Kids in a candy shop

P-burg barn

We're entering a little heat wave in Missoula. The snowbanks have shrank to meaningless dirty humps. It's the time of year when every time you look out the window the weather is doing something different. I personally favor the snowing and sunny types of days.

The sun looks to be pushing into the 60's this weekend. Gone are the chances of having any really cold snaps. The winter has been mild as far as harsh low temperatures in the valley. In the higher elevations the winter has been good to us, Snowbowl has 66" at the base and 92" on top.

We took a trip over to Discovery the other day and had the kids slopes and the lodge for that matter to ourselves. The kids pizza'd when they should have pizza'd and all turned out well. Check out this guy french frying when he should have pizza'd., hilarious!

 If you get the chance, go to the Sweet Palace in Philipsburg, our kids kinda liked it.

Kids in the Sweet Palace, Philipsburg, MT

Success

I think most of us can agree that success can be gauged in many ways. I am going to count some success from last week at the local ski hills tow rope. The first time they were barely 2.5 years old and it was quite a chore to keep them out there for longer than 10 minutes. Fast forward 2 winters and we've got smiles and progress. We heard cheers of excitement and saw proud smiles. They have even began to do the tow rope SOLO. For anyone that has rode Snowbowl's tow rope, you know how big of an accomplishment that is. Granted the first attempt was not pretty, although very amusing, her grip and horizontal body was a sight to see.

 Essex uni-cycler

I have continued to stuff copious amounts of sugar laden treats into their mouth at the top of each run. Some may call it cheating but I call it effective. Each girl now skis solo down the short hill and can make turns in and out of the cones. Anyway enough doting on my girls. Thanks for reading whoever you might be. I hope you enjoy some of these pics from the last few weeks. Album over here>>> https://plus.google.com/photos/100316566231417237314/albums/5711358169842705617

Powder bender

I'm here for a very tardy report on last weeks "Snowpocalypse". The weather peeps had been predicting a massive storm for a full week. I was in the camp that thoroughly believed they would only maybe get a 1/4 of the total right. But as it turned out many mountain locations received 4 feet +. The picture to the left was taken by a U of M student and volunteer patroller at Snowbowl, great pics! If you are interested in seeing more, check them out on the FB Snowbowl Ski Patrol page.

The snow in town started to fall on Tuesday and didn't let up until Thursday. Even the often snow blessed Bozangles area watched closely as they still sat with a sad sad base of 24". A friend salivated on my snow report Tuesday night and white knuckled it over from Bozeman. He timed the storm perfect and saw Snowbowl in prime conditions for 2 days. NWS Missoula reported 15.7 inches (Jan. 17-19), which marks the seventh deepest dump since records were first kept in 1893 (The record, 41.1 inches of snow over Christmas in 1996). Snowbowl totaled over 40" for the week. Bringing the base to 80" up top and 36" below.

A couple friends and I joked how it felt like we had come off a bender, a powder bender (urban dictionary defines bender as: The status of being bent for more than a day. Usually results in loss of memory, money, strange tattoos, and other things you'll have a hell of a time explaining.) I was fortunate enough to be scheduled off work and have a very understanding mother-in-law that watched the two rugrats while I choked on powder. We shrugged some responsibilities and ended up with sore legs. No sympathy wanted or needed. Just reporting the facts ma'am.
 

Huge berm after the big dump

Below is a vid I found from the week of snow, some good POV of what the conditions were like. Cheers and thanks for reading.

Most anticipated storm of the year

Montana Snowbowl isn't doing to bad on their snowpack compared to many places around the nation. We're sitting at 58" inch base up top and 24" down at the base. But then if you compare that to Tahoe areas at 12 -18", most Colorado resorts at 30" and the big winner....Mt. Baker at 120". British Columbia seems to be holding in the second spot to Western Montana at a little over 70".

