Wintervention

Right now, the view from my office window is snow-covered mountains. Everything above 6,000 feet is white, and the national weather service is calling for 20-30" of fluff up at Alta/Snowbird by tonight. Winter, it seems, is making its first appearance in Utah.

This weekend we allowed the ski excitement factor to make a big jump. The Black Diamond ski swap was on Saturday morning (along with the REI garage sale... what a morning!), and what really stood out to me was the backcountry enthusiasm present here. I would guess that over 75% of the skis for sale at BD were mounted with AT or telemark bindings. I love that earning your turns is the norm here! Andrea was able to pick up some AT boots for basically nothing, and I got a good deal on Dynafit bindings.

On Saturday night we headed downtown (yeah, we went out after dark!) to see the new Warren Miller movie, Wintervention. In addition to the typical ski-porn footage of huge gap jumps and ripping up perfect Alaskan spines, this movie had some great destination segments. My favorite was the ski mountaineering trip to Antarctica, but what really made me feel a connection to this film was the footage shot in areas where I have skied (Beaver Creek's Royal Elk Glades and Vail's Northwoods) and hiked (the Telluride region of Colorado's San Juans and Southern Utah's Bryce Canyon).


Mia recovering from surgery. She was back to full steam ahead the following day!

Mia the puppy was spayed earlier this week, so we've been trying to keep her from running too much, but she's a bundle of energy and was back to her normal self almost immediately.

For a sendoff, take a look at this video clip below. You've probably seen (or visited) Bryce Canyon in the summer... but most people don't think about what that place would be like covered in snow. Last year, being an El Nino, brought record snow to Southern Utah, and this was the result...