Hey Crush,

First, thanks for the help on the Salt Lake story.

Second, when you live in the Salt Lake City area, does that mean you never travel elsewhere to ski? I never lived in a ski area (closest was Berkely, and we'd drive to Tahoe a lot).

But, do you get an itch to go to different snow or scenery?

And, when I was out there (SLC) it seemed like everybody I talked to skied (the bus drivers, shuttle drivers, restaurant and hotel workers). Do the high schools all have ski teams? That must be awesome.

mm

PS Once again, I'm sipping the freshly poured Guinness from my basement tap.... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm urp

MangyMarmot - no worries! I don't live in SLC I live up in Park City just outside of the base area of The Canyons but here the kids get Friday afternoon off from school so they can ski. There are many, many school ski programing in Utah comparable to football/basketball P.E. in other states. Many H.S. students have gone on to compete in various national, olympic and international venues.

I have skied in many areas outside of Utah (I use to live in DC) but I find that I can get what I want right here in Park City or Big/Little Cottonwood Canyon. I love steep skiing, powder skiing and tree skiing or just going out and making big fast turns ... and there is no lack of it here. Except for gonzo TGR-style skiing in Alaska you can get off on what turns your crank here (if you need Alaska go to Alaska).

.. and on a great day with snowflakes the size of a cat's head, with 1.5 feet of powder under your skis (or deck), with the face shots gagging you on each turn, with just the sounds of you making your way though that cold smoke, that's when you figure it out ... and for just that moment all the world's B.S. takes the back seat and you are happy. And then there's just that one more run ....

Crushy,
any opinion on Solitude's BackTracks program?

The Undertones??? That was a Northern Ireland band, they had a great song - Teenage Kicks. I played drums in a band back home and we used to play a cover of it, that was a lot of fun. Living in a condo in DC the neighbors don't take kindly to the rim shot and my other special forms of shed building sigh. Had a really nice Pearl Export kit too, cymbals broke in all nice.

OK like so I didn't know where to put this so the UnTopic seemed natural, but this herd of deer well over a dozen just hung out in my backyard area so I got some pics! I know some of you have this happen all the time but for me it was AWESOME!!!!!!



.. another ..

When I was in Bend, OR one time skiing at Bachelor, I had three elk walk right by my hotel bedroom window. That's something you don't see everyday here on the east coast!

Nice shots, Crush!

I love... phone.

The snow is coming!!! The snow is coming!!!

Crush--great pictures, now someone needs to send me some pictures of bear! Or would it be Bears, or maybe beers? Oh well you guys can figure it out! Tonight I will be partaking chocolate chip cookie dough liquor and half and half over ice! And I think That I will have a few, or will it be many? Who's to say what is a few and what is many? I have cabin fever in the worst way! I need out of this place they call work (not that I am being overly productive today or anything!) Okay that successfully killed about 3 minutes of my last hour at work, now what do i do for the last 57 minutes? What to do? What to do? What to do?

Snowshoe has a lot of deer running around. I think they leave feed for them at the top of flying eagle lift so when you get to the top there are always 4-5 deer walking around which is really cool. I've seen a lot of them wandering around at night too close to the condos. It's an awesome sight though.