The Ahlers

Let's see, how was opening weekend at Mt. Baker this year? Let me at least go over the first 36 hours of the trip from Seattle:

Didn't retrieve the halyard from the sailboat since we were running a bit late. Whoops.

Drove through a huge windstorm, getting worse the farther north we drove. Heavy rain going sideways, wind gusts up to 50 mph.

Power was out where we wanted to eat dinner, so we went back to Applebees in Bellingham.

Most of the other places along the way (outside of Bellingham) where we wanted to stop were closed because of the power outage.

Mike and I waited in our driveway for 30-40 minutes -- Josh and Bill were last seen at the Holy Smoke, but they pulled out right after us, so we thought they must have stopped somewhere on the way to the cabin, and my keys were in their car. Whoops.

Turns out they got a flat tire right after pulling out of the parking lot. With no light source for awhile, changing a tire in the wet, muddy gravel in the wind and rain was somewhat problematic.

When we finally got into the cabin, the electricity was out, which meant no heat in any room but the living room, no music, no ski movies, no hot tub, no nuthin. For the next 24 hours.

When we woke up on Thursday, we didn't even have phone service. We drove up to the mountain, assuming they'd be open. Once we got there, Josh, Bill, and I took two runs. Off the groomers was horrible -- inch-thick crust over mashed potatoes powder. The groomers themselves were about as bad as they could possibly be -- it looked like the snowcats hadn't used their blades to flatten the snow behind them, so it was just a bunch of rock hard death cookies, frozen to and covering 90% of the slopes. Yikes.

We still had fun that afternoon. Since we had no electricity, we hung out on the deck for a few hours, using the propane BBQ grill to cook nachos, previously-frozen pizzas, and lasagna for dinner. We also took a road trip to the Frosty Inn in Maple Falls, where power had been restored. We stopped by Grahams on the way back and had a beer by candlelight. They assured us they'd be open later and would even have an unplugged version of Bend Grass, the bluegrass band that plays there every other Thursday.

Mike had to leave after dinner, and Josh, Bill, and I walked into town, hung out at Grahams, chatted with some locals, and enjoyed some tunes. The walk home was interesting in that we got separated and Josh and Bill ended up making a few wrong turns once they got into Snowline. It's hard to imagine how dark it is out there in the trees with no lights from anywhere. Whoops. We were hanging around at the cabin, about to retire, and the power kicked back on. Woo hoo!

We slept in quite a bit on Friday and made it up to the mountain a little late, for about half the day. They had a couple of inches of new, and they appeared to finally get the handle on the groomers. Off the groomed runs was okay, but still pretty variable conditions.


Kyle and Laura came up Friday night and we all rode on Saturday. Overnight the mountain had received 6-8 inches of new, which pretty much made up for the previous two days. It wasn't spectacular, but it was pretty good, especially in the morning. That night, we had Kyle-style nachos for dinner, did some hot tubbing, and walked into Grahams again.

Sunday came around and we got up, cleaned up, and left before noon. It was a great four-day weekend that felt about twice as long.

P.S. The new boots were *awesome*. :)

This might be pretty cool. I guess I can blog directly from the Rhapsody client? Anyway, here's the playlist I created for TGR's Anomaly soundtrack. They didn't have all the songs from the movie, but here's what they did have:

Anomaly soundtrack:
1. When The Night Feels My Song - Bedouin Sound Clash
2. Blackout - Swollen Members
3. Black Black Magic - Greenleaf
4. The Riddle - Random Rab
5. Go For Mine - Rob The Viking
6. Grind - Swollen Members
7. The Rat - The Walkmen
8. Stonefruit - Halou
9. King Without A Crown - Matisyahu
10. Let My Record Rotate - Rob The Viking
11. Summer Lightning - Rob The Viking
12. White Unicorn - Wolfmother
13. Brother - Murder By Death
14. Fight Here (F/ Afrobots, Dj Vajra, And Ahmad Of 4th Avenue Jones) - The Procussions
15. Heavy Artillary - Classified
16. Carbon Kid - Alpinestars
17. Chalk Dust Torture (Live @ Madison Sq. Garden) - Phish
18. Wiggiddi - Kraddy
19. Purple City Byrdgang feat. Jim Jones - Purple City

So I guess I'm committed to randonee/alpine touring (AT) skiing, since I just bought some boots. :)

I made my third trip up to Pro Ski Service (they don't have a website) in as many weeks and spent a few hours trying on a couple of pairs of boots. I had already basically narrowed it down to a couple of Garmont boots -- the Endorphin and the Adrenaline -- and all I needed to do was find one that fit.

Long story short, they didn't have a pair of Adrenalines in my size, which was probably okay. The Endorphins remind me of my relatively stiff alpine boots, but they're so much more comfortable to walk in. I can't wait to ski in them.

I highly recommend Pro Ski Service. Great service, good selection, and the folks there know what they're talking about. They have a great selection of AT gear, and a good selection of regular alpine stuff.

Wow. Holy cow. Rainier has been seeing some extreme weather lately.

Paradise measured 11.3 inches in the past 24 hours! And the south side of the park is closed. And they're evacuating non-essential personnel.

They've also measured 118 mph winds at Camp Muir. Sounds pleasant.