I turned 37 today...

...and I don't feel much different.

I had a very relaxing morning sipping coffee on the couch with the puppies and my girl. I got some funny presents - furry bear paw gloves that are HUGE and warm, and fuzzy Crocs which will be permanent residents on my feet.

Although Monday, I skipped work in lieu of hanging out at home and going into the backcountry. JHK picked me up at 10 and we left for a backcountry tour up at the Tunnel. The wind has been crazy, and I mean CRAZY, the last 24 hours. If stuff wasn't strapped or nailed down, it blew away. Big 100 gallon horse trough, gone. WTF?!

With the little bit of snow that actually hit the ground (1 - 6" reportedly but I'd say more like 1"), I was predicting some good stashes of wind-deposited powder in those sheltered leeward spots. I went up yesterday to the same area and found the new snow wasn't too bonded to the old snow surface. I easily kicked off a nice little (kinda medium to large, actually) soft snow sluff from the top of Quicky Couloir - on the second try. Today, we tried again to do the same thing after another 8" of wind-deposited snow filled in the gap I created, but to no avail.

Yeah, it was a bit windy in certain places, and at 18 degrees before calculating windchill, it was pretty terrible for exposed skin. This cornice was formed on FLAT ground on the east side of a small lake. Why? I don't really know.

JHK grabbing some good turns on the best snow of the day.

After going a bit too high up and right on the Rib and not finding the south-facing glade that I've been wanting to ski (for three years now), we ran away with our tails between our legs into the dense forest (yes, the wind). The next 'goal' was to find this little white area on the topo map - a opening in the trees that may provide us with some good sheltered turns in soft snow. After some sludging through the flats below the lake, it started to drop and we found a sweet cliffy steep open area with much more potential when there's more snow. We made the best of it though and spent some time navigating the rocks and steeper sections of the slope to get us safely down it but also get some turns between the islands of trees...just to make the 2+K of vertical (more) worth skinning up. We were awarded at the bottom when we looked at eachother and said "Dawn Patrol spot!" We "found" what we both knew was the closest open trees to the parking lot with good snow. He predicted a 35 minute skin up to the top of the run from the car, which would definitely get me to work on time.

Not 5 minutes after returning home, a group of 30 elk started browsing in the back yard. A nice birthday surprise since we've never seen them in this area during the daytime.

To end the day, a walk around the property with my girl and the Gang of Four (the Guppies, and Rikki and Basie shown above). Basie always loves to stop at overlooks and check out his surroundings, so I joined him. I don't enough slow down and stop and make an effort to take it all in. This year I plan to be more like Basie.