It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted anything here. Life, work, training, COVID, and many other things have gotten in the way. Recently, I’ve been rethinking my relationship to social media and other forms of digital distraction, and having moved off of Facebook, I’m now moving off of instagram, the social network that has received the majority of my attention.

With this change, I’ll be sharing more here. The world of outdoors blogging, at least among those that I follow, has been getting pretty quiet. I worry that this is a product of changing attention spans and a world that pushes us towards short form, quick hitting media. I won’t proselytize, but I will recommend a trio of books for the interested: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier, Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, and Four Thousand Weeks, by Oliver Burkeman.

If you like what I get up to here, welcome back.

Drought

It has been dry recently, very very dry. After a strong start to our backcountry season we entered January at around 110% of average snowpack. On the cold morning of January 1, I skied great powder in sub-zero temps. That was the beginning of the end. Since then we’ve had no meaningful snow, and we’re now around 75% of normal. Wind and sun have wrecked the snow while cold, clear nights are faceting everything in sight. The only upside is that the lack of snow has dropped the avalanche danger to near zero. It’s possible to get out on the big hills, provided you can make fun out of bad snow.

A cold morning in White Pine

Waiting for the sun, small in the big hills.

There it is.

Finding some scraps around the edges.

Alternatives

Thankfully, this winter I was also gifted some skate skis by my prents. As with any good alternate activity, its quality improves as the inverse of the reference activity. As the touring gets worse, the skating gets better. Some days it’s just better to skate in the sun than to chase after scraps.

As the touring gets worse, the skating gets better.

As an aside, in my wilderness medicine fellowship I’m making some progress on an exciting and interesting project in avalanche research. It’s generating some interesting visuals as well. I’ll share more when appropriate, but here’s a taste for now.

A small chunk of the central Wasatch mountains, with coloration by altitude band and aspect.

Scraps

This week, my friend Nick VF, a medical school colleague and current EMS fellow in Pittsburgh is both visiting and insatiably interested in touring. With the help of beta from more-devoted-skiers-than-I, we found some high, north facing sugar to make some turns. Thanks for the inspiration, friend.

Nick VF and the shady northerlies

Shennanigans in sugar.

Not bad for 6+ weeks of no snow.

Yours truly, courtesy of Nick.

Until next time.