A cool respite from the blistering heat of summer…
When the Snow Gods give you lemons, you don’t even get lemon flavored snow. You just get windburn and bullet proof wind-buff. Eventually we found some creamy fluff away from the wind.
Honestly the skiing wasn’t great, which you’ll see in the video. On the other hand, it was a really nice day for a hike, and a good excuse to play with cameras and work on my Adobe Premier skills…
Sounds:
My fellow outdoorsmen and snow sports enthusiasts,
I’m writing because one of our brethren, Jon Miller, needs our help! While not acquainted in the traditional, face-to-face, handshake fashion of yore, Jon and I bonded several years ago via this website over our shared determination that the only sane, backcountry touring rig would be a DPS Wailer mounted with Marker Lord Bindings using the novel CAST SI&I touring system. After months of deliberation followed by an anxious wait for the manufacturing industry to catch up with our respective backcountry stoke, we each enthusiastically unleashed our new powder chasing-rigs on the New England backcountry, documenting and loving every last bit of it.
Unfortunately, just a few weeks ago, Jon suffered a horrendous accident in Tuckerman Ravine and looks to be facing a long and uphill battle to recovery. Jon has brought substantial enthusiasm to the New England backcountry skiing scene over the last several years, and now I believe it is our turn to return some of that enthusiasm! Jon’s crew has created a gofundme page to raise funds for his presumed lengthy recovery. I turn now to the community: one of our own needs our help and it is up to us to get the word out! Get to it: Twitter, Instgram, Facebook; let’s not let this slide!
A photo posted by Jon Miller (@jonmiller617) on
A photo posted by www.dogydownfilms.com (@dogydownfilms) on
A photo posted by Jon Miller (@jonmiller617) on
#Montana ready! Powered by @DPSSKIS @CASTTOURING @MARKERBINDINGS @DYNAFITNA
A photo posted by Brian Sweeney (@briangsweeney) on
Marker Lords, CAST SI & I and DES Wailer 99s. Ready to rock finally…
A photo posted by Brian Sweeney (@briangsweeney) on
In the #tuckermaninferno start gate
A photo posted by Brian Sweeney (@briangsweeney) on
A photo posted by Brian Sweeney (@briangsweeney) on
After telling myself continually to wait it out through early season conditions, I managed to get a day in on the Friday before my birthday. One of Catherine’s co-workers, Sean, offered to drive up for the day, hoping to catch the projected two feet of snow on top of the recent back to back storms we’d had.
I’m happy to say I’ve returned to skiing injury free. A few months ago, back in August, I injured myself during my usual fall season workout, on a normal day, due to a number of factors, but mainly not recognizing my own fatigue. After several months of PT I’m now back to about 90%, and not looking to get hurt and miss what is shaping up as a great winter, with a long touring season ahead. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that strength training is useless without mobility and a good foundation.
It was a great day, and because of the two feet of relatively dry powder by PNW standards, a good time to feel things out. Here’s one of Sean, with video to follow.
I spent a few hours tuning skis last weekend. Who else is getting ready? Here’s a quickie from last winter at an undisclosed location deep in the New England Backcountry…
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