Rocky Mountain High

The team's gone off on another road trip, this time to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Red River, New Mexico. Finally I can get some peace and quiet around here!

The team raced last weekend in Steamboat.  If you look at the results HERE you'll know everything I know about how things turned out.  But I do know that, in typical UAA road trip fashion, there's been some high jinks away from the racing trails, as evidenced by these photos that I've shamelessly stolen off the kids' Facebook pages:

Andrew Arnold doing a little avalanche control using no tools except his own body.

Meanwhile back home in Alaska, one of the greatest days of the year came yesterday - the day when you go skiing at mid-day and you not only see the sun, but you also feel the warmth of the sun.  I was so impressed that I took a picture of it:

World Cup Start area at Kincaid Park.

I wasn't the only one out enjoying the warmth of the sun.  This porcupine seemed happy enough:

(Porcupines don't smile when they're happy. They just get a certain look on their face. This porcupine has that look.)

But the sun still hasn't softened up the snow at all.  We went out for a little backcountry skiing adventure over the weekend and never even needed to put the skins on the skis. We were able to climb 4,000 vertical feet in our plastic ski boots on a bombproof crust. Doesn't make for great skiing, but it sure makes for nice hiking:

When I was growing up in New Hampshire, we called this kind of snow "wicked good powder".