So

Since I don't have enough things in my life already that could cause me to break my leg, I decided to buy a skateboard. When I was "younger" I used to skate a lot maybe I should say everyday since that would be more accurate. I was a huge skater in high school and even into my early 20's. And to be completely honest I miss it. It was so fun to cruise around on a skateboard, the feeling of sidewalk surfing is just really the best. So I bought one. Skateboards have changed quite a bit since I bought my last one but I still recognized a lot of the names and remembered how to put one together, so I got it and I think it is going to be pretty sweet. I ordered it on line and it will be here on March 2nd or 3rd. I found out that Eagan has a little outdoor skate park which is about 5 miles from my house so I am going to check that out a little bit this summer. I know I can still ollie so that is good. I usually borrow one of the neighborhood kids skates once a year and see if I can still do it. I can. So I just need to get my balance back and remember the fundamentals. I think it will be fun. I like my new board and I am very interested to give it a try again.

In other news I am going skiing tonight. I am meeting my friend Bryan down at Welch right after work. Hopefully the conditions will be good. It has been warm and the snow is pretty crusty, but I am hoping for the best. It looks like we are going to get a huge storm tomorrow. They are talking 8" of freshies. Hmmm powder night at Welch? Might have too...

Also I am about 90% sure I am going to tryout for the ski patrol at Welch for next season. Welch has a try out day on Saturday March 14th. Sounds like they have a meeting and then a ski test. I suppose they just want to make sure that you can actually ski. I hate that kind of stuff. I get nervous. But I think I am going to give it a try. Would be a good way to ski for free and to both help and yell at people. Could be fun.

It is very hard being back. Melissa and I have back to back weekends at Lutsen coming up so that will be awesome. I am looking forward to getting up there. We are spending one weekend up on the mountain at a ski in ski out place and the other will be down at the Cliff Dweller, which Melissa and I both like. So after all of that skiing in Minnesota will pretty much be done, unless of course we get some more snow... I will hope for the best.

Big Sky Recap

So I am having a very hard time getting back into the swing of things here at home. We got back from Big Sky late Friday night, which I guess was good because that gave us, Saturday, Sunday and Monday to recover and mentally prepare for returning to work... Looks like I needed another couple weeks because I am back at work but my mind is still in the mountains.

Let me just say that this ski trip was the best ever. Big Sky is an amazing place and I love it there. I feel that I come alive in the mountains and that is the place that I need to be. I wish, I wish, I wish. We made it out there in one piece, the drive was long but it was easy and it seemed to go by quickly. We made it to Billings MT, the first night which was our goal, which meant we had 2 days to make it the final 170 miles to Big Sky. We got a good night sleep in Billings and headed out fairly early on Saturday morning and headed to Bozeman. We made it to Bozeman and had the day to bum around and look around the town. We browsed in the shops and had lunch downtown. Then we headed up to Bridger Bowl and looked around there. The night before they had gotten 6 inches of powder so it was cool to see all of the skiers enjoying the fresh powder. Saturday night we enjoyed dinner from the Pita Pit, which is a place that Melissa and I had the last time we were out there. Awesome food, big filling Pita sandwiches. It was great way to end the evening in Bozeman.

My goals for this trip were as follows. 1. To ski an expert run out west, I have never officially skied a double black diamond out west so that was a goal. 2. To ski Liberty Bowl, which is a run from the summit of Lone Mountain, and also the route to ski the longest run at Big Sky, which from the summit back to the base area is 6.3 miles. 3. To ski the run Wardance, which is a single black diamond mind game that has trees and avalanche fences on the run. It is a run that you can see from the road up the mountain and it is ugly looking, I told myself the last time I was out there that I would ski it the next time I was in Big Sky, so 2 years later this would hopefully be the year.

