Luck & Powder on the Sphinx - 4.16.16

Sometimes a day in the backcountry comes together just as you want it to. When the outing is a ski tour in late spring that includes a long approach and it  works out perfectly, you are incredibly lucky. Mike and I must have had some good karma coming our way as our trip to ski the Sphinx couldn't have been better.

Update: I was able to rework this story into a piece for Ascent Backcountry Show Journal. Click to read "Solving the Riddle of the Sphinx."

Skiing with the Brits - Step Two, Teach Them the Lingo

Once again, I was surrounded by Brits on my most recent ski tour. in the Alps. As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the delights of traveling and ski touring abroad is the opportunity to pick up new words and lingo. My three European ski tours have taught me a lot of British lingo and as a member of guided trips, I am able to share American mountain town lingo with the group. Other than one American guide leading a trip, I've been the only American on all of the tours I have completed so it becomes my responsibility to serves as an ambassador for American mountain town culture.

A Typical Day on A European Hut Tour

Grand Combin as seen from Rhêmes Notre Dame

Note: This entry is copied from the journal I kept during the trip.

First Impressions of Chamonix

So this is Chamonix I thought as I stared out my hotel room window at the tall and jagged mountains outside. Wow! Huge, rocky, icy, rugged, dramatic. So many superlatives and that was only one side of the valley. It was a "So this is Yale" moment for sure.

From the Front Porch to Center Stage: Robert Earl Keen & Lyle Lovett in Concert

Note: This is a work in progress! Concert reviews are harder than I thought! I have more thoughts, which I may jot down some day. The show was a few weeks ago so I want to get this review posted before more time goes by.

Marcy 18, 2016, Wilma Theatre

Gran Paradiso Hut Tour, La Dolce Vita

At Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele

If there is such a thing as paradise for backcountry skiers, I am pretty certain I found it in Italy’s Gran Paradiso National Park.