Adios Marco in the Valley of the Sun

 Chels took Dash on a road trip last week while I stayed home and worked to watch Uncle Marco ski in his official last race, the Super G at Nationals in Sun Valley.  

Clearly, Dash had an appropriate shirt on for the voyage.  

 And, Nowhere Lizdog Kenny showed her wonderful face, missing a hat.  So, she used Dash's!  

Dash and his fav ladies.

Taking the title

 Hannah and Dash chillin at the finish of the Town DH

Marco, standing atop the podium last weekend for the TDH.  Stoked he and Anna made the trip up north to hang with us, ski in the TDH, and have good times.  Hoping it becomes a yearly tradition. 

Never gets old...

 That Granite Hot Springs I tell ya, always serves up a really good time with visitors, buds, etc.  

After Marco finished up his training run at the Kind we headed up to the hot springs for a soak in the sun.  

 Paradise.  

 Marco and Anna looking good on a sled!  

 The sledding fam.. 

Ahhhhh, take me there right now. 

Put on repeat

 If I had a magic wand, it would be to put weekends last the last one on repeat as much as possible!  All the stars aligned just right and it turned out to be easily one of the best weekends of the winter.  Marco and Anna came to visit, the snow was amazing, and awesome times were had.  

Marco motivated for an early morning mission up on the Pass before he had training runs on the King.  Glad he did, it was, kickass and deep.  

Me, as if it was January instead of middle of March.  

 Friday Drew snapped this one of me.  I know, I know, complete role reversal.  Normally I am the one taking the pics and he is the one getting rad!  Wow were the conditions primo that day!  

 Our favorite World Cupper, why???? Well, he keeps things pretty real!  Like, hiking to the top of the Pass and forgetting his goggles.  

 But it made no difference, the ol boy can still make a pair of skis hum like nobody regardless.  Man is it fun to watch.  

Million step march.  Gotta go up to get down as the saying goes! 

All the way around good times

 This work week has been a whole lotta fun when not at work!  Long days, lots of fresh snow, and willing participants added up to good times.  

Leaving the office and getting moments like  this until 730 at night makes me wish Daylight Savings happened the entire year!  Jesse Roy carving a trench in the 40" plus of fresh.  

 

 We needed windshield wipers for our goggles.  It was one continual white room face shot for the entire sled session.  

 In other non deep snow and sledding news........, Dash is now getting up on things on his own, sure the walking scene cant be too far away now.  

 Not really sure there are too many places that you can play with your awesome kid at the park, a block from your office on your lunch break, while your spouse skis untracked powder with zero lift lines and can come down to say hello at the park in between runs.  

Town skiing, down dumps, Snow King, closeness to all the fun stuff truly cant be beat!  

This awesome momma got to make some pow turns this week which she was obviously happy about. 

Trenchtown Rocks

 That is what I truly love about March and early April.  We always get "sneaker" storms that produce some of the best riding and skiing of the winter, just when everyone is "over" winter and/or heading south down to the desert.  This week has produced the best cycle all winter accounting for over 4 feet of fresh, as evidenced by the photos.  

Skiing on the pass a couple of morns ago was damn good.  It had been a really long time since I made non motorized turns this sweet.  

 Ben Brettel, fellow young dad, fellow lover of pow, trusty dawn patrol bud.  

Chels got in on the action too  with a selfie on the summit lift at the King yesterday with town getting pounded by the white stuff. 

Always nice....

 Last Sunday it was raining cats n dogs in the valley (what????), so, the plans to take Dash up to the hot springs were put on hold.  But, Teddy, Heather, and myself ventured up there.  They were, per usual, one of the best places anywhere on a winter day.  

I think I counted Heather say at least 4 times how she wanted to get a sled after this trip!  

 Waterfall, check.  103 degree water, check.  Cold beers, check.  Solitude, check.  This place rules.  

And then the storm moved in, the rain turned to snow, and it has been winter ever since.  Yahoo. 

