summer breeze makes me feel fine (6/09-6/11/10)

Locales
Thursday-Kirkwood

Friday-Ebbets Pass
Saturday-Kirkwood

Playing in the Snow
Thursday-Powdork
Friday-Powdork and Ottime
Saturday-Powdork and Ottime

The Missions
Thursday-Recon and Recovery
Friday-Stay Warm, Safe and Levitate
Saturday-Redemption

the video (updated 12/22/10-re-rendered with updated editor removed all the herky jerky stuff). i think it tells the story well, especially the cirque entrance towards the end. No skis were harmed (much) during the video process. Also includes tips on how to prep a chute for skiing.
http://www.vimeo.com/12667192

Thursday – Recon and Recovery
I headed out to Kirkwood with a late start. It didn’t matter though since my day didn’t even have to include skiing, and certainly not good skiing. My goal was to do a little recon for some weekend skiing and look for my ContourHD that I lost in March. The late start also didn’t matter since as I was skinning up chair 2 at 9:45 it was still frozen solid. Plan was to drop into Vista and spend as much time as necessary to find the camera. Changed the plans and went up to the top of 99 steps so things could soften up and I could hit a sunny face first. A peek into the top of the cirque for the recon. Can’t tell if it goes.

Of course it does

The recovery part of the mission can be found here
Lost and Found: the POV – Teton Gravity Research Forums

Friday – Stay Warm, Safe and Levitate
The plan for Friday was to meet Ottime at Ebbetts Pass between 7 and 7:30. Due to construction issues on Luther Pass I arrived at 8:05. He was nowhere to be found. It was butt cold outside, and since it was June, it was snowing as well.

I sat in the car until 9 while Ottime was dozing off at the wrong pass and the wrong lake, where it happened to be summer.

Since apparently I had lots of time, I took in some scenics
Folgers

Peep Sight Peak, now officially on the list

Name?

Refreshed, ottime sprints to catch up.

It was still cold, so we marched up and down the ridge waiting for the sun to do it’s work. Eventually it did.

Ottime looking to get tubed

Ottime practices the levitation we knew we would need later

At this point I’m thinking this is a bit firmer than I hoped the lower would be and why aren’t we waiting a bit to hit this one like we discussed. Later when editing the video I learned that it was my idea.

Ottime was likely having similar thoughts

So he was glad to make it to our top, even if there was a 10′ drop to rocks in the crack on the other side

Some quick work with the shovels and we had a warm safe place.

Which was important. The chute was littered with rockfall so we would need to levitate to get down

Mission Accomplished

While I was at work enjoying a Summer Breeze salad for dinner, ottime decided to skin up the wall to sit in the belly of a jetliner. It was seriously windy, as others would discover the next day….

Saturday – Redemption
Today’s goal was to ski fun stuff at Kirkwood. Got kind of a late start for June but upon arriving at the base of 10, I texted the 6er, who replied

We were thinking of hitting the West Shore area but after our warm up run down Thimble Bowl to the top of the Saddle we couldn’t see the reason to go any further out. So back up we went.
Checked out the top entrance for a second time. Still not excited.