Sunday started pretty early, it was going to be our first ski day. We had breakfast and made the 39 mile drive from Bozeman to Big Sky. We decided to start the trip out with a warm up day at Moonlight Basin. Moonlight is on the north face of Lone Mountain while Big Sky the big brother is on the south face. I love Moonlight, it is just beautiful and while it wasn't snowing like I had hoped for my first day it was an amazing blue bird day. We arrived at Moonlight and once again like 2 years before found a basically empty parking lot. Unbelievable considering the weather and fact that it was a Sunday. We got ready and headed for the lifts. We jumped on Six Shooter and headed up. The views were beautiful of the mountain. Crystal clear day, not a cloud in the sky. The trees had snow on them and everything was perfect. We chose an easy cruiser for our first run. The snow was perfect, nice and soft. God I love skiing on real snow like that, it makes everything so much easier. We did some nice runs and then decided to step it up a bit. We decided to try to head into Stillwater bowl. You have to take a traverse into the bowl off of Lone Tree triple, which turned out to be interesting… We took the low traverse instead of the high traverse like we should have and end up short of the bowl but instead on the run Obsidian. A very steep run that runs into a choke that is about 30-40’ wide and is in the 35-40 degree range. It turned out to be excellent. And it was a double black! I made it down in one piece, not the prettiest skiing in the world, but I was able to ski 90% of the run. The only part I had trouble with was the choke, I had to go sideways through that, the rock walls on the sides through me off a bit and I had a hard time making turns. Again it was all a mind game, it was wide enough to turn, but the high rock walls were throwing me off. But once through that I was fine and back to making good powder turns, the whole time with a big smile on my face. Melissa had a bad fall on that run, she wasn’t hurt but I think it scared her pretty badly. She fell and slid head first down about 60-75’ of the run. But she was tough and made it out the bottom in one piece, but I don’t think I could have talked her into skiing Obsidian again… The rest of the day at Moonlight was excellent, we did a great tree run called Old Faithful which I really enjoyed, we found some good snow in there, it was tight and twisty and made you think about your line before making the turns. The day ended and it was amazing. First ski day in the books.

Monday we woke to snow falling. It was great. The sky was cloudy and the flakes were large and fluffy. I knew it was going to be a good day. We arrived at Big Sky, got ready, got our tickets and headed up the mountain. I had made the decision that I was going to go straight to the tram and head up to Liberty Bowl right away or I thought I would chicken out. After 2 lifts, I saw that there was no line for the tram so I had no excuse. I headed down toward the tram took off my skis and got right on the first available tram. The peak was covered in clouds which I think helped me a bit. I am not a big lover of heights and I thought that might make the tram ride a bit easier for me. But I don’t think it mattered, the tram turned out to be awesome. Such a relaxing and beautiful ride to the top. I was a little bummed that it was cloudy because the view was incredible even for what I could see through the clouds. Once to the top I followed the other passengers to make it look like I knew what I was doing, I put on my skis and looked for the signs and saw the way to Liberty Bowl. It was amazing, by the time I was on my way into the bowl the clouds had set in and the visibility was really bad. The clouds made for some challenging skiing for sure. I found the entrance to the bowl and started down, a couple turns into my run, I saw some posts with bright green dots on them, I laughed because I thought of Whitefish and how they have the same thing to mark the center of the run in foggy or cloudy conditions, so I felt more at home and knew that as long as I stayed close to the posts and looked for the next one I would not fall of the mountain. The snow was awesome up there, nice and fluffy and deep! There were areas in Liberty bowl where the snow was a good 12 – 14 inches deep. My Mantras were getting their first real work out. Nice deep powder and lots of it. I continued down Liberty Bowl and about halfway down the clouds cleared a bit or maybe I just got under them a little more and the whole bowl opened up for my viewing pleasure. I couldn’t see much in the way of views around the mountain but I had a great view of the lower portion of the bowl and could now see more of where I had just been. At that point I had the biggest damn smile on my face. Even though it is not the same I am sure, I started to understand a little more what the big mountain riders must feel. I felt like a pro, cruising down this huge run on the side of the mountain, working perfect powder turns, stopping every once and a while just to check on my progress and enjoy the views. I made it down Liberty Bowl and entered the bottom portion of the run called Screaming Left which would take me to Middle Road and back to the mall. Well I didn’t cut Screaming Left high enough and was to low to make it back without riding another lift. But it turned out fine; I took the run Sunlight back to the Shedhorn lift. I rode that back to the top the whole while happy with myself for crossing off another goal, well at least part of it, I skied from the top of the mountain. I knew I would do it at least once more before the end of the day and I knew where to go, so I knew that I could officially cross off my other goal, skiing the longest run at Big Sky. Anyway I made it back to the base area and met back up with Melissa. She asked how it was and the only thing I could say was, “Amazing” I told her that she had to come up with me and that we would do it together, it was incredible. It was a beautiful ski run and it was so fun to ski from the top. She agreed and off we went to the tram. Once again there was no line and we got pretty much right on and headed up. The clouds were a little thicker and it was snowing when we got off and clicked in. I showed Melissa where to go and she was gone, she skied Liberty Bowl like a champ, she powered down it in what seemed like no time at all. We made it into Screaming Left and this time did it right. We made it to Middle Road and skied the 6 miles back to the base area. WOW what a run. My legs were tired but it was great. Melissa called it a mountain tour, and she is right, you completely wrap around the entire mountain. It was just awesome. We stopped and had lunch. Then I realized that I had skied almost 9,000 vertical feet in just 2 runs! Nice! After lunch we took it easy on some nice groomers on Andesite mountain. Deep South turned out once again to be just an awesome run. There was lots of fresh untracked powder over there, it had snow pretty hard the whole day up until early afternoon when the clouds started to break, but the little snow storm left us lots of freshies to play in. We also found great snow on Elk Park Meadows. What a day… Ski day 2 down.