Hold on tight

 Just before it decided to storm for the first time in what seems like a couple of months in the valley, we headed up to GTNP for a lil family ski.  Dashman getting a free ride.  

 Pretty nice to be up at the barn with not a soul around but ourselves.  

 When ya got to take a leak and your child doesnt walk yet, you find the highest and driest places to set them down.  

 Beautiful, all of it.  

Not too long now until spring time. 

Lander

 I was in Lander, WY all last week for work.  Chels and Dash came over half way through the week to join me.  Clearly, Dash approves of a mini get a way!  

The Bookworm

 Dash loves him some books!  

Back to it...

 I was gone all week on a work trip, so, kinda catching up on the week that was and beyond.  

Dash, pre-contemplation stages of which water bottle he is actually going to like??????

 Dash and walk, and walk, and walk on the weekends together.  Last weekend we walked 25 miles in two days!  He loves it, I have been crushing some really good Podcasts, Chels gets some time to herself, works out well for all.  However, pretty pumped to be on the bike with Dash sooner than later.  

Making fresh tracks at the JHHS soccer fields. 

 Long time bud Liesl, who I grew up ski racing with, and Chels and I were buds with in college (small world) who lives in Sun Valley came to town last weekend.  We got beers.  Dash stayed up way past his bedtime, hence the confused look!  

And Uncle Wild Man and Heather hung with the dude while Chels taught yoga while I was gone. 

Being awesome

 is a given for this dude!  He had quite the weekend, going on really, really, really long walks, and, hitting up the library to help celebrate Dr. Suess's bday.  

Da crew

Eating lunch on the Wydaho border a couple of days ago looking west toward Palisades Peak.  Awesome sled country out that way I tell ya.  It is so fun looking at a far away peak, creek drainage, hanging meadow....., and then figuring out a route to achieve that goal. 

Friday Funday

 We haven't gotten a decent storm system in I dont know how long.  Bottom line......too long.  But, as I have preached about before, if you are a sledder, quality snow can almost always be found.  That was the case yesterday.  It was literally t shirt weather (55 in parking lot) but up in the alpine there were nice pockets of north facing, shaded powder.  

Good crew yesterday.  Rode with Drewski and Scuba and a few other dudes we had never ridden with before.  WOrking our way outta a gully.  Man do pictures take the slope out of things! 

 Slashing the fresh.  

 Lucky for us, we generally seek out the path of most resistance with where we like to sled, so, running into other tracks is of little concern!  

Sledding affords one the opportunity to enter into a world that very few humans get to see, and that is, the dead of winter a long, long, long ways from any civilization.  The backcountry largely doesn't get visited by humans for 7 months of the year save for sledders.  So, you get to come across interesting things in the animal world on a sled that you wouldn't otherwise.  Such as....., a very, very fresh elk kill via wolves.  We saw this double homicide yesterday and it perplexed us for a lot of reasons.  It was as fresh as could be.  No rotting of the two bodies we saw, one of which we thought to be a calf and was picked to the bone, the other, in this picture, a cow that had been brutally drug across the snow and impaled on the tree you see.  The amount of wolf tracks around this scene was unreal.  What perplexed us was this was at close to 9,000 feet with a snowpack of close to 80 inches.  Aka, what in the hell were these elk doing up here and this is also in an area where you don't hear a ton about summer time wolf activity.  Our guess, the elk got trapped up high by an early season snow storm, never made it to the valley floor feed grounds, and eventually got weakened and were easy prey for the wolves.  

This all got me thinking....., just remember in life, there are two sides to almost every situation, hot button political issue, etc....... Anyone who is a supporter of wolves being in our ecosystem (of which I am) I feel a lot of these supporters are so one sided in their love of the wolves they have blinders on to just how savage of an animal they are and have never seen a seen like this.  It will give you a moment of pause all you wolf apologists!  (Dad!)

Warming hearts

Dash and Chels are thick as thieves I tell ya!  These two have so much love for one another.  

 

Tailgating after a ski.  Another few weeks and the park service will have plowed the road and we will be biking up in GTNP.  Cant wait.