Garlic

Sunday afternoon I noticed that the snow had melted off of the garlic bed.  Just last week this bed had been buried in snow.  I peeked under the spruce boughs (remains of the Christmas tree) I had used to cover and insulate the beds, and found numerous garlic sprouts.  That's amazing!  Literally 3 days before the beds had been buried in snow.  I like how in the picture above the sprout just punches through the leaf like a spear.  No stopping this guy.

2020 gardening season has begun.
Patrick

My yard last Wednesday - garlic bed is just to right of wheelbarrow in snow in front of whaler

Snow squalls and sunshine

Some pictures of Stuey and I's ski from last Saturday.  It started out sunny and while we were skiing it partially clouded over and started to snow.  Stuey was excited that it was snowing. 'it's snowing', he exclaimed.  I assured him that it was 'just a flurry'.  Stuey wanted to know the difference between a flurry and 'snowing', and as we continued on the mountain I tried to explain.

And then it started to snow harder and harder.  But the sun came out too.  It was snowing hard in the sunshine.  I still considered it flurries though.  Then on the way home it turned into snow - and by evening my lawn was white with a 1/2 inch of snow.  Take that garlic and crocuses!

The new snow on a soft crust made for perfect ski conditions.  Stuey declared that the snow was the best he had skied all year.
Patrick

Getting to be Spring

Ughhhh - I am not ready for Spring.  Yesterday morning I found these guys popping up under the rose bushes.  The snow has not even melted out of the yard.  I was kind of hoping that after a somewhat normal winter we would have a normal late spring.  But crocuses in late March is not so bad.  I can remember really bad winters when we got our first crocus in February (click here and here for past posts on subject).  It's just that I was hoping for early April - that's when they always flowered when we had normal winters.

I also noticed that the sun now is just barely rising up over the land on Spruce Cape.  Any day now the sunrise will work it's way a little further to the left (north) and rise out of the sea.  I do enjoy ocean sunrises.  Patrick

But it is still winter at the pass!

Ducks?!

These are Thursday's ski pictures.  As you can see it was sunny and warm.  Stuey could see the slopes in 3D and ripped it back to the car!

He started out wearing a jacket and about a 1/4 of the way up overheated and took off his jacket.  I was surprised to see he was wearing a bright green Oregon Ducks basketball T shirt underneath.  I was like, 'Stuey we are Wisconsin Badgers what are you doing wearing the clothing of an enemy?'  He said, 'Dad I'll let you take a picture if you send it to the guy who gave me the shirt'.

The story is that a couple of years ago during the NCAA basketball tournament (March Madness). Stuey and I were in a 'bracket group' - everyone picks the winner of every game for all the rounds until you get to the eventual winner.  You get points for every correct choice - more points for games later on in the tournament.  Stuey and I's favorite team is of course the Badgers (and they beat the Ducks that year if I remember correctly).   But another from the bracket group John M's favorite team is the Ducks.  And when Stuey won the group bracket John M gave Stuey the T shirt as a prize (ha, ha sort of a joke).

Well on Thursday the joke was on me!  Of course I sent John the picture, and he was very happy to see Stuey wearing the T shirt.
Patrick

Flat Light

Some more ski photos from earlier in the week.  These are from Wednesday, and it was so warm that Stuey climbed up in a T shirt.  We ran into the cousins in the Pyramid parking lot and skied with them - maintaining careful social distance of course!

Unfortunately the skiing was not all that great.  It was a little soft and inconsistent, but worst of all the light was terrible.  Stuey found that he had a hard time gauging slope steepness.  He could not tell the difference between a steep 100 foot drop and a 10 drop off of a bump.  Both from his angle were all white and steep!

We went again on the next day (Thursday), and it was brilliant sunshine (post to follow).  Stuey did much better when he could see what was in front of him!
Patrick

Snow Going Fast

I took all these photos last weekend and then never got around to posting them.  Now I look at them and  can not believe how much snow we have lost in just a week.  In the top photo in the distance you can see the 'Three Tree' run - it runs parallel to that diagonal canyon on the right - today there is barely any snow left on that run.  And it's not like it has been really all that warm, nor has it rained.

It's just that this winter we never really got all that much snow.  It just seemed like a lot of snow because we got snow in town and it stuck around.  But on the mountain tops we have the least amount of snow that I have seen in years.  Usually when it rains in town it snows on high - not this year.  We never got rain, and when it snowed in town it blew off of all the mountain tops.

So this year with a return to spring like temperatures and much stronger sunlight the snow is disappearing fast.  Hopefully we'll get some more snow on the mountains in April.

The top 2 pictures are skiing with Stuey last Sunday above the ski chalet.  That was our last cold day and the conditions were pretty icy.

The other pictures are from my skate ski Sunday morning.  I skied on the crust up the Upper Buskin and cruised all around through the trees.  I experimented with different sized panoramic pictures - see caption below the pictures.  I am not sure which ones I like the best and think I will continue to experiment.  All the panoramic were stitched together manually on a computer and not in the camera.
Patrick

3 vertical pictures stitched into a panoramic

Normal 35 mm view

6 vertical pictures stitched into a HUGE panoramic

This is actually a 3 vertical pictures stitched panoramic

The South Bowl and Three Tree Run

Nora at the top of the '3 Tree' run - that's the road far below

These pictures are from a few days ago.  Nora and I climbed up Pyramid and rather than skiing the usual way back to the car we went out via the south bowl and 'Three Tree' run.  This is one of the steepest run on the mountain and Nora had never done it before.  It is one of those mythical runs that you know about, and aspire to do, and you see it on the right every time you drive to the pass.  As we drove past and looked up the kids have often said, 'you've skied down that - wow'. And 'I'll ski that one day right?!'

Well on Tuesday Nora and I skied it!  And it was pretty challenging conditions too.  Isothermic corn snow - deep stuff.  You had to carve your turns and go fast or the corn would 'grab the tails' of your skis.  Nora ripped it, carving her turns, and skied all the way to the road.  Then she took off her skis and sat on a sun-warmed grassy knoll by the road and had a snack while I skinned to the pass and got the car.

Stuey and his friend Elias had been sledding at the pass.  As we drove up to pick up Nora they looked up at the run and said with awe in their voices, 'Nora skied that?

And it is a good thing that we did ski it when we did because yesterday when I went skiing with Stuey  I looked up at the 3 tree run and there are big brown patches all over the run.  The Three Tree run is done for the year.
Patrick

Dog Walks

I actually have not been taking the dogs for as many walks lately.  And that's because Stuey has been walking the dogs!  He's taken on walking the dogs in the either the late morning or early evening.  With all this stay at home time the dog walk is something different for him to do.  And he likes it.

This winter the trails in the parks have been super icy and ice cleats pretty much a requirement.  But the recent warm weather is rotting all the ice quickly.  My driveway is now ice free!  But Stuey reports that there is still ice on the trails in Abercrombie.
Patrick