Tuesday we awoke to more snow falling, it was snowing pretty hard and stayed that way all day. Today was the day that I was going to ski Wardance. We headed up the mountain and did a couple of warm up runs before I headed over to the entrance to Wardance. I looked in and decided to go for it. The entrance is a great glade filled with lots of powder and some small pine trees. It was great skiing and a lot of fun. Then I got to where Wardance takes hold. The fences were cool to see from up close, but the run was a lot wider then it looked from the road a thousand feet down. So I smiled to myself thinking, another skiing mind game. Although Wardance was not as bad as it looked from the road, it was a not gimme for me either, there were lots of little pine trees that always seemed to be in my way. But I was able to navigate my way around them and get some good turns in on the steeper tight terrain that was Wardance. I stopped every once and a while and took some pictures of the run. It was snowing, the view was great and it was a fun run, what more could you ask for. I got to the bottom of Wardance and thought to myself, I did it, I double checked quick to make sure that I was still alive and had all of my parts… Which I did, so I did indeed do it.

Let’s see, in 3 days, I skied my first out west double black diamond, I skied from the top of Lone Mountain, I skied Wardance, and it was snowing like hell outside, what more could you ask for. I headed back to the lift and went back to meet Melissa who decided to sit Wardance out, we met back at the Chalet and had some lunch. After lunch we headed back out and up to The Bowl. The Bowl was awesome, good snow and lots of it. I managed to find (which isn’t too hard at Big Sky) some untracked powder and pretty much had a full line of untracked powder to myself, it was heavenly. The snow was so soft and was nice and deep in a few spots. It ruled. We lapped the bowl a couple times and then headed down; we decided to try the run Crazy Horse which is an intermediate run that would take us back to the base lifts. Holy crap was that the right choice. The whole run was powder and nice powder too! The edges were deep and I was getting knee and thigh shots the whole way down. It was the best powder skiing I have ever done and the best part was it was a blue run on the lower part of the mountain. It was so awesome. Being a Midwestern kid, I don’t get to ski very much powder so this was like heaven for me. Feeling the snow hit me in the upper part of the legs was incredible and I kept thinking what it would be like to ski in deeper snow and get chest and face shots. I can’t even imagine how awesome that would be, but I was in heaven with feeling the snow hit me in the knees and thighs. I was happy with that! I can see how people get addicted to skiing powder; there is nothing else like it on earth. We lapped Crazy Horse a couple times and each time we found deep snow and untracked lines. Again my Mantra’s were earning there keep, man I love my skis I just floated through the powder and made nice turns with ease. After a couple runs on Crazy Horse it was time to call it a day. Wow another awesome day at Big Sky.

