Just when I thought that modern music could not get any worse.....I started scrounging the back lots of musica (have you ever seen a silver Delorean driven by a white-haired man before?).....in any event....my hope for artistic bad-azzness to reemerge in the midst of formulaic crap has been refreshed by this gem. How I got through my high-school years in deep study of 70's rock without being turned on to this is beyond me.....enjoy! I know I will....I can't wait to light my balls on fire and listen to this on my iPod while bombing down Gerinomo on SoMo!
Who the Hell is maadjurguer?
- maadjurguer
- I like to ski, mountain bike, drink beer, cook and listen to any jam band I can get my hands on; all while making a complete ass of myself. Hopefully this catharsis is as interesting to others as it is to me.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Coitus Interuptus
What can one say about frogs humping....much less in an ephemeral pool of ooze at the base of a spring found in the middle reaches of a metamorphic core complex standing sentinal along the western reaches of a festering sea of neon......climb higher son....climb higher....and so I did.
Colors of El Nino were profound; splashed everywhere the eye could find. Lichens once dormant have exercised their right to let their "Freak-Flag Fly".....why not? Early summer is long on the heat and short on the moisture.....where to find more moisture? Climb higher son.....climb higher......
As for Freak-Flags........a multi-cellular advanced form witnessed performing vain tricks. Stick around, you may see him pick his nose.....and climb higher......
Looking back....I spy evidence of the reason for this vanity in the distance......climb higher.....climb higher...
The photosynthesis going on was choking me...what is this Nam' humidity doing in the middle of the Sonoran Desert highlands? Where is this trail going? What about killer bees? Shut up......climb higher son....climb higher....
Topping out at the pre-decided turnaround point.....I sat and listened....body still....body silent. The sounds of a hawk somewhere above and behind pierced the silence. Quail down canyon were barely audible over the random crunch of quartz and mica grains being smashed beneath the soft metal of my cleats.....then silence.....the hair on my neck...it was standing. The birds are no longer chirping.....dead silence. How nice.....but also, how nice for a big cat seen in the area as well.....perhaps I should just ring my bell, belch a bit...and turn around....and so I did....but not before I marked my territory with a byproduct of some gatoraide.
Leaving the highlands was easy.....let 9.8m/s2 work it's magic....I earned it.....now time to burn it.....yet the shiny things kept slowing me down and making me pause.....
While gold, brown, orange and red are represented handsomely in the desert during all times of the year....blue means one thing.....March.
Finishing the uber-chunk descent.....my tread hummed on the freshly lain hardball back to the car....until laid down once again by the color blue....
Spread your seed well my friend.....it'll be a while until you climb again.
19 Miles
2900ft vert gained
Soul refreshed......
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
It's all steeze and stoke until someone shits their pants
It's all fun and games until someone pokes their eye out....but after that....it's still kinda funny...but not really. tRoy and I set out for the San Juan's for our AIARE Level II Avy course this weekend. Leaving Flagstaff was a bit sketchy, with white out conditions on I-40 between Winslow and Gallup rendering me flush with spatial disorientation and nausea from the constant stream of illuminated snowflakes and a lack of movement indicators other than my speedometer. Despite this, we forged along and made Durango at 1230 and crashed hard for the next mornings start. After a day of classroom lessons and transceiver practice, we headed out the next day for the La Plata's for some pit observation under crazy blue skies and warm temps.
After some schooling by the instructors, I was left humbled by how much I thought I knew about pit observations and how little I really knew about pit observations. Tearing into my SWAG book later that evening, I resolved to study up before the third day which would see us taking a full day tour at Molas Pass.
Naked Lady Couloir as seen from the Million Dollar Highway......looking saucy....
Heading SE into the trees along contour, we break out into a clearing and spy our objective and plan a route into the alpine....
Upon cresting the treeline, we get a much clearer view of the shots we were planning on skiing and plotted our test pit sites.
On the way up, it occurred to me that red beards are in fashion these days with the backcountry set from Aspen.....
......and the guides.....
......and yours truly.
Our plan to ski the obvious shot to the left and the shorter but steeper shot just to the right with test pits at bottom left below the cliff band....
After digging my pit with a guy named Justin, who was planning on his 4th trip to Everest two weeks from now, we traversed above the cliffband in the above shot to the left out of view. Topping out, we spied Engineer Mountain to our south, the Million Dollar Highway below and the entrance to our couloir....just below that roll-over shown below.....
