There's a billboard outside the Good Food Store, advertising some sort of banking service with a local flair.  Maybe a credit union.  You know, the type with the radio ads where they talk about how they (somehow) bank better because the people that work there also live in the community.  In general, I find this … Continue reading Sheepshead and McDonald, in the usual fashion.

February and March were remarkable months for accumulation in the Bitterroot Mountains and the SnoTel sites in the range are reading somewhere on the order of 170% of normal for the year.  Twin Lakes at least has more snow than the 2010-2011 winter.  As such, the snowboarding in the Bitterroots has been exceptionally good, and … Continue reading Rooting around, Pt.3: Real Rooting.

This was a good year for hut trips, and for the third (or maybe fourth) of the season, I went to Yurtski in the Southern Swans.  What to say about this zone...  the terrain off in the distance is inspiring, there's some pretty fun powder skiing, the runs are short, the bigger stuff gets hammered … Continue reading Rooting around, Pt. 2: Philosophical differences in the Swan Range.

February, March, and the beginning of April have been all-time in the mountains of western Montana.  Storm after storm dropped copious amounts of high quality snow in all of the regional ranges, and we are now positioned for a long and lucrative spring skiing season, as well as what is sure to be an ample … Continue reading Rooting around in the deep, deep snow. Pt. 1: Sawteeth.

Little chute above Dry Lakes Basin.I spent a cloudy Sunday with Brian, Leah, Kyle, and Ben putzing about in the Missions.  Our objective was the East Couloir of Lowary Peak, but the standard all-enveloping Mission cloud soup overtook us at its typical altitude of 8700', putting a stop to that plan.  We instead had a … Continue reading Missions miscellanea and Colter’s powder pen.

On early Wednesday morning, I skinned up Snowbowl for a few solo laps on our local Springuary snowpack.  I managed to shave 5 minutes off of my previous time for 1h10m to the top of Point Six.  The 800' NE face of Point Six offered excellent sparse tree skiing with good quality firm old powder … Continue reading Burgundy filling removal service and a return to Polonium viscosum.

I haven't posted a blog entry in three months, not because of a lack of content, but because of a lack of motivation, and as I sit here typing this, I realize that trying to recap in narrative form would very likely be tedious and unfocused.  To that end, I'm just going to post some … Continue reading Fall and Winter recap, and a return to posting.

Despite lingering Achilles tendonitis in both legs that sprung up after the Rut, I did my best to participate in an active recovery, including some slow runs on the Sentinel fire road, as well as a time trial on the Sentinel hill climb with Brian Story.  Trying to keep up with Brian (and failing) led … Continue reading McLeod in a day (fail!).

On Saturday, I ran the Rut 50k in 6:05:43, which was enough for 8th place.  I had a really good time on this beautiful and difficult course, and I learned a great deal about how to train to do better next time and what some of my stronger and weaker skill sets are.  This being … Continue reading The Rut 50k

This was my final week before beginning to taper for the Rut.  I covered 67 miles and logged 25200' of climbing, much of which was high quality training (either high intensity, in difficult terrain, and/or in 90 degree heat.  Or I was hiking in a fairly relaxed way).  Really felt like I got something out … Continue reading