Another day of recovery is in order for tomorrow.

After a week of doing a lot of programming, a lot of cleaning up from Old Pueblo, and a lot of not doing anything all that physically demanding, I jumped back on the horse friday.

Fortunately, it turned out to be a bucking bronco, just the way I like it.

Friday brought another round of snow through town. I was sitting in my office all day friday watching it come down, and finally around 3:30, I decided that work was no longer high on the priority list, and I had put in my time for the week. I busted out of there and headed home for the tele gear.

My initial intention was to hike the ski area, but after seeing the amount of snow which was on the ground and the amount that was still coming down, something a little more off the beaten path started sounding like a much better idea. So, by 4:30pm on friday, I was on my skis heading for the humphrey’s trailhead en route to the Flying Dutchman. I hammered the whole way and despite the 8-10 inches of fresh powder that I was cutting fresh skin tracks through, made it to the bottom of the main chute in less than 45 minutes. Another 15 minutes of skinning straight up the edge of the main open area, and I was staring down at a field full of untouched powder.

Since this is avalanche country, and you can never be too safe, I pulled out to a safe spot near the top and dug a snow pit. After a quick evaluation of the snow conditions (about 4-5 feet of nicely compacted, well solidified snow with no visible shear layers, covered with about 8 inches of nice fluffy powder which was well adhered to the base) I strapped on the skis and saw to it that I layed down a signature of tele-turns right down the heart of the Dutchman.

If anyone went up there on saturday morning thinking they would have first tracks, you were too late. But, you can thank me for the skin track I left you in my absence and admire my handiwork.

It turned out to be a quick 1300 vertical feet after work.

On saturday, a group of 8 of us (plus Sazi-dawg) rocked out in search of a location tRoy refers to as the “Bristlecone Meadow”. This is a ridgeline meadow just east of the Monte Vista Chute which promised to be primo with all the new snow. We were planning on parking at friedlan prairie road and then skinning over to it, but with all the new snow, the parking area at friedlan prairie was totally full of yahoos who were car shuttling rope jumpers coming off the south side of the ski area. So, per my (bad) suggestion, we continued up the road a bit to the next parking area (it’s some sort of spring, I don’t remember the name) which added about 1.5 miles and 600 feet of descending (while wearing skins) to the front end of our journey. Oh well. All part of the adventure.

We finally made it over to Friedlan Prairie, shot up through it, and started ascending the ridgeline up Bristlecone.

(A view of Agassiz from Friedlan Prairie)

Everyone went up to about 10,000 feet, and tRoy, Blair, Ben, and I continued up the ridgeline to 10,600 before turning around to shred back down. I kept saying that I wanted to get up near the height of the saddle or the false summit on fremont, and it’s a good thing everyone wanted to stop at 10,600, because the saddle is at 11,300 and the false summit is at 11,600 (and another 1/2 mile in the horizontal). I still had a little way to go.

(Looking southwest from 10,600 feet)

We turned back around, locked everything down, and carved some beautiful turns. tRoy even got a shot of Blair and I catching a bit of air off a nice little wind-formed kicker on the way down. Check out his pics from the trip here.

We cruised back down to Friedlan Prairie road and Dara, James, Ben and I skied all the way down to the parking lot at the bottom of snowbowl road and caught up with the rest of the crew who went up to grab the cars.

Despite some routefinding snags, it was another great day in the backcountry.

Today I awoke to more snow, and alas, the mountain (and jeremy) once again called to me, and I headed up for a half day at snowbowl. More tele-turns in the trees through freshly fallen snow, and my legs are totally clapped out.

Typing this actually hurts my legs. Really.

But for those who were worried, I will not be sitting idle tomorrow. I’ve got 11 lbs of grain, some malt extract, hops, and a bottle of yeast ready to roll for tomorrows endeavor into alcohol production. Since it’s cold outside, I’ve decided to brew an Imperial Stout.

“What makes it imperial?” you may ask.

Well, usually if a beer is called ‘imperial’ it means that the alcohol content is between 8% and 12%.

If all goes well, this one will be right around 10% ABV when all is said and done.

Now forget I said anything about it for the next month and a half, and I’ll let you know how the first bottle tastes at that point.