Baby on a Plane

The flight from Jackson, Wy to Denver was late but luckily our connecting flight was delayed so no problem. Our bags however did not make the flight so we had to wait at LAX for the next flight from Denver to arrive. Mike and I ended up making the drive back to SLO arriving at about 1am...what a long day.

On the flight from Denver to LAX I had my first experience sitting next to a fully energized two year old. My initial feeling was pure fear when the mother apologized to me as I sat down. I think this is every flyer's worst nightmare because it means that you have a 0.01% chance of reading/sleeping/relaxing until you exit the plane because two year olds have a seemingly endless amount of energy. But, it actually turned out to be a cool experience. I just happened to be reading a chapter in the book "Freakonomics" about what makes a good parent (no, the book is not about parenting it just happened to be the topic of a chapter). That chapter led to an interesting conversation with the mom about parenting and I learned a quite a bit from her experiences. I have never considered myself to be good with kids but playing with her son was surprisingly fun. Maybe kids are alright after all?

Most importantly I reassured myself that making the best of a situation is loads better than being angry and cynical about it.

Urbandictionary in Jackson Hole

Me representing urbandictionary.com at about 9,300 ft in Jackson Hole. The hike was long but worth the effort to get the killer view. There was a small amount of new snow yesterday but nothing substantial. We fought the icyness to get 17,000 vertical feet in...not too bad. Mike, Jackson, and I are pretty sore so we'll probably take tomorrow off to check out the town.

Headwall in Jackson Hole

Today was another beautiful day. A brisk -12 degrees F when we ventured outside to get breakfast. Had the "Cowboy Bennedict" which used Elk bacon at the Silver Dollar Grill. The grill got it's name because there is 2032 silver dollars in the bar.

We started the day with one warmup run before hiking to the top of headwall in search of powder. The hike was long. Jackson lost his board on the hike but luckily it only fell about 30 yard or so before hitting a tree and narrowly missing me by about 3 feet. The above photo is from the top of headwall at 9,300 feet above sea level.

We explored the other side of mountain which is mostly expert terran and that wore us out. It may snow tomorrow or Thursday so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

First day in Jackson, Wy

Mike, Jackson, and I arrived yesterday afternoon and checked into the Antler Inn in downtown Jackson. On the drive into Jackson we saw a few Moose and Elk on the side of the road. The entire landscape is covered in snow and we're surrounded by mountains.

Waking up this morning was tough. We walked outside to a brisk temperature of -16 degrees F. After a $6 all you can eat cowboy buffet we made our way the the ski resort. Got there about 11am as the temperature increased to a warm -11 degrees F. The only skin showing on the mountain is the tip of my nose and it was COLD!

Although it hasn't snowed in a while the conditions trump California snow. Hugh wide open groomers were the run of choice today. Going slow was NOT an option as the steepness was...well...steep! 23500 vertical feet today and today was an "easy" day as we have 3 more to go!