The Ahlers

Well, Thanksgiving weekend is over and it was too short -- as usual. I think it's more that you expect it to be really, really long, and when it's only a little long, you get disappointed because it didn't meet expectations.

Melissa and I spent Thanksgiving day at her Aunt's house in Mill Creek, then that night we drove to the cabin and spent the next 3 days there. We went up to Mt. Baker on Saturday and had a good day on the mountain -- 7 inches of new in 24 hours, and not too crowded.

I went for a "hike" through the woods around Snowline on Sunday afternoon and took a ton of pictures. Note that we got a tiny bit of snow on Friday and Saturday nights down at the cabin.

I found a recent Seattle Times article about ski workouts. Not sure how I stumbled upon it, but it's definitely perfect timing -- so far this season, I'm way more sore than I should be after a ski day...

During ski season last year, we discovered Matchstick Productions' Yearbook, and it became an instant classic. The soundtrack to the movie became our soundtrack for the season (we burned a CD with a bunch of the songs from the movie), which meant we listened to it most mornings on the way to the hill. We used the movie itself to stoke us up in the mornings at the cabin while we were getting ready.

I guess we weren't the only ones who thought this was an incredible movie: Yearbook won a bunch of awards at Power Magazine's 5th Annual Video Awards, including Movie of the Year.

Yearbook also won for Best Male Performance, Best Female Performance, Breakthrough Performance, Best P.O.V., Best Line, and Best Trick. It's well worth buying if you like good ski movies.

Last weekend at the cabin, when Melissa and the others rode on Sunday, I went for a long walk around Snowline and environs. It turns out there's a cemetery that borders the Snowline development (it's literally like 20 feet away from a couple of the cabins). It's not too big, but there are some really old tombstones in there--1938 was the oldest I saw. Lots of people who were born in the 1800s. Smugmug pictures are here.

I also walked into Glacier. It's about a 30 minute walk at a good pace, and I found a route that keeps you off the highway except as you get right outside of Glacier and have to cross the two creeks there.

Glacier's an interesting town. I believe it was Skier magazine (out of Canada) that last year claimed that Glacier was the most backwoods ski town in North America (whatever that means).

Glacier on Google Maps
Go Northwest's Glacier city guide

While Melissa spent the weekend at the cabin with some girlfriends, I spent Saturday with friends watching football at Sport--definitely the best sports bar in town. And then Bill and I went to the 9th annual Get Snowed In party at Pyramid Brewery down in Sodo.

I actually liked the opening band Slender Means better than the headliners. I ended up winning one of the raffles and got a couple of tee shirts, a hat, and a few other items.

My last post tonight, I promise.

Seattle Times' Ron Judd does an annual Best of Snow awards, and Mt. Baker kept coming up.

Best Snow, Deep division: As always, Mount Baker.
Best Commute, James Bond Division: Mount Baker. (I have no idea what this means.)
Best Place to Use Frozen-in-place Gapers as Natural Slalom Gates: Razorhone Canyon, Mount Baker.
Best Clear-day Views: Tie — the top of Whistler Peak, the Summit House at Crystal Mountain and the top of Chair 8 at Mount Baker.
Best Day Lodges: White Salmon, Mount Baker. Seattle Ridge, Sun Valley. Although we, too, are itching to plop the boots down in Crystal's new Campbell Basin digs.
Best Annual Events: Spring Carnival, White Pass. The Legendary Banked Slalom, Mount Baker.
Best On-mountain Coffee Stand: Raven's Hot, Mount Baker.
Best Apres-ski Food: Milano's in Glacier on Mount Baker Highway.

And while it's not Mt. Baker, this one made me LOL: Best Place to Let Those Retro 207s Get Out and Run: Mount Bachelor, after all these years, still the place where cruisers go to die — or come back to life.

I made my first "official" post on my company's official blog. Topic: networking the Xbox 360.

Not as in look who I ran into--small world. More like hey, I think my world is slightly smaller.

Now that I'm walking to work, my "range" is much more limited. For instance, this week I don't think I've been farther than half a mile from our house. I don't think I've been in a car since Sunday night when we were driving home from Baker.

When I wasn't working this summer, Melissa and I obviously spent lots of time driving around and doing things. And when I was working in Redmond, I obviously spent plenty of time in the car driving back and forth.

Anyway, I feel a little less well connected these last few weeks--but I'm still way less stressed, so I think the trade off is way worth it.

I wonder what Aaron thinks about this topic...

"Baker gets more snow than any other resort in North America, but it's actually the terrain that makes this mountain so great. Solid vert and Alaskan-style descents are all commonplace at Baker, and it's all within minutes of a chairlift. There's lots to do within the resort, but if youwant a real taste of Baker , bring your backcountry gear and get out of bounds. Ski Shuksan Arm, a huge ridge accessible from the top of Chair 8. You won't believe you're still in the state of Washington....", according to Freeskier Magazine, November, 2005.

Powder Magazine has an awesome online article about Mt. Baker's opening day this year.

We think our friend Chainsaw was mentioned in the article as well: "Pacific Northwest skiers and snowboarders (even a monoboarder and snow biker) braved heavy snowfall and mediocre visibility conditions for epic snow." As far as I know, Chain is the only guy who rides a monoboard, so I'm sure that was him.

Saturday at Mt. Baker last weekend was epic. Well, maybe in the big picture it wasn't totally epic, but it was completely epic compared to 99% of last season. They had something like 18 inches of new snow in the previous 24 hours. We had a great day on the hill, came back and sat in the hot tub. :)

Sunday kept up to its forecast: it warmed up and rained. I wasn't feeling well and decided to stay back at the cabin, but Melissa and the others went up to hill to check things out. It was raining off and on up there too, so they didn't ride too long--but Melissa is still stoked that she's skied twice as many days as I have this year already. :)

Sunday made the rest of the regatta worthwhile. We had nice winds and it was finally nice weather. The wind kicked up during the second lap and we had a great second downwind leg -- we were planing for most of it. (Picture isn't us, but you get the idea.)