Over the last week we've listened to weather people spew forth their ominous snow forecasts for this week. Last week, they started projecting 4 to 8 feet to fall starting today - Thursday. The valley as usual (except for last year) has been very slow to pick up any snow. Really the only snow to speak of was a few weeks ago when we received a few inches. When last year at this time we had huge snowbanks in town. (see below)

Our rather large posse slayed the slopes of Snowbowl today during the impending storm. We sampled 4" that fell throughout the day. Snow was coming in sideways at times and we reveled at the possibilities of the storm. As my mother-in-law says to my daughters...You get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

Winter so far

This was supposed to be the repeat of last year's La Nina winter. 

However, this seems to be what most skiers are having nightmares of in the winter of 2011/2012. Leave it to Backcountry.com for capturing some of the best captions ever on this photo (unsure photog).

Skiing will get better, and for now Snowbowl has 56" summit (7600') and 23" at the base (5000'), which is more than many ski areas in the west have. For now there is not a lick of snow the Missoula valley and I'm thinking maybe I should mow my lawn? What are you doing? you know you guys can comment in here, right?

Look at the snow cover from last year vs. this year, wow.

Skier claims Snowbowl denied him season pass after safety complaint

This is not going to help them.

Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/local/skier-claims-snowbowl-denied-him-season-pass-after-safety-complaint/article_4caed772-3683-11e1-ba0a-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=comments#ixzz1iYWuqXKb


They are getting dragged through the mud after a chair lift falls off at Snowbowl and in Red Lodge. 

And sorry I had to repost this, found on the TGR forums.
 

Miniature and not so miniature

Miniature faking is very interesting to watch when it's done right and this video from Jackson is one of them. It's pretty dang entertaining to watch the little ant skier's rip big powder lines. Around the 6:10 mark is classic.

A Tiny Day in the Jackson Hole Backcountry from Tristan Greszko on Vimeo.

On an unrelated miniature note, there are a few things around Kneetopia headquarters that are quite the opposite, BIG. The snowpack around here is monstrous, 130" at Stuart Peak with 46" SWE. Snowbowl also is reporting 120" at the summit and 62" at the base. The storms continue to pour over the mountains dropping more snow weekly, there doesn't seem to be much end in sight. The spring outlook seems to be wettish and cooler than normal.

Blah blah blah weather. Its that time of the year that its a crap shoot on what you'll get. Squalls roll in with no warning. Gail force winds rip through the trees trying to bring in warm weather. I'm am officially done with winter as of this point. I am selfishly wishing now that the sun gods will show their face and begin to warm the Missoula Valley.

Which brings me to the other big thing that's happening around here. I recently decided that it was high time to fix my right knee. I injured it last July, hyper-extending the knee badly, exacerbating an old injury. Result torn ACL and torn meniscus. It's been a battle since then, trying to rehabilitate the worn out joint has not been as successful as hoped. I'll be going under the knife on Wednesday and out of frontline work for 3 months. There's a good chance you may see the frequency of posts go up on Kneetopia. Now, now don't get too excited. If any of the upcoming knee talk get's boring at times, bare with me it might just be the drugs.

Hello spin bike, here I come. The task in front of me for the next year will not be miniature.

If anybody's got some ideas to keep me from going insane on the couch after surgery, feel free to speak up. I'd love to hear'em. Thanks for reading.

EXTREME!!!! snowfall

The National Weather Service says Missoula received 9.7 inches of snow on Monday 2/7/11- measured from 12:01 a.m. until midnight. In all, the arctic storm - which officially began on Monday evening - delivered 11.4 inches of new snow to the Missoula Valley. By the way, the EXTREME!!! reference to this post comes from this Missoulian article: Extreme Snowfall wreaks havoc on the roads. Hah! Extreme??? I think that word might be left better to describe things like Mt. Bakers 1,140 inches of snowfall for the 1998-99 snowfall season

And yes, Snowbowl got a few of those inches, 17" to be exact over 2 days. I wasn't able to make it up on Monday, but the wife did. She came home with one of those powder eating grins that only a hubby could love. But Tuesday was open for the shredding. The regular crew set up shop towards the front of the line an hour before opening and awaited the smiles to come.

