"DUDE!"

last sunday xteam, oneshot, and i went to salmon la sac for some snowmobile shredding. as i've typed before, snowmobiling is a pain in the ass. get up at 5am, get to oneshot's by 6:15 am, head to xteam's for the trailer dance, and get to the snowpark (i.e. trailhead) by 9 am. snowmobile in about 15 miles and hope that the snow is good. much of the sled in is on a groomed road but the last couple miles involved crossing several creeks on a single track trail. quite the effort and, with the season that we've been having, quite the gamble to get some good snow. this days gamble paid off well enough i suppose. we went to the lake ann area and found some pretty good snow for playing on the sleds. unfortunately about 7 other sledders were hanging out in the same bowl as us. the zone was sessioned for a few hours. most of the hot-shots played in the bigger section of the bowl and i spent my time away from the crowded area and worked on my sleddin' skills.


creek crossing, no stucks! new sled is pretty awesome.


additional troubles on the way in, electrical troubles. sled seemed to eventually fix itself or something. i like to think that my tinkering and looking over xteam's shoulder helped in a small way.


i've been watching some "how to be a badass sledder" instructional videos that xteam burned for me and decided this was a good spot to try and emulate the moves from the videos. low and behold on my first try i did a fancy little maneuver that nobody witnessed. i was pretty pumped and didn't stop boasting of my fancy sidehilling switchback for a good part of the day. i tried to do it about 4 more times while the dudes were watching but i never came close to being successful.

bear witness, keep in mind that sleds don't turn:



flat light destruction


in the afternoon we scooted over to the next bowl and got a few snowboard runs in. the windblown spots were pretty icy but the trees still held at least 6" of nice, light, fast snow. i accidentally was sent off a mini cliff when i rode into an icy section and luckily landed in some soft snow. scared the crap out of me. oneshot worked the trees and xteam hiked for the line of the day and got some nice turns.

hey oneshot, that's a smurfy line, smurfs up!


there is a line in this photo, it's tough to see but it's there. nice work dude. click on pic to embiggen, you'll see it.


didn't get home and unloaded till about 10pm. long day.

HOUSEWIVES, GRRR!!! (100th WEAK IN THE TWEAK POST!)

about a month ago i rented a top secret super cabin deep in the redneck snowmobile bubba land of warshington. with all of the LA NINA hoopla being generated by the PNW meteorologists this fall i figured it would be a sure thing that we'd be nipple deep in powder by the end of january. hopes were high, friends were stoked, the firechicken was resurected, plans were made, the snow started stacking up, and then Ms. NINA pooped the bed. warm temps and rain deystroyed the nice base that had been building up. with every day the prospect of pow on our trip grew bleaker and bleaker. as more snow melted, more friends dropped out of the trip until finally we were left with a party of four. me, special lady, and the frenchie bros.

the crappy weather and lack of 'good' snow wasn't about to deter our quest for fun. so, this past sunday we packed up and rallied to the snowpark where we geared up the two sleds with all of the stuff that you need to spend the night in a cabin that doesn't have running water or electricity. from the parking lot to the cabin was about 7 miles in with around 2000' of elevation gain. the cabin itself is situated around 6000'. these elevations may not sound too impressive to you, but please remember that we live at sea level and 6000' is higher than the top of any western washington ski hill (exept for crystal maybe?).

i've been around sleds for a few years now but i do not consider myself very good on 'em. the other 3 in our group were about as green as they come. about 1/4 mile in we encountered our first hiccup. due to the icy conditions on the road the track melted/welded to the hyfax. the operators of this sled were not aware and toasted a clutch belt trying to get the darn thing moving. acceptable losses. after freeing the track we made our way to the cabin with a few stops here and there to avoid overheating the sleds. around 1pm we made it to the cabin and started to unpack. success!?

at this point neil couldn't wait to get loose on the firechicken. he took it out to burn some gas and get a better feel for how snowmobiles handle. the rest of us cracked beers and enjoyed the nice sunny day. after a while we realized that we hadn't heard the 'brap brap' of the sled and wondered how neil was doing. soon enough we saw someone in an orange jacket approaching the cabin on foot. crap. it turned out that the compromised clutch belt from our earlier mishap went to fully-blown belt. to make things even more effed up, somehow the speedometer cable managed to wrap itself around the clutch wheel about 4 or 5 times. dead in the water. some good samaritan sledders helped us get things running again, but after two mechanical problems in one day i was getting pretty stressed about whether or not the sleds would stay operational long enough for us to get back to the truck.

ok, that's been a lot of typing for me. time to hurry this up so we can get to some pictures.

the rest of sunday we spent on the bunny hills, aka easy zones to sled and snowboard. there was so little coverage that it'd be pretty stupid to try and get too rad on this trip. i'd say the highlight of the day was getting to the one spot where we got cell reception and all of the PACKERS ARE IN THE SUPER BOWL texts and voicemails came in. SHADRAPP was played in the team/states honor.

