Adventures in winter wonderland

I'm happy to report that winter is in full swing here in Carrabassett Valley. While that means I now also have to shovel the driveway again I consider it a fair trade to be able to play in the snow.
This morning I dropped Dave off at work while temperatures hovered around the 10 degree mark. It's not really that cold but I wasn't feeling the need to rip at 35mph downhill so I headed north on 27 to Flagstaff Lake with my little furry buddies. 

We ventured out to Myer's Beach and enjoyed a great walk through the woods to the frozen lake. It was a good Chaos sized walk to the beach- about 15 minutes and we then enjoyed some time enjoying the sunshine that streamed over the backside of the Bigelow Mountain Range.

Mayhem even took a quick moment to enjoy the stillness of the morning at the lake. But just one moment... little dog doesn't stay still for long.

I bribed him with the promise of the tennis ball to capture another view on the frozen tundra. The lake was beautiful and we did see a few snowmobiles enjoying some playtime too. The lake had a false stillness, if I waited long enough and if the pups were quiet enough then we could hear the movements of the ice forming below us.

whirlwind trips

Last week we booked a flight on Sunday and boarded a plane on Monday bound for Boston. In less then 24 hours we had cleaned the house, packed our bags and figured out a plan for the dogs and the grumpy kitty to be well cared for. I had made time to stop for some gluten free snacks before we dropped the car off to get new brakes (much needed) and caught a courtesy ride to the airport and was grateful for these all day- especially at the ATL airport... scary.... so scary...
 Thankfully I had packed a good supply of yarn, all of our chargers for phones and ipods and a clean shirt for each of us as our checked bag arrived on Thursday afternoon, a mere 4 days after us. Thanks Delta! It was an exciting moment to be able to have wardrobe options again plus a more pragmatic pair of shoes then the Danskos I wore traveling and the flip flops I had tucked in my carry on as area was getting pounded with snow and the snowbanks stood 5 feet high.  I had lots of time to work on my knitting and finished a few projects during our visit.

From Droid think outside

On Saturday we packed up and jumped on a bus down to Boston- the roads were getting slick and our early flight on Sunday didn't leave much of a margin for error. We packed our bags with my gluten free snack festival and headed into a hotel near the airport. We checked in and asked about area dining and if the in house restaurant had a gluten free menu- the uncertain look had Dave convinced that my idea of heading to PF Chang's wasn't so crazy after all.

From Droid think outside

 I had used my droid navigation while on the bus to figure out that we could easily take the hotel shuttle to a T stop on the blue line and swap to the green line and end up a block away from PF Chang's. It was a Saturday night and the place had a 50 minute wait so we opted to eat at the bar so we could make it to bed at a decent hour. We even walked through the city a bit after dinner, grabbed Dave breakfast donuts at Dunkin's and made it back to to hotel within 3 hours. There wasn't much time for sleep as we were up at 3:30am and on a shuttle soon after.

From Droid think outside

The best part about our 6am flight on Sunday from BOS to ATL to MTJ was that all worked out we arrived by noon in the mountain time zone, hit a quick food shop were reunited with our monster puppies back in Telluride before the lifts closed at 4pm. Now comes the fun part of readjusting to work, altitude and life after a week away.

visits from Summit then more hats on quiet nights

Meghan and Sam came down for a quick visit last weekend and we had a good day on the mountain and a evening snowshoe with all 4 goldens. I'm also happy to share that I can now eat food at our apres hangout- The Hop Garden. Telluride Ski Resort is now offering true gluten free options for people like me. 

A philly cheese steak may seem like a simple sandwich but being able to eat a real meal instead of pocket snacks is a big deal in my glutarded world. 

will knit for wine, bring me the yarn and a bottle of red and you'll see a hat out of the deal- like this creation in green and yellow. The thickest yarn and fastest hat yet. (Burly spun Brown Sheep Company yarn, size 13 circulars, 59 stitches cast on)

Kids hat with big Poms- lots of yarn for crazy thick poms which are then trimmed to create a pretty and uniform look. (Merino Blend, size 9 circulars, 96 cast on)

 

A finally finished Christmas gift, for Big Dave  swapped to doubled pointed to finish the top for the first time and wow- not going back to trying to finish on circulars! (Mini Mochi by Crystal Palace, size 8, cast on 120) 