Traversing across the top of the shot to skiers left, roughly 20 feet from us, Justin yelled back that he felt a "wumph" at which point the instructor yelled to come back. Justin performed a kick turn when a 2nd "wumph" was felt and heard by all......and then the slope ripped out, sending Justin out of sight. We quickly strained to put eyes on Justin and saw him riding the avalanche down the slope, accelerating down the gut to the runout zone. Cresting another convexity, he disappeared with the snow flowing down behind him.....I feared that the snow was going to bury him at this point and focused on tracking the last spot I saw him relative to the motion of the slide...but he reappeared below a few seconds later, still riding the white dragon until the avalanche slowed down and threw him up into an upright position where he skied out of the lobe of debris below. Cheers erupted from all above as I took this pick when Justin begun picking his way out of the path......the pants were officially soiled at this point....
Flying down the bed surface of the avalanche, which had ripped to the ground; one of the instructors hooked up with Justin and after determining he was ok, advised us over radio to ski down the bed surface. The second instructor traversed left and down to grab a quick crown profile of the slide. As the class followed the track down and onto the bed surface one by one, I found myself also following the track down....only to realize I failed to turn onto the right track and quickly found myself still on top of the slab and above the 2nd instructor who was performing the crown profile. It was at this moment that I had an intense sick feeling that my oversight had just put the 2nd instructor in a very dangerous position with the strong possibility of sending the remaining slab down on top of him....I got a few choice words from him and quickly dropped off the slab onto the bed surface to descend down to safety. I'm glad nothing more came of it and we all made it down safe, to view the slide from below...which now looked bigger than from above.
I owed that instructor a beer....big time. I spent the rest of the day stewing on my stupid mistake as we made our way back to our vehicles. I picked up two Chimay's for the instructors for their professionalism and a lottery ticket for the white dragon rider. We all ruminated over the day's events and were now even more keenly aware of the subtle nature and critical importance of micro-terrain management....the best lesson yet learned at the hands of a R2, D2 category avalanche. I'll link to the CAIC report as soon as it becomes available here.
The 4th and final day of the class dawned with new snow in Durango and white out conditions on Coal Bank and Molas Passes. We had decided the previous night that despite the day's adventure, we still wanted to head north past Silverton and ski south of Red Mountain in an area called Sams Run which is moderately treed and heavily skied. The plan for the day was to climb into the alpine and do some crystal identification within the pits since most felt this was an area we need to do a bit more work on. To make a long story short....the more we climbed...the sketchier the conditions got. As we approached the alpine, what had been a suspect melt-freeze crust with faceting about 20cm down at lower elevations turned to a double melt-freeze crust which was sounding hollower and hollower as we skinned up. Isolated collapsing and cracking was observed....so we stopped ascending and dug pits which only confirmed the sketchy nature of our slope. Several folks observed Q1 failures on their compression tests while isolating the columns.....wake up time. Everyone agreed that this was not a slope we wanted to ski....regardless of the foot of fresh on top, it was the dual melt-freeze crust sandwiched in very weak faceted layers that sent the hackles up. I observed a CTH2 Q2 at 15cm down and was able to replicate it with a second test which exposed the facets just below the melt-freeze crust. I also observed an ECTN22 Q1 at 100cm down on some 2mm facets just below another melt-freeze crust....so the probability certainly existed for a slide to break out at 15 cm down....accelerate and load the pack below, and then step down further to that layer 100cm down. Given this and the moderately spaced trees which we could potentially get strained through in a slide, similar to this; we spent the rest of the day conservatively backing out, descending from safe zone to safe zone and avoiding every micro-terrain feature which looked suspect.
Upon reaching our cars....I certainly had a sober and fine appreciation for the subtleties in reading micro-terrain features. I saw first hand the consequence of missing a micro-terrain feature....and I also saw the expert use of avoiding micro-terrain features to limit exposure on a suspect snowpack. After declaring the class over and all of us as Level II certified....we all hoisted our beers. How I felt at this point can only be expressed by this picture.....
After some schooling by the instructors, I was left humbled by how much I thought I knew about pit observations and how little I really knew about pit observations. Tearing into my SWAG book later that evening, I resolved to study up before the third day which would see us taking a full day tour at Molas Pass.
Naked Lady Couloir as seen from the Million Dollar Highway......looking saucy....
Heading SE into the trees along contour, we break out into a clearing and spy our objective and plan a route into the alpine....
Upon cresting the treeline, we get a much clearer view of the shots we were planning on skiing and plotted our test pit sites.
On the way up, it occurred to me that red beards are in fashion these days with the backcountry set from Aspen.....
......and the guides.....
......and yours truly.
Our plan to ski the obvious shot to the left and the shorter but steeper shot just to the right with test pits at bottom left below the cliff band....
