RIPLEY

Today we brought home our new dog--Ripley.  He is a Rhodesian Ridgeback, 11 weeks old, 26 pounds.  We love him.

Back of the Mountain - Outpost 14

Skied the backside of the mountain today--Outpost 14, chairs 13 & 14.  Great views of the Minarets and back country.  A really nice day.

Aggressive Ice

We've had ice daggers before...but not like this.  Fairly sinister looking...like they're being taunted by the window.  This would later avalanche off of the roof and bury the path below...after I had spent an hour digging it out.

SNOW...FINALLY.

It's been almost two months.  The driest December since the 1800's.  Skiing has been rough.  Finally had a couple of storms that rolled in this weekend.  Got hit Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  Mountain is reporting 57 inches of new snow.  Totally stoked.  We definitely need more...but this is a welcome sight.

Skiing is gonna be really good tomorrow...is that the flu I feel coming on?  Or at least a 1/2 day flu?  Might have to schedule a doctor's appointment from 8am--to noon....cough, cough.

Pics are just from the snow this morning.  Woke up to a nice sight.  Been snowing off and on all day today.

Yosemite

Since we haven't had snow since before Thanksgiving--Tioga Pass, the road to Yosemite--has remained open. It's one of the few times that anyone can remember the pass being open in January.  Usually it's closed from October to early Summer--depending on the snow pack.  Everyone has been heading up to check it out--and ice skate on Tenaya Lake.  As one meteorologist put it--"we'll likely never see the pass open in January again in our lifetime."

So we crewed up and motivated on Jan 2.  Our friends Marc, Chris, Tina, and Crystalyn joined us.  While there wasn't much snow on the ground..it was pretty cool.  Made it down to the valley floor, had lunch at the Ahwahnee, went up to Glacier Point, and hiked down to the giant Sequoias in Mariposa Grove.  A good day...and a good way to start 2012.

More pics below--click "Read more"...

Night of Lights

The annual Night of Lights at Canyon Lodge.  It was cold and awesome.  Better fireworks than 4th of July.  Big crowd, great show.

Short video with some of the highlights:

Lots of Man Made Snow...

Today they opened Canyon and Eagle Lodges...despite not having any snow since November 20th.  They've been blowing the man made stuff for quite a while in order to get more runs/lifts open.  Pretty cruddy...we need some of the real stuff.

Since we live a stone's throw from Eagle, we decided to ski a few runs during lunch to celebrate the opening of Chair 15--Eagle Express.  Lunch quickly became three hours...luckily it was a slow work day.

Christy on Eagle Express--finally open.  We can now walk to the lifts!

Click below for more pics...

No New Snow In Two Weeks = Trout

Unfortunately, it hasn't snowed since shortly before Thanksgiving.  The mountain needs snow.  We've had to go up above the main ski area--towards the Minarets--in order to take our cross country ski Masters classes.  Tamarack doesn't have enough snow to make it happen.

It's been cold too.  Yesterday it was 14 degrees when Christy dropped me off at the mountain for xc skiing.  Fingers were not happy in my lightweight gloves.  Almost lost 10.

So without good snow, we've been picky--no downhill runs, just XC.

With no skiing on a Sunday...it was time to go fly-fishing instead.  Hot Creek yielded a couple of decent sized rainbows...nothing special...but nice for 35 degrees in the late afternoon:

Here's a terrible pic from my awful phone.  My fingers were too cold to do it properly:

Bears

Finally we saw some bears in our neighborhood.  A mama bear and her two cubs on the golf course behind our house.  Pretty cool to see--especially this time of year when they're supposed to be in their dens for Winter.

Doesn't Get Much Better...

I love it when people ask me why I wanted to move to Mammoth (mostly perplexed LA people who can't fathom the thought of living somewhere that Trader Joe's has yet to colonize).

It doesn't get much better than living in a place when you can ski on Saturday and fly-fish on Sunday...all within 10 minutes of your front door.  That's a pretty solid weekend...

Only way this gets any better is if Lagavulin decides to move its distillery from Scotland...to my backyard.

Some pics...

Saturday on opening weekend--pretty decent snow for early November.

Sunday Evening on the Upper Owens River

 Sunset on the way home from the river

Shadow & Ediza Lakes Hike

Christy trekked 13 miles to these lakes in the Mammoth backcountry before the snow started.  Nice scenery...

More pics below...

Fall Colors - Best Pics

Lots of pics from all of the areas we drove to and/or hiked into this Fall.  A good SLR and better timing with the afternoon sun probably would have helped.  But we got some good ones with our point and shoot.  Here are some highlights:

Sherwin Mountains

 More pics below...

Fall Colors - Some HD Video

Fall colors are turning now--and there are some areas that look insane with color.  It's hard to capture the brightness of the colors on these Aspen trees.

Here are a few videos--on some of them, the colors are so extreme that it washes out the background and makes it look almost black and white.  The videos turned out brighter than the photos.

Mammoth Rock Trail

More videos below...

Lundy Canyon 10/9/11

Hiked up to the "20 lakes Basin" in search of Fall colors and waterfalls.  Colors just beginning--several waterfalls.

Overall a nice day followed by dinner at The Mobil Mart.  Essentially 4 star dining in the back of a Mobil gas station mart.  I had heard about if for years and it lived up to the hype.  Any day that ends with eating ribs and Buffalo meatloaf is a good day.  Should have had the Elk chops though...they were thick.

Some video--

Lundy Canyon - 3rd waterfall up

More pics below...

Why the hell is it snowing on October 5th???

Big storm rolled in and dumped 10-15 inches starting October 5th.  Hilarious--considering it was in the 70's just a few days prior and in the high 60's since.

First time I've ever been in snow at the beginning of October.  Let me at least trick or treat first.  Guess this year I'll dress up as a guy who isn't going mountain biking in the Fall like he planned.  Sweet costume.

At least we know the snowblower works.  And that blowing heavy, wet, early season snow sucks balls.

This could be a foreshadowing of things to come.  Will we break last year's 700 inch record?

All this on October 5th???  WTF

Ice Daggers

More pics below...

Mt. Whitney 8/22/11

The 16 1/2 hour, 22 mile day...

More pics below...