Finally Stashworthy July 26, 2009

     First - a confession.  Brad! I cheated on you.  I skied with strangers.  On secret terrain.  I succumbed to the seduction of secret knowledge.  When Mr. Jarvis says "Meet me at ***** at *:** AM for breakfast, and I'll take you to the stash", well, you don't ask questions. 

     Ah heck, enough of the secrecy.  We met at Paradise or Longmire or Cougar Rock, and started hiking NESW.  We hiked for about 1 to 4 hours, mostly uphill - that should give you a clue.  And we found great snow!  Some nice 40 degree +/- snow, not too cuppy, about 800 VF. 

     Well, I did give a blood oath at the parking lot (to mosquitoes).  But what a great day in the mountains!  We had a beautiful wildflower bordered trail hike, nice snow approach with just a couple of small carries, and then two sections of very ski able snow.  There was some wind and high intermittent clouds that kept the snow a little harder than perfect, but the trip with Ron Jeanette and Jerry was great.  We didn't see any other skiers the whole day.  There's still some good snow in the area, and the Paradise looks good coming down the far skiers left side.

     A little minor mishap on the way back - Jerry & I sort of lost our shoes.  We wandered from rock to rock for a while.  But leave it to Ron & Jeanette to perform their legendary perfect navigation trick and they retrieved our shoes for us, and delivered them to us.

     Now that I know where the stash is, I can take you.  I can't tell you, but I can take you, and I'm ready to go again anytime.  Skiing with Ron, Jeanette and Jerry is a party - Glacier Margaritas, non stop mountaineering stories and teaching, an icy cold beer at the parking lot, and some pretty good dirty jokes.  Regarding the dirty jokes... I can't tell you... but I can show you!  ;)