Woody Creek Cabin

Some friends booked the Woody Creek Cabin in the Beartooth-Absaroka Wilderness over New Years, and invited me to join. After boating the Lochsa the day before, I set out driving through the park, swerving around bison, and started skinning in. The cabin is nestled 2.5 miles up in an Wilderness Area, and as we approached the buzz of the sleds faded, replaced with the soft silence of snowy woods. The brewmaster of Snake River Brewing loaded up packs full of his finest (yeah Pakitos!), so all nine of us stayed fully hydrated. The next three days were spent exploring the drainage, from all the way up to the football field,

to six laps on the ridge below the submarine. We slept under glittering stars in Montana, and skinned across the border to shred pow during the day. 

Beaver Creek Cabin

Skis? Check.
Boots? Check.
Widespread, cracking, woomfing, propagating snow instability? Check.

With our semester's finals over and nothing but pow in our future, a group of friends and I loaded the essentials (whiskey, M&Ms, and ski gear) into a car and took off for three days of skiing in the Southern Madison Range. We had rented out a tiny forest service cabin tucked deep in the Gallatin National Forest, away from all responsibility except to ski. We skinned in the 3.5 miles, the one sled present loaded down with an entire keg of Bozeman Brewing's finest ale, and dropped our packs at the cabin. The next several hours were spent perfecting our adventure-skinning techniques, fighting off the grasp of shrubbery while trying to maneuver our skis over deadfall. The touring-to-skiing ratio was heavily skewed toward touring, but provided both an excellent workout and an exercise in tree trimming. The next day dawned early with huge hunks of bacon in tow (Red, the dog contingent, slavered away to no avail). We tiptoed across creeks over snow bridges, fought off the forest once more, but did end up atop a pristine snowfield that we promptly decimated with ski tracks. That night, after several rowdy rounds of drinking games, culminated in a naked backflip under the stars, several barefoot laps around the cabin, and a quick and shirtless lesson in tele skiing. The final day found us touring up a ridge toward a distant peak, but when the snow suddenly whoomfed, settling into a scary silence while cracks shot out and up the steeper slope ahead of us. Needless to say, we hightailed it out and lapped the nearby meadow for hours on end, sculpting kickers, creating perfect figure eight turns, and smiling in the sun.

Creeksgiving

The desert holds an alien mystique no matter how deep you delve in it's fissures. It's a desolate and inhospitable landscape, but also one teeming with hidden life. Life held in the twisting claws of juniper, blossoming in the rivulets that run from spring to algae-laden pothole, and in the spirits of the few hardy people who return year after year. The few that arrive like clockwork each fall and spring come to dance up the sandstone pillars, glide down bike trails along the canyon rims, and explore the twisting labyrinths of the slot canyons. By the end of each trip their skin is stained the same deep orange as the desert, their pockets are full of sand, and their grins glint from freckled faces. 

We spent our Thanksgiving break climbing down in Indian Creek... Creeksgiving! Driving overnight after classes, we shotgunned PBRs with the sunrise in the parking lot and headed to the crag to climb some splitters. Jamming fingers in corner crack systems, thrashing up offwidths, thin hands soaring up inside a cave... we climbed it all. Life in the desert is so unique, so simple, such a vital part of me. The warmth that bathes your face as the sun rises above the far hills. The grit showering down into your eyes and crunching between your teeth on climbs. The hot flames and thin, fragrant smoke from a burning juniper. The brilliant purples, oranges, blues as the desert chameleons into night. The smooth, striped walls of a slot canyon twisting out of sight. An impossibly blue sky overhead. The swath of brilliant stars and swollen moon that submerges the landscape in moonlight. It's the stuff of Desert Solitaire, of adventure, the final untamable landscape. And Abbey is right, you have to leap out of your car, rip off your shoes, and run out into it all. You have to pull cactus spines from your skin, have to nap in the dirt, have to get away from society and up cliffs or down canyons or along trails. I had never been to the desert up until three years ago, I had no idea what I was missing. But now, from spending a collective month biking along sheer cliff rims, hiking in canyons with Anasazi ruins perched high above, jumping into icy potholes, and climbing the golden cliffs, the desert has worked its way into my life it a permanent fashion. I've become part of the annual desert pilgrimage, the mass migration to seek sunlight and adventure and a freeing of the soul. 

Preseason Training

Skian With Rhys - Episode Uno

We dropped the first of (hopefully) many "sweet" edits today... Preseason workout tactics including proper nutrition, beacon practice, and weightlifting. Check it out!



Skian WIth Rhys - Episode Uno from Kirra Kirra on Vimeo.

Back on the Slopes!

I stomped into my bindings, looped my poles around my wrists, and made one, two, three hop turns before BAM! I'm sliding headfirst down a couloir with my left ski riding down abreast of me. I reach out, grab it and barely arrest with my other ski. I click back in, shake off the snow crystals, and continue shredding down my first run of the season. 

The morning of Halloween, a crew of thirty skiers rallied to hike, skin, and ski blade our way up into the bowl of Sacajawea Peak. We hit the base of the bowl and fanned out, smaller groups kicking their way up various couloirs and skinning up snowfields. I and my backcountry buddies of choice picked a line off of Hardscrabble Peak, an aesthetic pair of narrow couloirs that intertwined their way down. As the pitch mellowed out toward the base it turned into a tight luge run that snaked down through the field of rocks, requiring last minute ollies over strips of scree, tranny gaps, and the occasional one ski navigation. Bombing down through the trees below the bowl we stumbled upon some young jibbers in the middle of an impromptu forest rail jam. This species is normally found seshing in urban environments, but with all this climate change they're being forced into high alpine environments. They threw down on the rails while we ate their snacks... As a reformed park rat myself, I assure they didn't care, those kids were busy eating s***!