My Summer So Far Diary - Aug 2007
Everything is covered in ash and embers and the smoke is so thick you can move it in the air. Forest fire season is here and looks like it wants to stay.

So, no camping yet at all, but we did go floating twice - the first time we got in and it was a bit fast, opening day to float actually.. I forgot my helmet, which was DUMB but it worked out ok, no disastrous flips like last summer when I sank my boat after getting strained by a downed birch tree.

I was COVERED in little tiny green worms.. blech..

The second float was a bit more exciting.. Chris's boat was broken - he had oar troubles.. and then one of our group got ahead and we just followed.. right into a fully blocked MASSIVE log jam - some of the trees were easily 6 feet wide, and it was HIGH.. about twenty feet or so..

Chris ended up slamming into it because of his broken oar, then his boat started to deflate and when he hit the jam, he lost his oar in the water, so while the others in the group were trying to get up the 12 foot embankment onto the shore to look around, I paddled over to him, grabbed his boat by a d-ring, and then starting looking for his paddle.

I could see it - sort of - all tangled in the branches, so I reached in and pulled it out.. Tim got a rope onto Chris's boat, we pulled him out, and then we had to all climb up onto the jam and carry the boats across.. almost a full hour to get all five of us onto the other side. Whew.. and then by the time we got done, it was dark and the park host told us someone actually drowned in that jam three weeks earlier.. scary..

Last Year - July 2006
The temperature swings are CRAZY this week.. hundred degree days and fifty degree nights.. yup.. that's the life here in Whitefish - if you don't like the weather, wait a minute.  Stage 2 (out of 5) fire restrictions are in effect so camping is out (if I want to eat of course) so it's all paddling from here till Thanksgiving.

I WAS going to get a waterski, but the people who were going to supply it had insurance issues and I don't have the fifteen hundred dollars to buy one, so that will be next summer.

My SKI Diary - APRIL 2006
I'm sad.  The ski season is officially over.  However, I can honestly say that this was the most amazing winter of my life.

Hellfire.. what can I say.  I almost went home the first time we tried it, then got the freshie bug and well, it's Hellfire.

The fog was CRAZY.  We were stopped dead on Moe Mentum more than once and fog balls and bright coats saved the day quite often.

Then along came my new ELAN MAGFIRE 10 All Mountain Ski.  You WANT these skis.

Dawn and Jim in Parking at WSI were really awesome, that spot right there was REALLY APPRECIATED.  As were the very frequent Security patrols requiring the Security truck to be parked right next to mine ;).

My SKI Diary - March 2006
This is my absolute best ski year yet.  As I mentioned on my review page, I'm skiing IN a Revolution ProComp ($3,025.00 USD) from Freedom Factory with modified SuperLite Outriggers (included with my ProComp).  I turned the tips out 45 degrees to have better control.   I'm skiing ON an Elan 662 with a Marker race binding.

This setup is AWESOME.  I've skied every chair on Big Mountain except the t-bars.  We skied Hellroaring before it was groomed and that was treacherous and terrible.  I do NOT recommend it - try going in off Grays Golf Course - to the right instead ;) - yes, I know it's out of bounds, but it's not illegal here.. stay above the trees in the snowmobile tracks and then go down through the trees onto the end of the run.

We did that for a while at the beginning of the season - and we got used to plowing through 6 foot piles and just slowly dropping onto the run, so when they did groom Hellfire and we didn't bother to check the board, were we surprised to find ourselves slamming down a five foot drop at almost a dead stop - READ THE BOARDS PEOPLE ;)

So far, I'm over 400,000 vertical feet with 30 days on my pass. If you want to check it out, you can follow my Big Vertical by clicking here.  I've been hovering in the 450 - 600 range for most of the season, which isn't bad considering there are over 10,000 people participating and last year, I got NINE DAYS in on my pass, 30,000 vertical feet and never broke the 5400 mark in standings.

Here's a pic of me chilling with Jesus - it's at the top of Chair 11 - it was a cloudy day, but it's a perfect illustration of cross sport equipment - that's my lake paddling jacket - it's a perfect shell to ski in. :)

And this year, they opened the Fishbowl - the terrain park here at Big Mountain.   Of course, Hellfire being groomed got us hooked on the jumps so when it opened, I had to try the jumps in my monoski.

My buddy Chris and I rode the chair to pick our jumps and decided to hit the second down left (lift left - skiers right).  Chris went first and hit it no problem

I went next and practically gave myself a heart attack.  The ground just falls away but I was already committed - it was either go or stop and fall off the jump, so I went.

It was a PERFECT jump - I landed it nice and soft (it's that procomp shock absorber) and of course, it was a Hollywood run, (you know, where all the hotties are watching you from the lift..) and since I'm the most visible monoskier on the mountain, in fact, I'm the only local independent monoskier on the mountain and I wear bright yellow and green, people know me and my friends were on the lift cheering me on.

Altogether, I landed three PERFECTLY with HUGE air.. and of course, the Hollywood cheers just egged me on.. uh huh.. ;) so I decided to hit the double rollers at the bottom of chair 3.

Now, Chair 3 is where the adapted volunteer program skis - the bunny hill - but it's also the terrain park lift - and since I know most of the lifties and the Fishbowl guys, and they're used to the adapted kids being skied down the slow ski area, they were ALL watching with binoculars when I BIFFED LIKE A SNOWBOARDER.

I went for the double rollers and misjudged my speed and was going just a shade slower than I needed to be going.  I cased the second roller HEAD ON, did a DOUBLE ENDO - ejected out of my ski which went flying about thirty feet downhill, landed on my head, face planted and ragdolled about twenty feet until I skidded to a stop - yard sale like you would NOT believe, and of course, right under the lift.. ;)

I could hear people screaming at me from the lift, and Chris was FREAKING out, but all I could do was laugh.  My arm swelled up like a football and turned really dark gray/blue - not quite black - lucky for me my bud across the hall happens to be a paramedic and he kept an eye on me. :)

I killed my Elan though.  I actually took a chunk right out of the tip of it and it's delaminating.  Hopefully one of the tech guys can put some resin in it and I can use it for another season.  My helmet is scraped up too, but better than my head.

But as of this moment, it's still working fine and we're planning to head up this weekend for more.  Even with the ice and fog, it's a great year for us.

More later.