After digging my pit with a guy named Justin, who was planning on his 4th trip to Everest two weeks from now, we traversed above the cliffband in the above shot to the left out of view. Topping out, we spied Engineer Mountain to our south, the Million Dollar Highway below and the entrance to our couloir....just below that roll-over shown below.....
Traversing across the top of the shot to skiers left, roughly 20 feet from us, Justin yelled back that he felt a "wumph" at which point the instructor yelled to come back. Justin performed a kick turn when a 2nd "wumph" was felt and heard by all......and then the slope ripped out, sending Justin out of sight. We quickly strained to put eyes on Justin and saw him riding the avalanche down the slope, accelerating down the gut to the runout zone. Cresting another convexity, he disappeared with the snow flowing down behind him.....I feared that the snow was going to bury him at this point and focused on tracking the last spot I saw him relative to the motion of the slide...but he reappeared below a few seconds later, still riding the white dragon until the avalanche slowed down and threw him up into an upright position where he skied out of the lobe of debris below. Cheers erupted from all above as I took this pick when Justin begun picking his way out of the path......the pants were officially soiled at this point....
Flying down the bed surface of the avalanche, which had ripped to the ground; one of the instructors hooked up with Justin and after determining he was ok, advised us over radio to ski down the bed surface. The second instructor traversed left and down to grab a quick crown profile of the slide. As the class followed the track down and onto the bed surface one by one, I found myself also following the track down....only to realize I failed to turn onto the right track and quickly found myself still on top of the slab and above the 2nd instructor who was performing the crown profile. It was at this moment that I had an intense sick feeling that my oversight had just put the 2nd instructor in a very dangerous position with the strong possibility of sending the remaining slab down on top of him....I got a few choice words from him and quickly dropped off the slab onto the bed surface to descend down to safety. I'm glad nothing more came of it and we all made it down safe, to view the slide from below...which now looked bigger than from above.
I owed that instructor a beer....big time. I spent the rest of the day stewing on my stupid mistake as we made our way back to our vehicles. I picked up two Chimay's for the instructors for their professionalism and a lottery ticket for the white dragon rider. We all ruminated over the day's events and were now even more keenly aware of the subtle nature and critical importance of micro-terrain management....the best lesson yet learned at the hands of a R2, D2 category avalanche. I'll link to the CAIC report as soon as it becomes available here.
The 4th and final day of the class dawned with new snow in Durango and white out conditions on Coal Bank and Molas Passes. We had decided the previous night that despite the day's adventure, we still wanted to head north past Silverton and ski south of Red Mountain in an area called Sams Run which is moderately treed and heavily skied. The plan for the day was to climb into the alpine and do some crystal identification within the pits since most felt this was an area we need to do a bit more work on. To make a long story short....the more we climbed...the sketchier the conditions got. As we approached the alpine, what had been a suspect melt-freeze crust with faceting about 20cm down at lower elevations turned to a double melt-freeze crust which was sounding hollower and hollower as we skinned up. Isolated collapsing and cracking was observed....so we stopped ascending and dug pits which only confirmed the sketchy nature of our slope. Several folks observed Q1 failures on their compression tests while isolating the columns.....wake up time. Everyone agreed that this was not a slope we wanted to ski....regardless of the foot of fresh on top, it was the dual melt-freeze crust sandwiched in very weak faceted layers that sent the hackles up. I observed a CTH2 Q2 at 15cm down and was able to replicate it with a second test which exposed the facets just below the melt-freeze crust. I also observed an ECTN22 Q1 at 100cm down on some 2mm facets just below another melt-freeze crust....so the probability certainly existed for a slide to break out at 15 cm down....accelerate and load the pack below, and then step down further to that layer 100cm down. Given this and the moderately spaced trees which we could potentially get strained through in a slide, similar to this; we spent the rest of the day conservatively backing out, descending from safe zone to safe zone and avoiding every micro-terrain feature which looked suspect.
Upon reaching our cars....I certainly had a sober and fine appreciation for the subtleties in reading micro-terrain features. I saw first hand the consequence of missing a micro-terrain feature....and I also saw the expert use of avoiding micro-terrain features to limit exposure on a suspect snowpack. After declaring the class over and all of us as Level II certified....we all hoisted our beers. How I felt at this point can only be expressed by this picture.....
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Big LePowSki vs.Epic Fail v2.0
2 flat tires on a Sunday in Salt Lake City with sidewall punctures in the same day is what you could call an Epic Fail v2.0. After last friday's Epic Fail (forgetting my bike shoes for a Sedona ride)...I thought these things were out of my system for a while....I was wrong.