Wednesday was my birthday and it was snowing when we left to head to Moonlight Basin. We decide to take a break from Big Sky and ski Moonlight one more time before the end of the week. It was snowing hard once again at Moonlight and as usual the place was empty. There were like 20 cars in the parking lot when we got there a little before 10am. We headed right up Six Shooter and went looking for powder. We found some good snow on Powder River, the edges were really good and there were some deep lines. I love the cruisers on the left side of the mountain. And this year was no different, Cinnabar and Wagon Trail while green runs are so much fun! You can just relax and carve some nice turns the whole way down the mountain. And the scenery is just awesome, the houses along the runs and the trees covered in snow just make for a magically experience. We lapped those cruisers a few times before heading in to warm up and have some lunch. While eating lunch I was looking at the trail map trying to figure out some new runs to try and a Moonlight Ski Patroller asked me if I had any questions about the map. I thought that was awesome and asked where should we go? Where is the best snow? He didn’t even hesitate and said ski the trees! He said the runs Single Jack and Double Jack were holding some excellent snow and that they were really fun runs. So we finished our lunch and headed out, he was right. Those were some excellent runs, lots of good snow in there. The trees were spread out enough that you could get some speed in there and not worry too much about killing yourself by hitting a tree. We made lots of good powder turns in there and stopped every once and a while to enjoy being in the trees and just how quiet everything is in the mountains. I thought that if you listened carefully you could actually hear the snowflakes landing. It was amazing! We skied the trees for the rest of the day. Single and Double Jack turned out to be the best just like the patroller had said, but we also skied Ulery’s Trace to Trapline which I really liked it was a little steeper and a little tighter. The snow was good on those runs as well. Skiing in the trees at Moonlight reminded me a lot of our trip to Whitefish last year. We skied in the trees a ton there and had a blast. Moonlight was the same way. The trees were really fun. What an excellent birthday. It snowed all day; we made some excellent turns and had a blast doing it. Ski day four was in the books.

That night Melissa and I went out for my birthday, we had a nice dinner and reflected on our trip up to that point it was great. It turned out to be an excellent day.

Thursday which would be our last day, we awoke to sunny skies. We skied Big Sky on our last day and thought that with the light cloud cover that it might be fun to check out Liberty Bowl and the views from the summit of Lone Mountain. We headed right for the tram. And needless to say it was breath taking up there. The views are incredible. It was just beautiful in every direction. I took about 20 pictures on the summit and then we dropped into the bowl and started our run. I stopped about every 3 or 4 turns just because the views were amazing. I took more pictures and then would continue on. During my run I had the weirdest revelation. I sat down in the snow and snapped some photos and thought to myself, holy crap, I am sitting on the side of a mountain in this beautiful place. I felt so small all of a sudden. But at the same time I have never felt anything like that before in my life. It was such a weird feeling. I sat there for a few minutes and drank the whole experience in. I looked all around and then got up and continued down the bowl. There was lots of great snow; I found lots of untracked powder to ski in so once again I had a smile the entire way down Liberty Bowl. Once at the bottom I stopped for some more photos and thought to myself, Liberty Bowl has got to be the most beautiful ski run in the US. I would be interested to see if the ski magazines had a poll as to the most beautiful run in the US what would win. Granted I haven’t skied a lot of different runs out west but out of the ones that I have skied Liberty was just breath taking in every way and would have my vote for the most beautiful ski run. It was an experience that I will never forget. I can’t wait to get back there and ski it again. After Liberty Bowl we mostly took it easy for the rest of the day, we skied our favorite groomers and just enjoyed the last few hours of our ski vacation.