But first I had to do some last minute adjustments to my bindings in the line. Seems to be par for the course this year with bindings. I've had more problems with bindings this year that I ever have. This time, as I clicked in with 5 minutes till loading I noticed some visible looseness. With a lent screwdriver from the line, I tightened the toe height, it seemed better. I found out the end of the day, that was not the problem. The issue was that when I mounted my CRJ's a few weeks ago I didn't tighten the mounting screws enough. Lesson learned, but they held all day.

Back to the day....we found the mountain in great condition. Winds had picked up over night and buffed a lot of things out. Most of the snow looked to have fell before 3pm the previous day. However, Snowbowl in its classic weird snow report claimed 9" new (they reported 8" the previous day). You've got to be on top of their reports. The day turned BLUE-BIRD about 11am and we took full advantage of the day. The CRJ's performed like the should on all the fluffy pillows of pow. A lunch time stop of the Griz chair for 30 minutes worked well with my destroyed legs.



I couldn't fail to mention the skier that showed the opening lift line what the true spirit of a powder day is all about. This guy rolled into the line with a one piece, waxed mustache and a bugle. I keep my eye on him for about 20 minutes, wondering what shenanigans he was up to. I watched as he kept putting the bugle up to his mouth, seemingly mouthing it during that time. When the chair began to load, this powder trooper let roar the Calvery Charge through his mighty bugle. If that doesn't say powder day, I don't know what does.

100 Inches

Snowbowl cracked a 100" base this week, not bad at all. Considering other ski areas around the state have considerably less (Bridger=61", Moonlight=50", Red Lodge=33", Discovery=59"). The storms have definitely favored the western part of the state thus far. La Nina has been good to us quantity wise. If I had one thing to ask of the little lady it would be to bring a few more cold storms. We've had some wet snow this year, don't get me wrong I ain't complaining.

The sun is always nice, and as luck would have it this week we had 2 sunny days. That makes 9 sunny days since Halloween, get out the tanning oil! Sunscreen? Nope I wasn't having it. I wanted to try to get every last ounce of Vitamin D that I could. We headed behind Snowbowl on Tuesday to see what was shaking. There was one of the larger groups I've seen gearing up to head back in the same direction. But by the time we got back there, we had the place all to ourselves. Three laps of the B-Ridge and my legs were smoked. The snowpack has really settled and conditions were great. 6" of developing hoar frost/recycled pow on top of a ultra bomber base. Anyone else seen anything different?

Seven Sunny Days

We've had fun this month. There's been lots of snow, rain, clouds and fog. I didn't mention sun, and thats because there hasn't been much of that. I saw tonight on the news that Missoula has only seen SEVEN sunny days in the last 90 days! The NWS calls any day with less than 30% cloud cover = Sunny. La Nina has been snow and wet, my skin is ultra pale. But with about 1/2 of the winter gone, Snowbowl has a huge base, 96" as of today. But I can actually say that I skied in the sun this week. At least I think that's what the yellow ball in the sky was? A few rays of rare sunshine hit my face while day dreaming of warmer climes. Views expanded all the way to the south end of the Bitterroot valley, crystal clear.

We've had the girls out several times on the rope-tow and they are doing great. Their last outing, P was able to use the french fries-pizza technique with control. Stopping on her own. My bribes with Skittles at the top of each run earlier this month seemed to have paid off. G made a huge improvement from the last outing, no longer crumpling like a wet noodle the second you let go of her. Both the girls really want to ride the chairlift, great incentive to improve. I think a trip over to Discovery's magic carpet and kiddie lift is forthcoming.