JMoneyMillionaire, Handlebarsandwich and myself headed up to SLC to The Big LePowSki put on by Black Diamond and Arc’Teryx. Saturday morning dawned with blue skies over the valley and mixed clouds over the mountains. Upon arriving at Brighton, we hung out by the registration desk and stared at the custom Megawatt's decked out in Lebowski graphics....we all secretly wanted them....even though they are like a snowboard.....
After registering....we que'd up and waited for our Steep clinic instructor, who turned out to be Andrew McLean. In the interim, I suckered myself into demo'ing a new pair of Black Diamond prototype boots which looked to be stiffer and lighter than my current pair of boots....I was hemming and hawing about switching out gear prior to a steep clinic since I wanted to get as much possible out of my time...but then reasoned that I would not get another chance to demo a prototype boot...so I went for it.
As the group boarded the lift, it occured to me that the boots I was demo'ing had a longer BSL(Boot Sole Length) than my own boots...and I would have to adjust my bindings on my ski. Scrambling for a posidrive #3, the guys at the BD tent went to work with the power tools to get me set up.....the gent with the power tool had not worked on a Dynafit setup before, so I guided him and eyeballed the 5mm gap between pins and heel....which I hoped would be accurate since I kinda needed to stay in the binding during the steep clinic.
Catching up to the group up at top, Andrew wanted everyone to take a warm-up on a groomer which translated into a chinese downhill to see who the slow ones were. I'm glad we had a shakedown cruise, because I realized the boot was going to take some readjustment on my part with respect to edging because of it's lower height and some funky canting issues(my knees are funky, not the boot)...but I pressed on. Regrouping back at the top, we booted up a ridgeline at an excruciatingly slow pace while bottlenecked behind 20 other folks doing the same. Traversing under an avy control feature, we peered over into the steep for our clinic to begin.
After listening to Andrew's instruction to the group regarding quiet upper body technique, I dropped in and got some great feedback on my first run. I've been aware of an issue concerning what I do with my hands after I make a pole plant which has plagued me the last few years. As independent instruction often does, hearing it from a different perspective or individual can usually break these cycles...and it did....with my next run being significantly more solid and stable than my previous run. I continued to reinforce this new technique as well as picking up some hop-turn tips, all before lunch was served. I can't state how much more confident I felt, not only on the steeps, but moguls as well; all due to what I was doing with my hands after I planted my pole. Following lunch, we que'd up again for the second clinic of the day....for us, the Advanced Freeride which was conducted by Jamey Parks.
I'm not ashamed to say that I am not a hucker...and other than hucking, I was not sure what a Freeride clinic would teach me. Long story short....I learned the techniques of rolling into a huck and spotting a good landing for a huck. While taking B-lines for all but one of the drops, I watched folks grow in their skills and confidence. While I watched, I became a bit jealous...so I promised myself I'd give it a go despite my body being worn from charging all morning on the Steeps clinic. As usual, the leadup in my mind was worse than the actual execution.
By the end of the day, we were tired...but very much excited about heading to the party afterwords. Stopping in at Squatters before the party for some dinner...we also found a few beers we liked...some more than others.....
.....and learned to order bottled beer instead of draft in SLC.
The next day dawned colder and overcast over the mountain....and with one flat tire on the truck. Not only was it flat, it was a sidewall puncture. Finding a place open for business on Sunday morning in SLC is tough...but we found one...and they had a policy that prohibited them from selling me only one tire because of liability concerns over my all-wheel drive transmission; they did, however, have 4 new tires they wanted to sell me though. I won't name this place....but it rhymes with "Byerstone". Exiting said establishment, we found a place that would sell me one tire....Sears. Salvaging a crappy situation, we headed to Snowbird where we found foggy conditions that left me and JMoney quezzy with vertigo and equilibrium issues both on the lift and on the snow. Fighting through it with plenty of grumbling....I threw in the towel at 3 while my friends took one last run. My last run looked like this.
Upon returning to the truck....we discovered a 2nd tire was flat. So mounting the doughnut for the second time in a day, we drove down canyon only to realize that as hard as it was to find a place to service or buy a tire on Sunday morning in SLC....it was impossible after 5 on Sunday. So hedging our bets, I bought two cans of fix-a-flat as insurance for the long drive home through the voids on the map...and just filled the suspect tire with air and then made stops every 2 hours for the entire drive home to add more air. Arriving home worn at 2am in silence and exhaustion I'm sure we all have found Monday to be as foggy as Snowbird was on Sunday...hopefully without the vertigo.