The 15 hour drive home was filled with quiet memories of the runs that I did and Melissa and I did together. I love to share my time with her on the slopes. Skiing is something that we learned how to do together and it is something that I share with her and it is always special whether up at Lutsen or out west in the big mountains. My friends keep telling me that I have to try some other resorts out west which of course is true, but it is hard to leave Montana. The skiing is awesome, the vibe is unbelievably cool and there is no such thing as a lift line and it is such a beautiful place. Even though it is great for me I just don’t understand why more people have not discovered Big Sky… But like I said that is fine with me. The crowds can stay other places.

Once again this trip reaffirmed my love for the mountains. I am a mountain man in a flatlander’s body. I come alive out there and I love every minute that I am out in the mountains. But most of all I love to ski and I mean I love it. I would ski everyday if I could. I watch the storms move in and out of the west and track snow falls and smile when I think about the lucky skiers at the resort that just got dumped on that are having fun skiing in all of that powder. Someday that will be me. And because of that love, I ski here in Minnesota on the ice, the whole while dreaming of that nice soft powder, hoping that these icy lines here are making me a stronger skier for when I get there. I can’t be a fair weather skier. I can’t ski 5 days a year at some resort in the west where conditions are almost always good and call myself a skier. I have to take my lumps here in and ski on the 300 vertical foot hills of Minnesota. But all in all it doesn’t matter, skiing is skiing to me, it is always fun no matter what. I love it here as much I love it there. They are just different kinds of skiing. Now I have to get back to weather watching, Snowbird got 22” last night and Mammoth got 27” lucky people!

Vacation is not coming quick enough

Well the bags are pretty much packed. The snack bins are ready to roll. The fat skis are waxed and ready to slide on that soft Montana powder. The problem is vacation is still 3 days away and doesn't seem to be getting here very quick. The plan as it stands right now is, we leave Friday morning at about 8am and drive all the way to Billings Montana, stay the evening and then drive to Bozeman on Saturday. It is a nice short drive so we will have most of the day in Bozeman which will be nice; we can bum around in all of the cool shops then, stay there the night and then Sunday drive and ski Moonlight Basin. It should be a really fun week. We are going to split time between Big Sky and Moonlight Basin. 3 ski days at Big Ski and 2 at Moonlight. I can't wait to get outta here and get out there. I am planning on at least 120,000 vertical feet for the week. We will see what happens.

Good Times!

More later.

Lutsen Weekend

Another great weekend. Melissa and I made another pilgrimage up to Lutsen this past weekend for another weekend of skiing. And of course like always we had weather issues. We can never quite get it right weather wise up there. 3 days before we got there they had 6" of snow, about 2 hours before we got there the wind picked up and the temperature started to drop. When we picked up our lift tickets, the wind chills were -30 and were suppose to be about the same on Saturday which was suppose to be our first day of skiing. We also found out that the runs on the north face of Eagle mountain were going to be closed that weekend for construction of the new lift. So far our weekend wasn't turning out so well. Those runs are really some of our favorites, but oh well there is a lot of other good terrain. Anyway, we went and checked into our hotel room, which was great we got our favorite room at Lutsen Lodge, so that was good. We relaxed for a few minutes and then went and tried a new restaurant up there. A place call Mogul's which is at the Caribou Highlands resort. The place was really nice and the food was excellent. So we were happy that we gave it a shot. Now we have another option for food up there. After dinner we went back to our hotel and hung out. We relaxed and listened to the live music in the lobby. A solo guitar player, he was excellent and there was a huge fire in the fireplace so it was a great evening.

Saturday morning we got up to -15 degrees and -40 degree wind chills. We quickly called it on skiing and decided to get a rain check for the day. Way to cold. When it is that cold skiing just isn't any fun. We were bummed but made the best of the day. We went up and browsed around in our favorite shops up in Grand Marais and had pizza and Swen and Oles. After a fun day in Grand Marais we headed back to the hotel and relaxed and I did some watercolor work down in the lobby over looking the lake, it was great. We finished the evening with a nice dinner in the lodge's restaurant.