DAY 1 PICS!!

friendly snowmachiners from PA that helped us unravel the speedometer cable from the clutch. thx!



one of the best winter views i've seen in washington.


home


TINDY!


special lady on the new mo-chine.

silly bros.


cabin fashion! by reading the cabin journals we learned of the pooperini (aka the pooperpine) "if you're in the outhouse and feel a little brush on your bottom, that's the pooperini" -jackylyn, age 7.


a fair share of wine, beer, and whiskey were enjoyed at night. jams were bumped from the ipod and some entertaining stories were told by the brothers. every time i went out to pee i'd look up at the stars and would get a little overwhelmed. i'm not sure if it was the booze, the amazing stars, the icy porch, or the shitty footing that my slippers offered but i damn near fell on my ass every time i left the cabin.

the next day had a mellow start. the bros. were pretty enthusiastic and built a trash can jib next to the cabin. special lady and i went exploring and she got her first chance to rally one of the sleds solo. we had a little bit of snow and rain this day but we stayed stoked. the snow was much better for snowboarding today, a pretty good slush. we also found a great low-grade area for the rookie sledders to mess around on without too much fear of the tree magnets.

this photo was taken a little early, nose grab/tail bonk. area destroyed. thx for the rope mike!

special lady ain't skuurd of the firechicken!

YA BLEWITT

still waiting to get the rest of the pics from the new years splitboard trip i went on. 9 skiers, 1 splitboarder, FGP, about an hour north of keslo british colombia. KOOTENAY, EH! i may post a legit report someday.



special lady slayed some pow in the alpy bc last week. atta girl! "putchahandsup!"

TEMARITY & DIESEL

did some snowboarding last week. more later.

WHOOHAH,GOTTATROPHYBUCKANDIT'SALLTIEDUPONTHEBACKOFMYTRUCK

here's a brief recap of some recent goings-on.

halloween happened, i don't think i did anything.


did a lonely solo clammin run two weekends ago. got my limit of razors friday night but didn't stick around long enough for low tide on saturday. cleaned 'em by truck light that night. it's gonna be CHOWDAH time this xmas. found a handful of chanterelles in the capitol forest on my way home. neat.





been doing the dehydrator thing again lately. lotsa cinamon apple chips.

so i'm a late bloomer to the hunting scene. when i took hunters education a few years ago i sat in back with all the Dads. they would ask me which kid in the class was mine and they would look at me funny when they realized i was actually taking the class.

the last few years i'd make it into the woods a couple days a year trying to get a deer. when you're pretty much teaching yourself/learning as you go/etc., and you don't have any 'beginners luck' it can get pretty discouraging and it's easy to get frustrated, deterred, pissed, etc. especially when you spend all damn day in the woods and never even see a friggin deer.

but after 3 seasons of deer hunting, i got my first deer last weekend. it was a 1x2 white tail buck. not too big, but i'm very proud/excited about it. i had a lot of help from a nice spokane resident that showed me around his home hunting turf. if i ever get around to it, there are several nice stories to type about that experience. until then, here's a few pics:

ground blind

ground blind again. the blind helped keep us dry during the sleet and rain, but the buck was not taken while in the blind.

about 6 bowls of venison were aged in my fridge. had to buy a chest freezer this week. some of the meat was made into potato sausage and chorizo last week thanks to help from CZ. gonna work on jerky soon.

earlier this season snowman, wiltron, and i hunted some other areas. here's some memories!

wiltron with mega porcini

just goats, no deer

purdy

after several hours of hunting in cold rain it's pretty easy to get grumpy. stoked to be eating warm food in back of damp truck. these are happy faces!

THIS MEANS SOMETHING

fatty.

CRAP

Damn rigged lottos.

"Hello,

Thank you so much for entering the 2011 Legendary Banked Slalom Lottery. We had 528 people apply for 110 spots, and unfortunately you were not chosen during our lottery selection.

Thanks again for applying for the lottery and we hope to see you at the 2011 Legendary Banked Slalom on February 11, 12, & 13 at Mt. Baker!

-Laura Bruhns
Registration Coordinator
Legendary Banked Slalom
Mt. Baker Ski Area"