March 8-9, 2006, Sasse Ridge

No poodle dog camping this week! Poodle dog camping; that's when you pass a couple hiking up the trail in the summer - he's wearing a speedo and she has platform shoes on, and is carrying a poodle. No fooling.

I wanted a good test for my new rando setup, so didn't mind the weather. It's about 2 pounds heavier than my current tele stuff, and I wondered if I would have the strength. I'm already carrying too high a percentage of my body weight. (I wonder if it's possible to do a Sherpa gene transplant; Sherpas routinely carry 100% of their body wt.)

Got to my campsite at noon just before it really started snowing heavily. Light snow on the way in, about 2 inches new. It never really did stop snowing all the time I was there.  Here's a pic that shows the accumulation from 1 pm when I got in my tent to about 6 pm.

http://web3.foxinternet.net/lrobinson/pics/tent.jpg

By morning there was maybe 15 to 16 new and up to 2 feet in spots. Super windy all night, as well as the morning too. Not a good time to try to get very high or ski on anything at all steep. The frontside was a periodic white-out anyway. For my morning day ski I managed to get up to 4500 feet though, wanting to save some strength to get out, just in case. Skiing down produced what looked like the bow wave in front of a tug boat at full throttle. But unlike skiing in light snow, when I stopped the bow wave just set up like avy debris. A hint to be careful. No falling into tree wells.    :)

It was so much fun to feel like I had control of the skis again. That all the little instinctive things you do have the right effect, instead of feeling like a car with loose steering gear. Thanks to Greg and Silas for tips on the TLTs. Louis Dawson's site was great for trying to get up to speed too. So now maybe I won't feel completely embarrassed about my skiing if I do ever run into any other TAYers out there.  :)