All My Free Time

So when you are injured... or when I am injured... I go online and imagine the things I want to do, could be doing, and will be doing. In case you have free time, and are interested in what I am... this is what I did tonight instead of watching the Wings game, and after putting bike trays on my car, cleaning my bike, installing a new front brake caliper and cables, and hot tubbing.  I have a bum knee- results of MRI are Tuesday- so humor me.

What I learned today was that a famous ski mountaineer, Kip Garre, and his partner died on the Eastside recently on this same run that Christian Pondella and others did earlier this April. Here is the Powder Magazine article and the Backcountry Magazine article about the incident.

Split Couloir was the Couloir of the Year in Backcountry Magazine. It was featured in Chris Davenport's new book, "50 Classic Ski Decents of North America".  The night Davenport was in Mammoth for his movie "Austrails", this winter, I looked around the room and it was filled with people far more skilled than I in the ski mountaineering and backcountry world.  It was intimidating, yet , amazing to sit there and absorb it all. It is such a sad day when someone in the ski community dies.  The SAR in the Eastern Sierra's is very connected to everyone here, and do such important work and depend upon each other so much. Kudos to them.

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Photo: Brennan Lagasse collection, and from Powdermag.com.
The Couloir is he one under the word "mag"

Another couloir, East Couloir, was featured in Powder earlier this month.  I think it'll be years and years before or IF I do anything of the Split Mountain level. Years! Before these two people died below Split Couloir there were a series of blogs detailing it. I read these things and just am in awe. Always. Blog of the guys that ran into Pondella and John Morrison. Morrison's blog.

Then I came across other posts on Unofficial Squaw and this post about a mono skier, and it got me looking back at my winter volunteering with Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra and how volunteers that work with sit skiers are just amazing people-- and of course the person skiing is amazing.
  It also kind of makes me want to go to Alpine Meadows a ton. It's on the other side of Squaw.  I hope that my knee heals and I can help people who are healing or are learning to ski and ride.  I sure do miss the BART Center too.   The video is bigger if you go to the actual Unofficial Squaw link above.

 

And then I started dreaming of the EPIC Mammoth Winter I did get to play in.

And finally... I drifted off to powdery dreams, and dreams of drivetrains shifting smoothly and tires somehow grabbing the pumice, and of new leg armor so my knees never hurt again.

Sidenote: This blog was a draft for sometime. So please when speaking of amazing, look up my friend, Jeremy McGhee's ascent and decent of Bloody Couloir this May 2012 in Mammoth Lakes, CA.