I finally finished my european mount for the bull. It was a great learning process and time consuming as well. I started out by skinning out the head right after I got it home back in November. A few days later I boiled the head in a giant pot for a day. After scraping off the extra flesh, I boiled it again for another 1/2 day. The next step was to apply the peroxide (40%) for 24 hours. I pasted it on, wrapped a wet cloth around it, and saran wrapped it. I also wrapped the antler bases with foil to keep them from getting whitened. The last step was creating the european pedestal to hang it on the wall. Over at local home resource shop, I bought a 10ft piece of 1"x10" barnwood for $4. I traced out the pattern off one that a buddy had made for my antelope. Then cut it out with a bandsaw, used a blowtorch to distress the edges, added some mounting hardware and it was complete. In hindsight I should have made the base where the skull sits several inches better.

Missoula got 6" of snow today and tomorrow looks like it will be a good one up at the Bowl. they got 7" last night and the report is that at least 4 more inches fell throughout the day.

Thanks for reading. Click the below album to check out the rest of the pictures.

January 2011

Visibility

Yesterday morning Snowbowl reported 7" overnight. Freezing rain was falling in the valley, glossing the streets into skating rinks. La Nina continues to pour the pineapple to the Missoula area, but it's a good thing. Heavy wet flakes slopped down as we awaited the lifts to open. I was pumped as I was wearing my first ever Goretex jacket, what a day to test it out too. The Outdoor Research Mentor Jacket performed like it's price would suggest. I stayed dry all day, a far cry from my 6 year old sponge that will soon be visiting the trash can.

The new snow was very dense, but the visibility was the biggest factor to contend with. Goggles were rime iced after 5 turns forcing your hand on either skiing by braille or stopping to clean them off. The runs were quiet, no hooting or hollering. The only sound was the faint groan as people mustered their next turn. The weather pattern looks to be on the warmer/normal temp side for the next week with moisture every day. Snow is still everywhere in town, rock solid in most places especially the side streets. Thank god for snowtires.

White December in Missoula

December has been a good month for Missoula, that is if you enjoy the cold and snow. I'm fresh off a powder bender, with over 2 feet of new snow this week at Snowbowl (15" day & 10" day). Being a skier and winter lover in the north country makes life more enjoyable. When the valley murk, gray and mist get me down, my mind is refreshed on the chairlift as fat flakes fall in my lap.

Wednesday was the classic storm skiing day that I have come to love. The trees allow you to see better when visibility drops, snow also tends to collect there. It sounds cheesy, but it's as if time stand still as the flakes pile up in the quiet shadows of the forest. I had the opportunity for thigh deep first tracks on one of my favorite runs. That same run called my name 4 more times, fabulous.

The day started off with valley rain falling most of the night. As I peeked at the mountains off and on through the night, darkness cloaked everything above the valley floor. The news channels were abuzz with winter storms warnings, you could feel the skiers stirring in their houses. Missoula skiers weren't fooled by the wet valley floor. Even before 9am, the lift line morphed into swollen monstrosity of an excited tentacled beast. I'd argue it's hard to find a happier bunch of people. Especially when Snowbowl's base is 48" and the summit has 78". That has to be one of the better starts to a winter in a long time. Does anyone remember what the base was during the big winter of 96-97 was?

Geeking out on the NOAA weather data, I gathered up a few stats. I had been curious as it seems that we've in the proverbial freezer (relative for Missoula) since Mid November.

• first snowfall, 3" on Nov. 22 and the snow has not melted since. Total of 10" for Nov.
  
• The thermometer did not crack 30deg for the last 11 days of the month.
  
• December hasn't warmed much either; Avg of 29 degrees with 13" of snowfall.

The twins are adapting well and are now comfortable getting their snowsuits on playing or riding their bikes on the patio in 10 degree temps. We've stomped around the yard in their skis and shredded our snowbanks multiple times. They've come to terms with mittens and their associated lack of dexterity. We're all excited to share some family time at the ski hill. In the meantime we actually skied our friends backyard, they had a blast. A few snow angels and some hot cocoa, time well spent.

