Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Tushars

Biking season is upon us. Christy and I have plans to do much bike riding this summer. But one more ski trip was in order, The Tusars.

Christy was kind enough to let me go down.
The plan was to stay one night in a yurt then go set up a base camp below the monster southy on Mt Belnap. We were able to cheat a bit and bring extra stuff with a snowmobile assist towing in extra stuff the 4 miles to yurt, then 4 or so to the planned basecamp.
you could say things were a bit icy (note the glazed sheens on the snow and lack of tracks).

The wind blew hard stripping snow down off many a mountain face. It was an intense wind for two days strait. Good "corn" snow was difficult, if not impossible to find, on the high exposed faces. On the day of the planned assault on Mt Belnap the temps were forecast at freezing all day so, with the ripping wind, the mt would remain rock-ice hard. We still decided to make a one-day attempt. We spent all morning and into the afternoon just getting out to the Massive's base (Not it is the biggest peak in the left background of picture below).

Alas, conditions were deemed a bit to dangerous by the group for a summit attempt, so we found wind-protected aspects at lower altitudes that had just started to develop good corn by mid afternoon.

Although conditions were not that optimal, we had good fun. In fact, one moments leisure was found "surfing the wind" at the top of the world (video credit to J, tnx).



Sure enough, on the head-home day the winds died and sun started to blaze. Tired, but thrilled with memory of Tushar Magnanimity, we posed for the parting shot.

Since Daddy likes to wear a red helmet when skiing (aka as "Helmut", a foothillfreak nom du piste), we gots my little boy his own red Helmut.

It is quite useful at his stage, as without his helmet, he has been acquiring quite a few forehead bruises. So to avoid strangers thinking we abuse our little joy and report us to Children's Services, we have taken to letting him zoom around with the thing on.

Eating is an especially tricky endeavor as he has just discovered the thrill of throwing food on the floor to watch Lewie the Pug eat it. And those of you who know The Lew-ser, he is a rather aggressive Lew-cifer in his anxiousness to get at the tasty-bites.

And here is a casual moment before going on a chariot ride.

6 comments:

jamesharry said...

Like Father, like son. Like Helmüt, like Helmini!

Anonymous said...

he is so cute

Anonymous said...

you are a good blogger

Anonymous said...

why word verification?

Anonymous said...

just enter a name into "Name/URL" and decifer the word verification (2x)

Anonymous said...

or 1 x