Dave's now on grooming life and my nights are now filled with adventures to tire out the dogs so I can work on my knitted creations. I even took time to hit a crochet class at Needlerock but it really just proved that I like knitting better. I'm stuck on hats and have lost track how many I've done now. I'm also doing multiple projects at once and have 3 hats currently cast on and in various stages of progress. I like to mix it up with needle sizes and degree of difficulty so I can swap out as needed based on energy level, attention span, color preference or ease of carry for knitting during long meetings which abound this time of year. 

mayhaos snowshoe hike

Dave headed in for his final day of snowmaking today (he starts grooming tomorrow) while I had a rare day off from work and the sun was out with fresh snow on the ground. It's been frigid and around -10 degrees with the windchill so I was happy to have sunshine, little wind and 20 degrees. The sun here makes it feel 10 to 20 degrees warmer as well.  I geared up with the camera and a few layers and took the boys out to Lizard Head Pass around 20 minutes south of our house and went for a snowshoe hike on some dog-friendly groomed trails. I took almost 400 photos and played with the continuous shots to capture some of the best moments for the monsters.


They wore their packs and Mayhem's might have had a bit more weight then Chaos's but you can't tell as Mayhem was pretty excited even as the hike ended. I made them break trail a bit off to the side and by the end of the hike they figured out that they could just stick to the groomer's and work less. The snow was light, fluffy and deep which made for an easy snowshoe but a big walk for the boys.

Both dogs are now passed out and I'm set for a quiet night of knitting.

cats, hats and dogs

ski season- 23 days in

ski season officially hit telluride on turkey day and i feel like we haven't stopped moving since I woke up that morning to make an apple pie. in the last 23 days we've skied, played with the dogs, gone to yoga, baked cookies, knitted hats and worked a lot. Dave even managed to sneak in a quick trip to summit county with chaos but that's been it. we're in survival mode and are hoping to dig out before new year's eve... or groundhog's day....

powder days in telluride

We awoke on Saturday to 13 fresh inches and the sky was still dumping. Chaos managed to score a short walk before Dave and I headed out for a day on the hill.

After taking some runs together, we found our friends waiting at the gate to Prospect Bowl... the rope dropped and it was a ski/board cross race to the lift. 95% of the crowd hit Gold Hill and Jess and I met up at Prospect Express. We had first tracks down Stella and captured the image in the low light..

We found some good stashes and hung out in prospect for a while...

Eventually we found Jared and Dave again and stopped for a snack at High Camp.

Seriously... this sounds narly but was actually really good and marked gluten free... a gourmet chocolate bar laced with bacon. While there was more snow this morning I ended up working all day and not making time for a ski break.... perhaps tomorrow if all goes well!

The bacon chocolate only made us realize how starving we all were and we descended on Big Dave's house at Melrose Place for some food and tubby time. We made Brinner (breakfast for dinner) and all the non-glutards piled it high on a bulky roll.  We made gluten free pancakes, hash browns, eggs, bacon and sausage and a few folks managed to get all these layered up into a sandwich.

winter woks and more

If you happen to read Think Outside the Breadbox you may already know that one of my favorite glutarded meals is Street Noodles. We made a huge batch the other night and thankfully I was greatly assisted by our favorite Chef Tomas.

Chef Tomas is a legend here in Telluride and when Justin found him at the Free Box one fine winter day in 2007 he was a bit down on his luck. He came to live with us and spends his time between Camp Chaos, Sno Dundah and Melrose Place. He's currently staying at Melrose since Big Dave had a heated pool and a hot tub which helps take the chill off a cold winter's day.

Tomas and I made street noodles for a crowd of seven starving skiers on Saturday. We had friends and friends of friends in town and had a good evening and meal at Melrose Place. Tomas was pretty proud of his wok skills...

I went for a full moon hike with some friends last month and got one whole photo as we departed thanks to dave... I hate taking off my gloves in cold weather. Here's me and our friend Jim as we ready to depart on the hour-long hike up.

Dave had to skip the hike as he went off for some night shift grooming... midnight to 9:30am, five nights a week... kinda takes the fun out of a Saturday night. He was to get some shots like this...

an early morning overlooking the Telluride Airport.