We found our new favorite sled hill in Missoula, the girls and I enjoyed some a luge track filled powder. They didn't think twice about enjoying the playground swings and slide despite the 20 degrees and snow falling. Check out Gwynn's version of a face shot.

I thought I'd leave off with a few shots of classic Montana stuff. Things that remind me of why I live here. Happy New Year to all, let it be as successful and joy filled as the last.

Smiles on the skin track

Firing up the old smokester for the first time this season

Eat it Soccer Moms!

Just another day in paradise

Snowbowl lift issues

A recent article was published in the Missoula Independent that I thought might stir up some opinions. The article addresses some of the mechanical difficulties that Snowbowl has had at the beginning of this season and a local Rep's idea on dealing with them. If you take the time to read the comments, there are some great rebuttals.

As for my opinion on the matter (not that you probably care), I think Mrs. Hands heart is in the right place, but is going down the wrong road. We don't need government to rectify Snowbowl's issues with the lift. We need the owners to take responsibility.

From the Independent:
Montana Snowbowl opened Nov. 27 to a crowd of some 1,000 skiers and snowboarders in what co-owner Brad Morris describes as "the strongest start we've had that I can remember." The near tripling of the resort's opening day average resulted from the onset of what is expected to be a major powder year; snow depth at Snowbowl's summit has already reached 54 inches. But a day-one mechanical glitch on the Grizzly chairlift set the tone for a more troublesome early season trend: lengthy delays.

Morris confirmed that in the first four days of the season, Snowbowl's Griz lift shut down three times due to separate mechanical issues. The first incident, which led to the evacuation of several passengers by rope, occurred after ice formed on the lift's haul line, something Morris says is extremely uncommon at the resort. Concerns over a faulty brake and loose drive belt led to the second and third shutdowns respectively.

"It could happen any time, and those things are tested and the lift is inspected by the engineers from the insurance company before we even operate it," Morris says. "That was the first time we've ever had ice on the lift. It's a common problem in the West, where there's more precipitation. We've never even on the Lavelle [Creek] lift had that problem.".........

First day on skis

Words cannot describe the sight of our two little girls in ski gear. We headed up to Snowbowl 2 weeks ago and introduced them a sport they might grow to love one day (if I have anything to do with it). Both were all smiles after a few runs on the ropetow hill. Note: Bribing with candy does work.

Any other tips on getting wee ones to enjoy themselves on the hill?

First day on skis from O.P.I. on Vimeo.

Crappy winter so far

As many skier across the West are fighting depression and frustration, apparently in Italy they are having a great winter. The weather in Missoula has been quite dismal lately and well most of the winter. We got one nice storm last week, with about 18" falling that week. Snowbowl skied very well on Tuesday, a great day of storm riding. We lapped the bowls as quick as we could, then rushed back down to town to pick up the kids from daycare.

Right now at Snowbowl, they are reporting 55" on top and 21" at the base. The coral reef is officially set up on the south faces. The base overall is solid and not going anywhere unless we have a drastic warm spell. Coverage is decent as well. So if we can just the storm track come this way, we might forget this terrible dryspell that has been interspersed with lots of grey inverted days.

Here's some snow that brought a smile to my face.

Surpise attack - The Canyons

Last week we seized the day and made a last minute trip to The Canyons down in Utah. T's sister was taking her family on a spring break ski trip at The Canyons. Turns out it's much cheaper and easier for that matter to get from FL to UT rather than MT. Without her knowing we loaded up the babies, lots of gear, put in a DVD to distract the kids and headed out. Dry roads meant smooth sailing for the eight hours down I-15.

