect and so much fun. Anyway I exited Freeway and headed back to the base to meet Melissa, I radioed her first after getting to the bottom to tell her I made it and also to find out where she was. We met back up for lunch and talked about our day so far and enjoyed each others company.

After lunch we decided to go up to Andesite and ski Elk Park Meadows, which is a huge glade that usually holds some great snow and is mostly over looked by the skiers skiing the groomed run of Elk Park Ridge which goes right along side the glade. Anyway the glade was awesome, lots of good snow made for lots of really fun turns. We got back in the lift line and I noticed a patroller making his way back from the exit of Wardance, which is a run I was hoping to ski, but there was a sign up at the entrance that said that the coverage was a little thin, so to that point we had skipped it. We ended up riding up with the patroller and I asked him if he had skied Wardance, he said yes and told us the snow was good and soft in there. I skied Wardance last year for the first time and Melissa I think wanted to give it a try. When we got off the lift I asked her if she wanted to do it and she said yes. I was stoked. Awesome! We made our way to the entrance on headed through the gate and on to the run. the patroller was right, good snow, it was deep in spots and so far Wardance was awesome. Melissa was doing great as well. Wardance is a narrow glade that funnels into a very steep even narrower glade. Melissa is a great skier, but lately her confidence has been down a little bit on the steeper terrain, so I was glad to see her give Wardance a try. I was a little bit ahead of her and would stop every so often and make sure that she was doing OK. And try to help her down, since I could see the lines really good being a bit below her. She did awesome, she made it down and I think she had fun on the run. Wardance is probably the most technically difficult run we did all week and she slayed it. I was happy for her. After Wardance we headed back to the base and had a rest. We did a few more crusiers and finished our final ski day. Our trip was awesome. Another great week in Montana. We skied some new terrian, a new moutain and had some new experiences with the yurt dinner.

Thursday night we had a great dinner at Whiskey Jacks and reflected on our vacation and thought about the up coming drive home. We started to talk about next years ski trip and I think we decided that we would try somewhere new. Even though we love Big Sky and I mean love it, we are going to give another resort a try and right now Utah is at the top of the list.

We left bright and early Friday morning, the weather was perfect! Not a cloud in the sky. We made the 16 hour drive home. 1055 miles. It was a long but very nice drive home. No problems. We arrive safely home, we had safe skiing. The only problem we had was the broken windshield and even that turned out to be a nice destraction. I am already starting to look forward to next years ski trip, for the time we get back to the mountians, as I already miss them...

Thanks again Big Sky see you soon...

Home

After 1055 miles and 16 hours in the car we made it home at exactly midnight last night. It was a long but good drive home. I was sad to see the miles tick away as we got further and further away from Big Sky. But most importantly we had a safe vacation skiing and a safe drive home. I will recap our last ski day soon. I have a lot of stuff to put away...

Thanks Big Sky for being so fricking awesome! Once again you provided us with a great vacation, many smiles, and lots of laughs...

Big Sky Day 2

Well yesterday started with 4 warm up runs on our favorite green runs on Andesite. They turned out to be smooth and fast. It was another blue bird day here, not a cloud in the sky. The views were amazing to say the least. After our 4 warm up runs, Melissa want to take a break and have some coffee so we headed back to the base for a coffee break. Our legs are getting a little more tried then usual due to the hard conditions. We really need some snow to soften everything up... After our break we decided to give the bowl a try in hopes of finding some soft snow, especially after Monday when the wind was blowing the snow around in there all day and it was closed due to high avalanche danger. So anyway we headed up Swift Current and then up the Lone Peak triple. I was watching the a few people coming down in the bowl and it was looking good. Lots of powder flying off their turns. Finally we were at the top and made our way across Turkey Traverse and dropped in. Yup! Soft snow, awesome Montana snow, our turns were soft and creamy and it was heaven. We both had smiles on our faces the whole way down and we were finally giving our powder skis a workout. We got to the bottom and headed back up for another lap. Awesome. After that lap we headed back to the village for lunch at Whiskey Jacks. They have a great food and we had a nice lunch together. Once lunch was done we headed back up to the bowl for another go. After that run we decided to head back over to Andesite and do one last run over there for the day. We had a great day skiing, we finished the day sitting in the base area watching the last of the skiers and enjoying the really warm sunshine. It was heavenly.

Last night was our backcountry yurt dinner. We met over at the Summit hotel, checked in and boarded the snowcats for the 20 minute trip up to the yurt. You could either ride inside the cat or up on the roof. We decided not to ride in the warm comfort of the inside and climbed the ladder to the top of the cat where there were cushions and blankets waiting for us, yeah that was the right decision. Oh my god what a fricking blast. We made our way up the cat trail to the yurt. It was a perfect night, chilly but not to cold and a clear sky to see the stars. Once we arrived we went into the yurt where there was a nice hot bowl of french onion soup waiting for all of us, I think I counted about 30 people. Once inside the yurt we got our seating assignments and sat down, met our table mates and enjoyed the soup. We were sitting with some great people from Texas, a doctor and his wife, they were awesome. A lot of fun. We finished our soup and headed out and went sledding, they had a lantern lit sledding hill, Melissa and I did three runs on the sleds. It was great, we laughed the whole way down, it was so fun. And before we knew it the dinner bell rang and we returned to our table for, garlic mashed potatoes, veggies and the best beef tenderloin I seriously have ever had. Melissa went for the salmon, but I shared my steak with her and I think she was a little bummed she didn't go for the steak. Seriously you did not need a knife to cut this meat, it was tender and awesome! After dinner we enjoyed the company of our table mates, had chocolate fondue for dessert. Then sadly it was time to return. We talked our new friends from Texas to join us on the roof of the cat for the return trip, we laughed the whole way back. What an amazing experience. My god it was so fun. The dinner was awesome and it was just a cool experience. I highly recommend it if you ever come this way.

We finished the evening with a little TV and hit the rack... Another awesome day in Montana.