Sailing on Saturday was "fun." Let's put it this way -- we sat outside on the boat from 9 am to 3 pm. It rained for the entire time (except for maybe a total of 30 minutes). It wasn't very windy. And we sat on the boat for 90 minutes in between the two races we ended up doing. (Picture isn't us, but check out that rain. Yikes!)

Last week, I took Friday off to do a 2.5 day sailing regatta on Puget Sound (just off of Shilshole Marina in Ballard). On Friday morning, a few of the other crew members took our boat through the locks and out to Shilshole, where I met them around 12:30.

The weather was looking Seattle-fall-sketchy (some clouds, some sun), but the wind was really starting to kick up. At the dock, we debated for awhile whether we even wanted to race that day and decided it was at least worth going out to the race course to see what it looked like. We arrived at the course around 1 pm and as you can see by the chart, we were in for a bit of a surprise--it was gusting to at least 35 knots (which is about 40 MPH), and sustained winds were more than 30 kts. We nearly immediately decided that we would rather skip the race that day; it wasn't worth the potential risk of injury to crew or (to a lesser degree) the boat. What a great decision. We ended up in the CYC club house with a great view of the race course. So while we sat there drinking free beer (first two kegs are free to racers!), we got to see the carnage on the race course--mostly just really expensive ripped sails.

What a great idea -- the Mt. Baker web site has a Snowblog. Looks like they'll post snow pictures and snow reports there. Much better than last year's site...

Say, doesn't that look a lot like winter?

So I walked to work today. What's so unusual about that, you ask? Nothing, I guess, especially since I've walked to work *every* *day* since I started this job. How long is that? Well, I guess today was about the 7th day of work for me. So I guess walking to work every day isn't that big of a deal.

But today I got soaking wet. Seatac reported 0.75" of rain today. It was pouring rain when I left, it poured rain while I walked, and it was pouring when I entered the building. I was able to stay mostly dry--well, at least on my upper half. My lower half, including my shoes, were pretty wet. But the interesting part was that I took my laptop home last night. And since that's my only computer at work (and I kind of need a computer there), I had to bring it back this morning. And until this morning, I've just been tucking it under my arm and strolling on up there. This morning, I stuck it in a dry bag and put that in my backpack and hoofed it on up there. My laptop stayed totally dry.

I don't think I need to say much more than what they say on their web site.


MT. BAKER SETS EXPECTED OPENING DAY: TUESDAY NOV. 8!
UPDATED TUE. NOV. 1 at 2:30 PM: OKAY. . . .HERE IS THE NEWS! WE HAVE SET AN EXPECTED OPENING DAY OF NEXT TUESDAY OR WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 8TH OR 9TH. THIS COULD BE THE EARLIEST OPENING IN OVER A DECADE.
IT IS CURRENTLY 32 DEGREES AND SNOWING UP ON THE MOUNTAIN. WE HAVE 24 INCHES AT HEATHER MEADOWS, WITH 36 AT MIDMOUNTAIN AND OVER 40 INCHES ON TOP OF PAN DOME. THE GROOMERS HAVE BEEN OUT ON THE MOUNTAIN AND THINGS ARE LOOKING GOOD, BUT WE ARE STILLLL LOOKING FOR A LITTLE BETTER COVERAGE BEFORE WE FEEL WE CAN OPEN WITH GOOD CONDITIONS.
FORECASTS ARE CALLING FOR BETWEEN 3 TO 4 FEET OF NEW SNOW BETWEEN NOW AND NEXT TUESDAY AND WE ARE HOPING THAT WITH THIS ADDITIONAL SNOWFALL WE WILL BE ABLE TO OPEN AS MANY LIFTS AS POSSIBLE ON NEXT TUESDAY OR WEDNESDAY.
NOW, WE KNOW YOU ARE ALL ANXIOUS TO GET ON THE MOUNTAIN, BUT WE WANT TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE A GREAT OPENING DAY FOR YOU WITH LOTS OF SNOW!

An astute reader has pointed out that Crystal Mountain appears to be the top-rated ski area in the state (according to Skiing Magazine) at #7. I noticed that too but chose to ignore it. :)

Actually, the truth is that I saw the actual magazine with the rankings and it had Crystal in the low twenties--something like #23. I think Skiing Magazine's web site is screwed up. Yeah, that's the ticket.

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Update: it's amazing what 90 seconds on Google will get you.

Crystal came in 20th. Baker came in 18th. This all according to the Seattle PI:

Baker, Crystal kudos
Skiing magazine has issued its "Top 25" resorts of North America, with local favorites grabbing attention. Mt. Baker Ski Area scored an 18th overall ranking and Crystal Mountain came in 20th. As it often does, Whistler-Blackcomb across the border scored top honors.
To compile the list, the magazine surveyed 340 pro skiers on best steeps, powder and party scene, added 1,950 results from a readers survey and mixed in statistics from 786 ski areas on annual snowfall, skiable terrain, vertical and eateries/bars. The results are in its November issue.
It's the second time Baker has made the top 25, the fourth for Crystal.
"It's an honor to be rated by people who actually use the mountain, especially for us, a small area out of 786 areas," said Gwyn Howat, Baker marketing director. "Crystal is a great mountain and Baker is also really about being in great mountains, and it's gratifying that people appreciate that as much as the shopping and nightlife."

Well, isn't that sweet? :)