We arrived and tried to figure a way to surprise everyone. After all was said and done, my nephew was floored when we answered a knock at the door and found 2 little cuties standing at the door. T and I got a day to ski together with our nephew and we sampled some great snow. The Canyons had rec'd 11" the day before, 5" the day we skied and 5" more the second day we skied. It's a different world skiing swanky 6 pack high speed lifts when you are used to 30 year old slow ass Riblet chairlifts (see Snowbowl).

The second day I met up with a local shredder and got the ultimate tour of The Canyons. We headed up the hike off the 9990 chair and skied some great snow on the four runs we did. I had a binding malfunction on my 8 year old Fritchi Freerides on the first slackcountry run, so the rest of the day I busted crud on the Pro's.



Thanks to everyone! Thanks M and T, Toby, T, and Black Diamond for great customer service.

3 avalanche fatalities in SW Montana

Yowzer, yesterday was not a good day for the backcountry in southwest Montana. According to the Gallatin NF Avalanche Center there were three avalanche fatalities. There has been a lot of bad things happening out there, you can check out this season's accidents over at the Avalanche.org website (http://www.avalanche.org/av-reports/index.html). I believe with these recent deaths, the tallies are: USA Fatalities: 16, Canada Fatalities: 13; Total Fatalities: 29.

Here's the write up from the Gallatin AC site:

Yesterday there were three avalanche fatalities in southwest Montana, two outside the advisory area and one within. One avalanche fatality occurred in the mountains north of Cooke City near Daisy Pass. This was a massive avalanche, and we have few details. Doug and I will be going to Cooke City today for an investigation and will have more details in tomorrow’s advisory.

Another avalanche occurred near Mt Jefferson in the Centennial Range. The victim was wearing a beacon, but was buried under 8 ft of snow and it took 30 minutes to extricate him. More details can be found at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_id_avalanche_death.html

A third avalanche fatality occurred in the Gravelly Range near Black Butte. This avalanche was 200 ft wide and ran 75 vertical feet. It occurred on an east facing slope at 9000ft. A group of 14 riders met in a meadow and noticed someone from the group was missing. They searched for him and found his sled in avalanche debris at the base of a small slope. Everyone was carrying rescue gear and began a beacon search. They immediately detected a signal from the victim’s beacon and found him under 2 feet of snow. Once they got him out of the debris they performed CPR. The victim was buried for approximately 15 minutes. This was an experienced group of riders well equipped with rescue gear and aware of current avalanche conditions with no intentions of climbing steep slopes.

Photos of this avalanche are posted at: http://www.mtavalanche.com/photos/photos.php

A video clip can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFMi1gtaH-o

Meanwhile, over in Western Montana the snowpack seems to be stabilizing. The Friday report from the Missoula Avalanche Center rated LOW on most slopes and at all elevations. Moderate rating on some terrain features such as wind loaded slopes steeper than 35° or areas where the snowpack is shallow with rock outcroppings where it would be easier to collapse through to the weaker facets near the ground.

A few friends and I toured out behind Snowbowl on Friday and found their reports to be accurate. We dug a pit on a S aspect at 8100ft and found a RB6. In general the snow was consistently bonded, but faceted near the ground. We found evidence of some large slides on similar aspects that looked to have occurred sometime last week. These slides ran to the ground, with crowns of 18" to 30" and widths of ~150 yards. Riding conditions were good where the sun had warmed up the snow. Here's a few pics of the fun.


Be safe out there. My sincere condolences to the families and friends of these recent tragedies.

Snowbowl pass pick up

Lack of snow continues to be the general weather theme lately. We seemed to have a few shots that got everyone thinking the beginning of the white was near, but alas it has waned. The ebb and flow on the snowline has been painful. I'm ready for it to drop to the valley floor and settle in for the winter. Looks like we might be waiting a bit according to NWS:

LONG RANGE FORECAST MODELS ARE PROJECTING A CHANGE IN THE OVERALL WEATHER PATTERN DURING THE EARLY TO MIDDLE PORTION OF NEXT WEEK. ...................EFFECTIVELY OPEN UP NORTHWESTERLY FLOW OVER MONTANA AND IDAHO...RESULTING IN AN INCREASING CHANCE FOR SNOW DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF DECEMBER.