Sunday we got up, and it was cold but not as bad as Saturday so we decided to hit the slopes. We were glad that we did. The place was basically empty. No lines anywhere, Melissa and I agreed that we had never seen Lutsen so quiet. The morning was a little tough skiing wise. We would ski a couple runs and then head in to warm up. But it was OK. We skied mostly on Moose mountain but we did manage a run on Experts Cutoff which is a great run on the southwest face of Eagle mountain. After lunch the weather was nice, wind died and the sun felt a little warmer so the afternoon skiing was excellent. The slopes were still empty and we made good use of the slopes. We found new terrain that we hadn't skied before, mostly because the areas have not been open lately due to lack of good snow. The double black diamond tree runs on Moose were just a blast. Steep, narrow and lots of trees which forced you to think about your line and make your turns and the best part was, there was good snow in there. The runs were, Red Fox, Bears Den, Cedar Ridge, Moose Maze and Bears Claw. We linked lots of great turns and had to plan lines, it was great. I love that kind of skiing were you have to think and plan your route while you are on the run. I guess someone died on Moose Maze last winter. I could see how, if you weren't in control back there it would not be hard to hit a tree or go off a boulder weird and hit a tree or something like that. But I don't ski very fast anyway, I enjoy making turns more then bombing down the hill so I didn't have any trouble in those tight trees. It reminded me a lot of some of the tree skiing that Melissa and I did at Whitefish Montana last winter so that was great. We are hoping to get up to Lutsen at least 2 more times this winter. And I am really hoping for more snow so those runs will stay good. Because I would love to ski them again.

After skiing we packed up and headed home. What started as a little bit of a downer turned into an amazing weekend. We basically had the whole resort to ourselves and found some great and really fun lines that we hadn't skied before. Win win...

This is my prep week for Big Sky. They are getting snow again out there, so that is great, I have our fat skis down and am going to wax them up on Saturday so they will be ready to roll. I am almost packed and have all of my stuff together. So Friday Feb 6th cannot get here fast enough...

What a weekend.

I had the best weekend. It was a long weekend which made it even better since I had an extra day to do fun stuff.

This weekend was filled with lots of outdoors activities and music. It started Friday night with a very tired wife. Melissa had a bad week at work so instead of doing something out and about on Friday night we decided to have a nice easy dinner at home and watch a movie. It was great. We relaxed and just hung out at home. Perfect evening.

Saturday we decided to head out and do some cross-country skiing. The weather was good, low teens for highs and the sun was sort of out, so we packed up the car and headed over to Lebanon Hills park and skied a short loop. It took a little practice to get our cross country rhythm back, to be honest I am not sure that I really ever had a cross country rhythm but it was fun to cross country ski again. We haven't done that for a couple of years since there has been a lack of snow. But anyway the skiing was fun. After skiing we went over to Ho Ting for lunch. Arguably the best Chinese restaurant in the Twin Cities. We have been going there every Saturday for the past few weeks. Lots of fun and really good food. Then Saturday night we went down to Dulono's Pizza in Mineapolis for a little pizza a couple beers and some bluegrass music. The band playing was a local bluegrass band The High 48s. They were really good. And I kept looking at the banjo player thinking, "I know him." Well it turned out that I did indeed know him. He was an old friend that I used to skateboard with growing up. It was great to see him. I spoke with him for about 25 minutes during their set break. Awesome time. The food was good, but the music was excellent. What a fun place.

Sunday we slept in a bit and when we got up it was snowing like crazy outside, big giant fluffy flakes. So we decided to take the cross country skis out again and try a different part of Lebanon Hills park. We decided to go over and ski the trail by the horse trail at Jensen Lake. Turned out to be a great choice. We did about a 4 mile loop which runs in some pretty heavy woods. It was really beautiful out there, snowing and really quiet. It was great. Melissa was like a machine though and skied like a mad woman. I had a lot of trouble keeping up with her. It was pretty funny. I kept saying, "Hey lets stop and enjoy the outside and the pretty snow falling." And she would have now of that. Gotta keep skiing!!! UGH I hurt pretty bad when we were done! But what a great time.

