who wants a mustache ride??

before...

after...

Gnar exists in so many places. Whether it's making lines down the untracked face of a mountain, making lines down the tracked out groomers towards the bottom, or making lines down your face. It's all about the fun. Each turn has something to say about your personality. Each turn was a decision. A decision to go this way or that. Or just straight ahead. Once the lines are long gone from view, whether covered by new snow, smoothed by a groomer, perhaps just over the last ridge, or because they are thousands of miles away... they are still there.  They are always there.  Your mind can always see the lines because the lines exist on your soul.

i spy with my little eye...

... so much gnar in this picture! So many good memories...

1.   4ft waves crashing in Big Glen
2.   a huge boulder in the water that i may or may not have touched
3.   a perfect place to park a boat where no one has parked a boat before
4.   a rowboat ripe for the picking
5.   two front rows seats for HTTM
6.   high adventure that's beyond compare
7.   and so much more...

Absolutely silly i tell you!

ooo ooo eee eee...

I feel like a crazed monkey that just got a banana! Getting sooooo excited! Which is a nice change since i'm still sitting in darkness at my house.  Power has been out since yesterday morning and it's not looking good for tomorrow either.  Lowest barometric recordings ever here in northern michigan.  Winds have been clocked 35-40mph with 60+mph gusts the last two days and tomorrow isn't looking much better.  Luckily i'm hitting the road for a little wintervention... haha.  

Got a picture from a friend in Vail... first big dump of the season.  AND... i just saw this come across my email... A-Basin is open for the season!  Yes, you could be shredding the gnar right now.  In october.  F'in A Cotton!!

Opening day at Arapahoe Basin

the dark ages

Well this is fun. I wait in the darkness until the rising of the sun. The winds have been blowing with gale force. Trees slice through power lines without remorse. These wind storms are such a lark. I can see my cat smiling at me 'ha ha, i can see in the dark!' Only two more hours until the light. But these storms aren't giving up without a fight. This is like camping in my own house, my own bed. Stuck in the deafening silence of the blowing winds inside my own head.

t-minus 2 day until...

For the past 60 years the signal of the beginning of winter has been the first frost, the first snowflake, and the opening of the next Warren Miller film.  As a kid, i used to watch them on TV every chance i got.  I didn't even ski until i was 12 but i could dream.  For whatever reason, my parents stopped skiing when they had kids.  The only remnants of that life were the stories of my dad almost dying in Steamboat, CO of pneumonia and the early morning trips up I-75 with his best friend to Boyne, driving through 2 feet of snow and using the front wheels floating above the snow like a 3 hour powder run.  And of course there were the skis collecting dust in the corner of one of our garage cabinets.

As kids we learned to cross-country ski.  I remember once coming back from spring break in Gulf Shores, AL and driving through a snow storm in Ohio.  I begged my dad to get the skis out as soon as we got home so i could slide down the hill in our back yard.  But alas there was no snow when we reached home.

We skied mostly on the lake and the national park trails around our cottage.  For as much as i hated going up hills i LOVED going down them.  Fast.  Being the smallest i had a hard time keeping up with everyone else.  Stories are still around of the tantrums i would throw because i was struggling to keep up.  But throughout that all, whenever i think back on those times, i hear my dad's melodic voice singing 'push and glide... push and glide...' to the tune of 'Edelweiss'.  When his made-up words ended he would just whistle the tune.  I would just put my head down, listen to the music, and push-and-glide onward to the top.

In 6th grade when i transferred to a public middle school i wasn't able to play basketball because i hadn't come up through the public school leagues.  So instead my dad signed me up for ski club and their weekly trips to Mt Holly.  I of course showed up in blue jeans and a Michigan Starter jacket, the epitome of ski fashion at the time (in Flint).  The ski club leader paired me off with KC Kenworthy and David Koger since they had just started skiing the week before.  Together we learned the basics of skiing that night and by the end of the night we were pointing our tips straight to the bottom of Grant's Run... the only hill we were allowed on at our novice level.  The ski bug bit me with that first 'click' of my ski bindings.

From that moment i was hooked on flinging myself at breakneck speeds down impossible slopes in the search of what i later learned was 'gnar'.  From that first night skiing down Grant's Run to the backcountry/out-of-bound peaks that i love to shrEd down now, i still hear that song in my head every time i'm hiking a peak.  And it pushes me to the top.

i <3 gnar gnar.  And i have my dad to thank for that.

nexus von tränen

It's amazing how the weather can mirror so many things in our lives. The sun shines in reflection of our happiness. The winter blows in to signal the end of season. The spring signals renewal. And rain is the heavens crying.

A weekend forecast with foreboding weather suddenly turned into one filled with sunshine. Everything was seen in a new light. Expected rain gave way to unexpected sunshine only to be punctuated by more rain and then more sunshine. But the sun sets on every day no matter how hard we rage against the fleeting light. And then came the torrent. Completely unexpected. A culmination of perfect atmospheric conditions and timing that only the Moirae could make.  It rained harder than it has ever come down before.

But the sun always rises on the next day. And the sky reflects off the puddles left behind.

But remember... one drop of rain is tenfold in snow.

first snowfall...

October 21st was the first official snowfall in northern michigan.  Official by whom?  Me.  Being that it was 45 out, it obviously didn't stick stick around to shred... but it's coming!  Not to mention that Warren Miller's Wintervention tour starts this week too... getting excited?!?!  (Why do i feel like a crazy person for liking that cold, blustery, numbing weather is soon on the way?... Perhaps because winter affords us lots of ways to get warm in that weather.  Hot tubs, fireplaces, shredding the gnar... amongst others)  Woohoo!  I can smell it in the air...

get ready to shrEd!

The summer is over.  The water is cold.  The leaves are falling.  The snow cannot be far behind.  While snow might only fall during the winter, gnar can be had year round.  Time to shred the gnar...