Yesterday was a pretty good day for skiing. At my house it was half rain half snow when I left for the pass with the dogs. So I expected it to be all snow at the pass. But still, on arrival, I was slightly shocked at the amount of new snow. It was scraping the undercarriage of my Jeep! And it got even deeper as I skinned up the mountain. There was over a foot of new powder in the jibber bowl - maybe 2 feet! It was almost but not quite too deep for the dogs.
Anyway we went to the top and then did two powder runs. It is hard to beat deep powder for skiing! At times the dogs would disappear between bunny hops through the deep snow.
These pictures are all from Saturday. I took the dogs up Pyramid hoping that I'd find some sun warmed corn snow in the South Bowl. It did not happen and the skiing was pretty bad. I should have gone XC skiing! That said, right now it is snowing/raining in town, and I am hopeful the downhill skiing will improve.
Bode is the elder statesman of our dog pack. While Red and Rey rush everywhere smelling and looking for rabbits or ptarmigan, Bode just chills out and observes. It is his 'Rin Tin Tin' movie star look. Rin Tin Tin (click here for Wikipedia link) was an early 20th century movie dog. He was actually rescued from the Western Front during WWI and brought back to the United States where he starred in dramatic dog rescue movies.
Bode actually watches while Red and Rey bust through the brush looking for rabbits. He's waiting for them to roust up a rabbit. And when they do he is off like a shot after it. He's smart and lets the younger dogs do all the work. He's the Rin Tin Tin of Pyramid Mountain.
It's practically impossible to take a posed picture of my dogs when I am holding the camera. They never stop for the picture. As soon as I stop to take a picture - they stop too, or run off in a different direction. But I do now have a way of getting pictures of me and the doggies on the go. I put the camera on a tripod and shoot 4K video. I could shoot 8K but I think that might be a little over kill and the files might be too big for my old computer anyway.
In any case, with the camera on a tripod I can rally up the dogs and get them to run along with me for the picture. And best of all when I get home I can scroll thru the video and get the exact picture I want of me and the doggies on the go.
The only problem with the whole process is that stopping to set up a camera on a tripod disrupts our ski. I have to undo my ski pole hand grips to set up the tripod and camera. And then I have to put them back on again for the video. It is a lot of stopping and back and forth for the camera. It actually feels a bit silly, and is most definitely posed!
But it does make me happy to see myself skiing with the pack. And I also made a video - it is at the bottom of this post.
Patrick
This is from almost a week ago now - the snow does not look nearly so fresh anymore!
Pyramid - the day I went downhill skiing to rest my arms
These pictures are all from earlier in the week when I was XC skiing up Russian River every day. I heard that some critical ice bridges collapsed and that now the journey is impossible to do without getting your feet wet. So I segue'd to skate skiing on Buskin Lake instead.
These are the photos of me and the dogs. It is difficult to take good pictures of my dogs. They never stop and pose! But, on the other hand, unposed pictures of dogs on the move have a certain energy. There is a sense of motion and of being on the move up the creek.
Patrick
Here Red just fallen into the creek when an ice bridge collapsed
Here on Kodiak March it has been a pretty good month for cross country skiing. There is barely any snow on high, and the downhill skiing has been fairly bad. Up in the mountains this is probably in the top 5 of the least snowiest winters that I can remember. But it has been cold, the snow that has fallen at sea level has stuck around, and all the lakes and rivers are frozen solid. It has been excellent for cross country skiing.
Over the last week I did so much skate skiing that I have pretty much blown out my shoulders poling. I did a lot of double poling on the Russian River. A couple of days ago I actually went downhill skiing to give my arms a rest. It was the first time I had been downhill skiing in almost 3 weeks!
These pictures are all from Buskin Lake. It's a pretty big body of water and it is wide open. It's also been a little bit windy out there. And that's why my brother has been out on the lake kite winging. But there is a bit of a lee on the sunny shore. So the dogs and I have been skiing close to shore and enjoying the sunshine and the cottonwood trees.
Here are some more pretty pictures from last few day's ski/dog walks up the Russian River canyon. Until last week I have not been there in years so it has been a fresh place for photography! Hence, I took way too many pictures.
However, the sun is just getting too strong. Even though the day time highs have barely gone above freezing, the sun is melting the ice bridges. And on the sunny south facing slopes all the snow had melted already. The warm sunshine weakens the ice bridges and they collapse into the creek. A week ago the whole river was pretty much frozen. By Monday there were quite a few places where it was a little tricky to negotiate a crossing without risking wet feet.