Monday I had the day off with it being MLK day. Melissa surprised me by taking the day off as well. It was a great surprise. I had plans to meet my friend Chris (aka Berry) down at Welch to ski, so Melissa joined us. We had a great time skiing. The snow that fell on Saturday soften everything up down there and there was good snow to be found everywhere, not very much ice which makes it so much better. We also got our first crack at the new back bowl. New terrain, all black runs. They were really fun. Narrow, steep and tight, you really had to make your turns or you would end up in the woods. My new favorite run out there is Adams Abyss, a nice little double diamond which is very narrow and has a couple of really good drops. It was really fun. We skied mostly in the new back bowl, finding our way around and creating new and fun lines. It isn't completely done back there, but the it should be pretty sweet when it is done. We skied for about 5 hours and then came home. Melissa and I ran a couple of quick errands and had some dinner at Old Chicago...

It was an excellent weekend. We had fun doing everything that we did. We are headed up to Lutsen this weekend. That will be really fun. Melissa and I decided to head up kind of last minute just to get away together. So I am really looking forward to that.

It's COLD

It is really cold outside tonight. Like what -10 and a -30 windchill. Good stuff. It is a bummer, yesterday we got about 7 inches of snow down south here and Welch where I ski got at least that so it would have been just an epic night, but it was really cold and very windy. It would have been a horrid night skiing. I love to ski don't get me wrong but sitting on chairlift really sucks when it is so damn cold. Oh well... Melissa and I have a trip planned to Lutsen one more time before we head to Big Sky in early Feb. I am looking forward to getting up there with her. We always have the best time. We are staying at the Lutsen Resort in the main lodge which is so nice. I am hoping for 2 great days of skiing. Hopefully we will get some snow while we are up there. We seem to always strike out while we are up there with the fresh snow. Hopefully we will get some while we are there.

In other news, I am loving the HAM radio gig, I am making some friends on the 2M and 70cm bands. It is really fun. People are really friendly and helpful so it has been a great experience so far. I am hoping to learn all I can and make this a life long hobby, there is a lot to it and it is a great thing for a techie guy. Lots of cool gear to get.

Things are good otherwise, we are really starting to get excited for our ski trip. They are getting so much snow out west that it should be just awesome when we arrive. Not much is going on just trying to stay warm. I hope you are as well.

Another Fine Day

Friday was another really fun ski day at Welch village. On the way down I made my first official HAM contact which was really fun. Spoke with K0JTA for about 20 minutes on the Hampton repeater which I guess is in this guys backyard. So that was pretty cool, really nice guy. Check it out if you are ever in the south metro he is on 147.360 Mhz. So that was really fun. Skiing was great as well. It was a guys night on the slopes, I met my friends Steve and Chris(berry) for a fun night. The snow wasn't very good. Icy in a lot of spots but we looked around and found some good spots so it was all good. We got lots of runs in, had burgers at Madd Jaxx and I talked Steve into racing in the NASTAR open ski race they had there that night. He did great and it was fun to watch him. It was great because most people were all dressed in their racing clothes and there's Steve with twin tip skis and a big old jacket. It was a fun night.

This weekend was fun as well. Saturday Melissa and I hung out and did some stuff around the house which was good. Then we had a very nice dinner and hung out. It was really nice. Sunday I got together with my friend Chris(berry) and we had lunch and went to a few home improvment stores. I am on the quest to build a small antenna for my home HAM radio so I/we were out looking for parts. It was a fun day.

More good news. I just got the Big Sky snow report email and they as of today are 100% open... YEAH!!! All 3,812 acres of glorious powder are ready and waiting for me. We are heading out in early February and I cannot wait!

Well back to work. Cheers for now.