JMoneyMillionaire, Handlebarsandwich and myself headed up to SLC to The Big LePowSki put on by Black Diamond and Arc’Teryx. Saturday morning dawned with blue skies over the valley and mixed clouds over the mountains. Upon arriving at Brighton, we hung out by the registration desk and stared at the custom Megawatt's decked out in Lebowski graphics....we all secretly wanted them....even though they are like a snowboard.....
After registering....we que'd up and waited for our Steep clinic instructor, who turned out to be Andrew McLean. In the interim, I suckered myself into demo'ing a new pair of Black Diamond prototype boots which looked to be stiffer and lighter than my current pair of boots....I was hemming and hawing about switching out gear prior to a steep clinic since I wanted to get as much possible out of my time...but then reasoned that I would not get another chance to demo a prototype boot...so I went for it.
As the group boarded the lift, it occured to me that the boots I was demo'ing had a longer BSL(Boot Sole Length) than my own boots...and I would have to adjust my bindings on my ski. Scrambling for a posidrive #3, the guys at the BD tent went to work with the power tools to get me set up.....the gent with the power tool had not worked on a Dynafit setup before, so I guided him and eyeballed the 5mm gap between pins and heel....which I hoped would be accurate since I kinda needed to stay in the binding during the steep clinic.
Catching up to the group up at top, Andrew wanted everyone to take a warm-up on a groomer which translated into a chinese downhill to see who the slow ones were. I'm glad we had a shakedown cruise, because I realized the boot was going to take some readjustment on my part with respect to edging because of it's lower height and some funky canting issues(my knees are funky, not the boot)...but I pressed on. Regrouping back at the top, we booted up a ridgeline at an excruciatingly slow pace while bottlenecked behind 20 other folks doing the same. Traversing under an avy control feature, we peered over into the steep for our clinic to begin.
After listening to Andrew's instruction to the group regarding quiet upper body technique, I dropped in and got some great feedback on my first run. I've been aware of an issue concerning what I do with my hands after I make a pole plant which has plagued me the last few years. As independent instruction often does, hearing it from a different perspective or individual can usually break these cycles...and it did....with my next run being significantly more solid and stable than my previous run. I continued to reinforce this new technique as well as picking up some hop-turn tips, all before lunch was served. I can't state how much more confident I felt, not only on the steeps, but moguls as well; all due to what I was doing with my hands after I planted my pole. Following lunch, we que'd up again for the second clinic of the day....for us, the Advanced Freeride which was conducted by Jamey Parks.
I'm not ashamed to say that I am not a hucker...and other than hucking, I was not sure what a Freeride clinic would teach me. Long story short....I learned the techniques of rolling into a huck and spotting a good landing for a huck. While taking B-lines for all but one of the drops, I watched folks grow in their skills and confidence. While I watched, I became a bit jealous...so I promised myself I'd give it a go despite my body being worn from charging all morning on the Steeps clinic. As usual, the leadup in my mind was worse than the actual execution.
By the end of the day, we were tired...but very much excited about heading to the party afterwords. Stopping in at Squatters before the party for some dinner...we also found a few beers we liked...some more than others.....
.....and learned to order bottled beer instead of draft in SLC.
The next day dawned colder and overcast over the mountain....and with one flat tire on the truck. Not only was it flat, it was a sidewall puncture. Finding a place open for business on Sunday morning in SLC is tough...but we found one...and they had a policy that prohibited them from selling me only one tire because of liability concerns over my all-wheel drive transmission; they did, however, have 4 new tires they wanted to sell me though. I won't name this place....but it rhymes with "Byerstone". Exiting said establishment, we found a place that would sell me one tire....Sears. Salvaging a crappy situation, we headed to Snowbird where we found foggy conditions that left me and JMoney quezzy with vertigo and equilibrium issues both on the lift and on the snow. Fighting through it with plenty of grumbling....I threw in the towel at 3 while my friends took one last run. My last run looked like this.
Upon returning to the truck....we discovered a 2nd tire was flat. So mounting the doughnut for the second time in a day, we drove down canyon only to realize that as hard as it was to find a place to service or buy a tire on Sunday morning in SLC....it was impossible after 5 on Sunday. So hedging our bets, I bought two cans of fix-a-flat as insurance for the long drive home through the voids on the map...and just filled the suspect tire with air and then made stops every 2 hours for the entire drive home to add more air. Arriving home worn at 2am in silence and exhaustion I'm sure we all have found Monday to be as foggy as Snowbird was on Sunday...hopefully without the vertigo.
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