Old buddies

lobstah night

Big Dave is also know as clammah dave and his family has the Clam Hunter just outside of Bath, Maine. They developed a system for cleaning clams to make them less gritty. I've been told all of this as I am not a seafood lover.... in fact that's why they kicked me out of Maine...



His family sent him a dozen lobsters and a ton of clams and he had the crew over for a lobster bake. Dave's new diggs also include a large hot tub so we were also able to sit in boiling water and ease the holidaze to a close. We even had Tomas help us cook- he's quite the lobster chef!

a long december....

I have to say that I'm ready for 2009 to be over. It's been a busy year and I'm hoping to slow down a bit more in 2010.... but with an October event and the craziness of Telluride I think a slow 2010 is just a dream.

I've been trying to spend more time cooking and baking. I've been playing with a few gluten free flour blends and perfecting my street noodles. In case you didn't know I also am a gluten free blogger.... but have fallen even further behind there!

Dave's been busy snowmaking and starts grooming next week when the roll up the snowmaking hose for the season. He'll be working nights all winter so Chaos will have a buddy to nap with during the day.

Telluride hosted the 2009 Snowboardcross World Cup event and we cheered on two Sugarloafer. Seth Wescott won the gold in the 2006 Olympics and we've cheered him on in a few events. This year Alex Tuttle joined in on the fun... he even stayed here at campchaos and managed to make it through Dave's entire collection of the Simpson's.  Alex is 19 and graduated from CVA last year and this was his first world cup race. There are 60+ racers that come to town for this and they only have 32 spots for race day so they do a qualifier the day prior. SBX is a lot of fun to watch as it's 4 races flying down the course at one time and egging each other on. The qualifiers are a grueling process where each races gets two solo runs down the course and the top 32 times advance to the next day's races.  Alex had a great showing and hit 43rd (did I mention this is his first World Cup event.... and not his last!) and Seth hit 2nd and went on to the next day. The bonus for us was getting to watch the finals with Alex and knowing that when he said Seth was solid that things were ok and when he got nervous there was a good reason!  This is a race that is helping to secure spots at the 2010 olympics. It was on NBC last week and that was Dave and I rocking the Go Wescott Banner.... you could safely call us his biggest Telluride fans.

Work has been insane and I'm on day 11 straight.... 'nuff said. Plus my crackberry is on the fritz... it thinks I want to take photos instead of making calls or sending emails. At one point it wouldn't even let me pick up phone calls. I ordered a new phone and as soon as I did the old crackberry started working again.... arugh. I also changed my mind and am going to move away from the crackberry and find a new model..... I've been asking around and everyone seems to love the droid.... thank goodness for a 30 day return policy. This is the hard part about working too much and not having a good cell phone store around us.

team glh

marc had a very busy trip to telluride. While at camp chaos he...
...visited Moab and took lots of photos...

...enjoyed a bacon shot at fat alley...

...went climbing at the rock gym...

...skied, hiked and skied the deck...

and had fun with everyone's favorite golden.

Marc even took some Chaos kisses home to Colby. It was really hard to transport but he managed to surpise his 3.5 year old with some sloppy Chaos kisses. He also was able to bring Beth home the famous Telluride Truffles which he picked out himself. We went to the factory and tried some of Patty's and Colleen's cheesecake and sampled some truffles.

18 inches... 'nuff said

2009 X Games

this weekend chaos hit mako's house for some serious doggie time. Chaos was cleared at the vet on friday morning to start using his leg more. He is cast free and we are just waiting for the cast sores to clear up. While at Mako's he forgot that he was a gimp and really started using his leg more. Upon his arrival home he tried to go back to gimping and we called him out on it.

while chaos was enjoying doggie time we hit the road with jess and jared for the 2009 winter x games. I like that we are the official seth wescott cheering committee and we take our role seriously even standing in the rain and cold to show our support. SBX is a tough event... not only do the racers have to hit big features and maintain speed but they have to avoid other snowboarders. Seth ruled his first heat but his goofy stance was knocked down when he knocked butts with a regular boarder. This was the first time in 12 years that seth didn't make the finals. We were proud regardless especially since seth is rocking the world cup circuit this season.
We made a big weekend out of the event and stayed in Glenwood Springs, home of the famous hot springs, and enjoyed tubby time, a good brewery, late night in aspen and more. We even made it back on time sunday to celebrate big dave's birthday at fat alley.

the end of the season...

scenes from the end of the season street dance and the final day skiing at Telluride.

somebody call singer...

