Snowshoeing

Last weekend we went snowshoeing with the Wellesley club here.

I’d only been snowshoeing once before in my life, so I was excited that this activity included a guided tour with a ranger. Anybody can do this trip – it wasn’t any sort of special event or anything, but I gather the reservations are hard to get. The event was free, although there was a $10 donation requested per person, and they provided the snowshoes.

We started from the Steven's Pass Ski Area - my first time there. We spent about 1.5 hours hining through lightly falling snow. Our destination was Grace Lakes, a series of small lakes. The lakes didn't look like much, just flat, snowy fields.

Here are some pictures.

(The picture above is a bit blurry because I took it through a ziplock bag [trying to keep my camera sheltered from the falling snow]. I actually kind of like the effect since I think it makes the forest look a little mysterious.)

(It's definitely worth enlarging the picture above so you can read the signs. We turned around at this point.)

Vail!

This holiday weekend, Mike and I went in different directions. I’ll let him share what he did (hopefully with pictures!) later, but for now, it’s all me . . . .

Friday evening I took off for Denver, meeting my relatives from San Francisco for a 2-hour drive to Vail, where we’d all rendezvous with my Cheyenne relatives and their son, who is at CSU. Perfect plan, no?

Enter Mother Nature. A massive snowstorm/blizzard/windgust/white-out/avalanche warning situation turned what should have been a short drive into a six hour drive! We spent at least two of those hours in a traffic jam, creeping along at a pace that wouldn’t even shame the slowest snail. We moved so slowly that people’s (front-wheel drive) cars actually got stuck in the middle of the freeway while “driving.” I totally thought we’d be spending the night SQUISHED in the car (five of us plus ski gear = one tight fit) out there on the interstate. When we finally did get to the head of things, there were several cars just sitting perpendicular to the line of traffic, plus an RV (like, really, why would you even *think* you could drive your RV through this??? As if.). Big props to my uncle who drove fearlessly through all that! Also, a big thanks to my brother and Mike who both answered my panicked cell phone calls regarding road conditions.

So, we arrived at Vail around 4am. Only one of us was hearty enough to get up and hit the slopes at 8am. It was not, uh, me. I skied the half day that day, and then a full day Sunday. Despite the mess on Friday night, by Saturday morning the weather was perfect: not too cold, and really sunny.

And Vail is sooooo beautiful. Just amazing. Tons of big bowls, jagged peaks, and green trees (also some silvery aspens for contrast).

And it was so fun to ski with my cousins and aunt and uncle. My cousin Jesse is a serious shredder, but sometimes he deigned to ski with us. So it was fun to take the whole mountain as a group.

I even brought the new camera out one day to shoot some action shots:

I also used the old camera to take some video of cousin Jesse, cousin Skye, cousin Emilia, Aunt Polly, and Uncle Mitchell. Here’s more video, shot from a slightly different angle. Just kidding - the video is coming just as soon as I get the technical help uploading it.

My last day, I didn’t want to shell out the big bucks for full-day lift ticket since I needed to leave Vail around 1pm to catch my flight home, so I hung with Pru and Tom instead. Tom and I went snowshoeing while Pru cross country skied. The trails crisscrossed each other, so we got to see plenty of Pru!

I had a wonderful time – the company was good, the weather was good (after the initial woes), and the mountain was just amazing. What a great little getaway!

Snow and Salads

We've had a few snowy days here - nothing like other places in the country, but pretty exceptional for Seattle.

On another note, Mike made a great salad last night. Recipe from one of our new favorite cookbooks.