Sick Of Sick

Kian's signature of approval! Spring skiing rocks.

Kian, no peein' on the trail!

Deep tuck for a super fasssst descent.

At the warming hut, aka Train Robbers Hideaway, skiing and having lunch with
the Gray Jays. I suggest they change the hut name to Camp Robbers Hideaway.

Getting back to the Depot from Guthrie is a 3-step process:

1-Pack it!

2-Load it!

3-Kick it!

The slog continues. I suffered with a mild bug for almost 3-weeks but haven't ever really felt awesome since then, so it probably tallies more than a month of hell. I don't feel that bad, just not good enough to do anything fun.

Got back yesterday from the Chiwawa and Kian is sick again, although he seemed fine to me. This morning he complained that he was "full" but still wanted to eat and then he threw it all up. After I changed his clothes and cleaned it all up he did it again, but on a new set of clothes and on the carpet this time. I kept him on the linoleum after that. Don't feel sorry for him, he was in good spirits, but I had to clean it up. He was immediately whistling his version of twinkle, twinkle lucky star and kept asking me "what happened, daddy, what happened?" as though it were some unknown event which caused the mess. I just glared at him. He whistled.

We had another sweet weekend at the cabin and I had the pleasure of tugging Kian up to Guthrie Loop on an amazing Spring day. He fell asleep 5 minutes out and when I got to the loop I unhitched him, parked him on the shady side of a snowbank (it was warm up there in the sun) and then I got in about an hour and a half of skiing all within eyeshot of the Chariot. When he woke up I pulled him down to the Guthrie Loop warming hut where we had lunch, skied, and fed the Gray Jays.

Belated From The Methow

Heffe the Diesel pulling his Henry the Caboose.

Kian making a dash for it down the boardwalk in Winthrop.

Here's a few belated vids from our weekend in the Methow last month. The snow was getting a little thin back then but its since been refreshed, although the conditions then were still pretty primo. They kept calling for rain and warm conditions but every day the sun and blue sky made lengthy appearances. On a couple occasions that weekend the Jeff-Henry and Doug-Kian chariot teams got to ski side-by-side: Heffe and I chatted while the little ones mooned each other.

Winter's Back

After about 6 weeks of winter drought La Nina returned and brought winter back in a big way. Almost too big a way. Stevens Pass had 3 feet of fresh snow in the days before we arrived on Friday and so the tracks were all a little soft, but no one was complaining. It was a perfect day out there with few skiers and so fresh corduroy could be had all day long. I'm still not back to perfect health and so I just got out for a short, easy 45 minute kick. But it was beautiful out there and I enjoyed it all a bit more going slow and taking a little less for granted how important my good health is to me: even taking it slow is more than many people are able to experience. But damn, I miss being at 100%.

The wind in the face, the snow in the teeth...

Kian had an awesome weekend of skiing and made some great gains. He spent nearly 2-hours straight with the skis on instead his usual 15-minute stints. He wanted more and we had to pry him off his 100-yard section of track to get him to come inside and eat. Some more pics coming soon.