Because these guys ripped it up in Telluride!

Good times in Telluride~ Sara and Colleen made the trip out this winter and we had a great visit... they skied hard, hit all the telluride hotspots and had no turtle travels! Whoo-hoo!

dog days of winter

we're in the dog days of winter and have been keeping busy with work and playtime. Dave's painting company has transformed to a roof shoveling company and with 306" of snow so far this winter it has been crazy. My work is also busy with sales and guest services (yup- still doing both!)
We've managed to make some time to play with the puppy monsters and I took Chaos and his friends for a short snowshoe on the trails again today. Chaos is currently sacked out on the floor after a long day of being mr. social monster.
we're finally getting some sunshine- that is the downside of 306" here in Telluride- a lot of cloudy days! We may not be able to boast 300 days of sunshine this season...
the local high school has a climbing gym and we've finally ventured down to it... they have a good size wall and it was fun to play again. It's been a while for both of us but we managed to make it up a few times. We also made it out to the local movie theater to see Juno which is hillarious- and bought the soundtrack that night.

the ski tour hits telluride

The Jeep King of the Mountain Ski Tour has hit Telluride. It's a pretty big thing and we're busy making sure everyone knows about it here in town. Dave and I will be attending some shows and watching the races on Sunday afternoon. We're gonna cheer for Seth Wescott who is also a sugarloafer. Tonight we made a banner to show our support!

So when the Snowboard cross airs on TV check it out and look for us! I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way the banner came out. I think it's the best Sugarloaf logo I have ever done.
The Telluride Skier Cross will air on CBS 12/29/07 5:00-6:00pm Eastern Time
The Telluride Snowboard Cross will air on CBS 1/12/07 4:00-5:00pm Eastern Time

snow day

I got up with the dogs this morning and let them romp outside in the fresh snow. Chaos's favorite game is "stick"- it's never fetch for Chaos! He loves to play keep away with his friends then plop down and chomp on his prize!

After playtime I geared up and hit the mountain. It was a bit chilly but warm for this time of year. It's still snowing and I'm hoping Telluride gets dumped on. We've got a huge event in town next weekend and can really use this new snow.

Winter Hits!

Winter has finally arrived in Telluride! It took Mother Nature awhile to find us this season I'm hoping this means that we'll get more snow mid-season to make up for this!
We went to Summit over turkey day and hung out with Team Frisco- we somehow managed to not pull the camera out at all during the four days we spent there. Courtney cooked a huge bird and we all piled around the table while Chaos hung out with his friend Kaya and tried to not beg. We did let him clean up afterwards. Sam also joined in on the Team Frisco endeavor and we all had fun watching the three kids get silly with the dogs after dinner. Both Golden's were brushed and had their hair played with. The kids danced to Hannah Montana music and headed off to bed while we had a bit of wine.
Friday morning I met a friend from UMF for breakfast at Copper. He was doing a race clinic so it was much earlier then I would have picked but it was good to catch up. He was actually working with Jon for the week- who is also a UMF kid. After breakfast I geared up and waited for Dave. I went to do laps on the main lift. It was my first day in my new tele boots which Bob from Bootdoctors in Telluride. Bob is one of the best bootfitters in the country and much needed after the agony I've gone though the last few years. I have a lot of friends who are also incredible boot guys but I wanted to stay local so if I start to hurt I can take advantage of the fit guarantee. I took one run- at first things felt great and I was pretty happy but halfway down the owies set in. I found a comfy chair and waited for the boys. When they arrived an hour later I was a bit nervous about heading back out but somehow sitting for an hour helped my feet settle into the boots. My feet have been great ever since. Plus since I'm no longer in a sloppy boot my telemark skiing has improved and I no longer hate to ski. Last winter was a challenge for me as I didn't have fun on the mountain for the first time in 16 years.