The FHR

Sitting here this morning, coffee in hand and getting ready for another day of skiing, its easy to reflect on just how lucky we have been this year. Hip deep powder in November, faceshots and epic conditions in December and good times had by pretty much anyone who has a pair of boards to put on their feet, its been a year of skiing at least I wont soon forget.
When Friday rolled around, G, Jeff and I awoke to a clear dawn and shot over to Kananaskis for a look at the French/Robertson Circuit.



After heading up the french and haig glaciers, we soon stood on the Col, looking around at the mountains surrounding us, ready to point the skis downhill. 40-50cm of new storm snow was a nice surprise for us as we made some turns down to valley bottom and took our time skiing the glaicer and into the awaiting sunshine. Jeff and G are always good partners and we really had a stellar time up in the alpine for the day.

The Preacher-Coming to terms with powder in the holy land

(photo courtesy JB mountain designs-Jason Billing) So the powder is back. After 2 very dry weeks and not much skiing, the posse assembled to visit "the preacher", an unknown spot in Kananaskis. Much to our Joy we fired the uptrack in no time, the snow getting deeper and deeper and our phsyche meters going higher and higher, Upon reaching the top we whipped the skins off and looked around at each other like thieves and gave way to the slopes tug at our souls. The first turns went over the boots, the second and third over the knee and soon, thigh deep rocky mountain blower passed by us and blew our expectations....wasnt it supposed to be wind swept and rocky right now....faith renewed.

Mt.Nibloc- Sastrugi skiing

On Friday, the urge struck to get to a mountain top. A new friend and first time skiing partner, John and I shot off to Mt. Nibloc. After getting through the forest and into the alpine, the wind crust became so un-skiable that we boot packed the final 500m to the col. The stoke factor soon took hold and we scrambled up to the summit of Mt. Nibloc where the temperature was 2 degrees, having no pina coladas on hand, we drank some water and rode the wave of sastrugi down to the car.

The good word

So a couple of weeks back, the lovely lady and me saddled up and rode into Edmonton for a few days of family and friends. With Michelle's folks we went to see a play at the citidel theatre and then it was time to party! We went to one of my old haunts, Halo for a night of floor tappin' and jive speakin'with my good friend jonson and his fair lady, Jen. Good to be in a city with some soul...