The Pantengliopolis House of Phat

It has been a fairly dismal snow year here in the Pacific Northwest. Our passes to the Snoqualmie resorts lie crisp and fresh, untouched, in our helmets. Amid the organized chaos of involvement with 3 or 4 Search And Rescue teams between the two of us, we’ve had precious little time to use those passes, even if there had been snow to play on, so when we looked at the schedule and realized that the last weekend in January was blissfully free of commitments, we decided to ski tour both days and make the most of it. Continue reading →

After ushering in 2009 in a moldy, half-frozen yurt, we made plans to close out the year in comfort and style. Caribou Lodge had been good to us despite poor skiing conditions in March and it came through again for New Year 2010. Continue reading →

Many of you will be familiar with this stuff already, but Aunt Tilley (Margo) wanted a more thorough explanation of the graph in my last post, so I wrote it out for her and figured I might as well put it up here, too. Continue reading →

We took Jessica out for her third backcountry weekend in a row, aiming for the trifecta of difficult skiing conditions. We were lucky to find 15″ of new snow that had been subject to 2 or 3 days of above freezing temperatures and several inches of rain. Had to be some of the soggiest, heaviest skiing I’ve ever done, but we had a good time, dug some pits and did some beacon practice before running home to the beer and dry clothes.

This was a Cascade Backcountry tour, and a beacon/travel education day for a couple of friends who are new to touring.

The very ambitious (and never really serious) plan was to head out the XC trails from Hyak and scoot out to Twin Lakes, then up to ski the east slopes of Silver. Coverage along the XC trails is pretty good, with only a few bare patches, but even at 3400 feet there’s only 18″ of snow on the ground, if that.

Since both Jessica and Leigh were working on new boots, we made it a travel day and skinned up to just shy of Windy Pass and did a nice big beacon search clinic. Great fun, and everyone did a great job. It’s a treat to go out and have a blast with enthusiastic people when, if it were just me, I’d probably stay home and eat pancakes, waiting for better snow.

Occasional sun and great visibility was a bonus. Surface hoar forming everywhere, with particularly impressive formations in the creeks and riverbeds. Had we dug a pit, I’ll bet we would have found some near the ground, but we were occupied with beacon work.

Wednesday’s whirlwind adventure was an interesting experience with a very interesting guide. The day started with a history of Turkey’s national hero, Ataturk, and the glorious revolution of the early 1920s. It really started to get fun when he started telling the ‘real truth’ about events that we all thought happened in Greece, but really, apparently happened in Turkey. Continue reading →

Today was a very long and tiring day. I did a whirlwind tour of the Antalya region of Turkey. We hugged the coastline, visiting a number of really fascinating sites, and took in the general amazing beauty of this region of the country. I was out the door at 7:30 this morning and not back to my room until 11pm. I’d love to know how many miles we covered. Since it is so late and I’m exhausted, I’m going to put off doing a post about this day until tomorrow. It was filled with ups and downs, literally and figuratively. Continue reading →

What’s happened since I last posted? I have no idea. All I know is it involved a lot of cheese and a lot of alcohol and I woke up this morning and I was in Belek, Turkey. Ok.. cool. Continue reading →

Today was another beautiful day in Geneva and a lovely day to travel to Annecy, France, which is only about an hour away. Annecy is nestled in between a large lake and the Alps. In this way it reminds me very much of Bariloche. However, being the beginning of fall, there is no snow on the mountains. Well, except for Mont Blanc which I was able to get a nice view of from Geneva which is still fairly white. The sheer, tall, limestone cliffs that surround Lake Annecy are making me itch to climb. Unfortunately, the bathroom in my room here does not have a door, and therefore, no door frame on which to do some pull-ups. Continue reading →