On the other hand good news for pass holders. Here's the message from the Snowbowl website: IF WE DO NOT OPEN ON THE WEEKEND AFTER THANKSGIVING (NOV 28-30) we will be at these shops to distribute passes and take photos.

DATE LOCATION HOURS
November 28 , 2008 Friday Gull Ski 1pm-6pm
November 29, 2008, Saturday Bob Wards 1pm-6pm
November 30, 2008, Sunday The Trail Head 1pm-6pm

A few shots from years past just to remember that it will come

Highlights of 2007-08 season

I'm on daddy day care today, T is out and about enjoying some time to herself. She opted out of skiing today, despite my prodding she just wasn't into it. I found myself reminising a bit, and pulled up my ski notes for this winter. Wow, it was a good year even though it was cut at least a full 3 months short. There will be great skiing this year into May. All the resorts are boasting a 100" base, thats the best its been since the big winter of 96-97.

Anyway, here are a few hightlights that noted:

• 19 ski days (12/6 - 1/29)
• 13 days of +6" of powder
• One waist deep day (see this video - Trench Warfare)
  
  
  Lolo Pass deepness - Trench Warfare from freakofsnow on Vimeo.
  
  

Update on the knee: Saw the doctor at the beginning of the week, his prognosis: 2 degrees range of motion difference b/t the good and bad knee = GREAT! I am spinning 8-10 miles a day. I'm also starting to be able to lift more, 100lbs on the leg press (both legs), 20 lbs on the hamstring pulley curl, squatting 45lbs. All in all the last 3 days the knee has felt great, the pain has really subsided and I have minimal swelling.

Showers are good and so is one crutch

Seven days since the surgery and things are starting to look up a little bit, but there have been rollercoasters and I'm sure there will be a lot more. I went to PT today (the 3rd time this week) and things were good. I am able to ride the bike at 60 rpm for a few minutes at a time, which is great. Doing some light weight leg presses, tons of quad sets (where you straighten your leg and tighten your quad muscle), some little squats and some hamstring exercises. I'm also cleared to walk on one crutch. The knee is feeling better and I am having that feeling that the leg is going to buckle less and less.

If you don't know this already, make sure you have your doc or PT adjust your crutches. There is a science to this for sure. The adjustment is probably much lower than you think I found out. Ask them about your crutch height and it will make you life better, trust me.

Along the same lines you should also be aware of the proper way to walk on just one crutch. I would recommend asking your PT or surgeon to review this. The basics are that you actually use the crutch on the opposite side of your injury. Seems simple, but when you're all doped up on painkillers you might not think about it.

They removed the stitch today, but I will leave the steri-strips over the incision for a few more weeks. But the best part of this is, I was able to finally take a shower. I think I was beginning to smell, seems like I sweat a lot at night (maybe because of the pain meds?). My smell, BO, whatever you want to call it has improved remarkably.

I was finally able to get out of the house yesterday too. A buddy picked me up and I went over and watched a movie, had a few beers and in general just enjoyed the change of scenery. I'll be honest, it has been very hard for me to be cooped up inside the house for the last week. My mood has not been the greatest either (see meds and pain). And while I love my little babies, my patience sometimes is worn thin when they cry and cry and cry.

And finally, some pics. I'll be honest, when I called the snowphone for Snowbowl, I was bummed to hear that I wouldn't be partaking in the 18 INCHES of snow that fell Tuesday night. That is the biggest one time dump they have got in about 10 years! But with that said, I was stoked to hear that a handful of friends were up there first chair. I'd like to think they made a few turns for their old gimped up buddy.

Right guys? You know, you can make comments on this blog, don't be shy!

Ticket says it all

The lift line was enormous, didn't miss this

I did miss this. Ryan making a turn for me :-)