Well it’s mid-January and our ski season has barely started. Sure, we’ve got six ski days under our belt so far, but there hasn’t been a single weekend yet this winter where we’ve gone skiing like a normal ski day. Why, you ask? Well mother nature is cursing the Pacific Northwest skiers, apparently. She throws these big snowstorms at us mid-week and then come Friday or Saturday she decides that it’s going to rain in the mountains. I’m pretty sure she’s just sitting up there laughing at us. So far this winter it has either been cold and dry or warm and wet. Alex and I are very thankful that we planned trips out of the PNW this winter and that we didn’t buy a season pass this year, as we still haven’t been to Crystal Mountain one time this season.
With this disappointing start to our ski season we have had unexpected free time on our hands. Usually our winter weekends are spent with one day in the mountains and then the other day taking care of stuff around the house, but so far this January we have spent a lot of time at home. It makes us wonder what Seattleites do all winter if they don’t ski!
That said, we did have a nice weekend and are very much caught up on our to-do lists. I had a really slow day on Friday, as I didn’t have to volunteer or work, so I ran some errands, took Jackson to the dog park and started on a project to make a new meal plan system. That evening we met Nigel and Jolene at Bottlehouse for a night of wine, tasty food and great conversation. While Alex and Nigel are good friends and enjoy riding their bikes together, I don’t know either of them very well and we’re attending their wedding in Mexico this winter so I wanted to make the effort to get to know them in advance.
The alarm went off at 6 a.m. on Saturday and we jumped out of bed and got ready to go skiing. We had packed our bags the night before and put together some food to bring and then we checked the weather… 10 inches of snow on Friday, then rain after 9 a.m. on Saturday. Alex went back to bed.
I was really, really disappointed to have missed this ski day because we were planning on doing an in-bounds ski tour, where I would have gotten to use my new backcountry skis, bindings, skins and backpack to do a “test run” with my gear before my Powder Betty Backcountry Camp this coming weekend. There is a certain art to ski touring {imagine cross country skiing but with downhill skis on where you scoot/slide your way up the mountain and then ski down normally – you put “skins” on the bottom of your skis and that provides some traction control to keep you from sliding backwards for your “skin” up the mountain, then you remove the skins from your skis when you ski down} and I have not mastered that art, nor have I really tried.
I am nervous about my class and wanted to be as prepared as possible, so we faked it and I practiced putting my skins on and taking them off inside our house, then we practiced putting my backpack on, putting my skis on my backpack, packing my backpack, etc. That mock trial run combined with reading more of my avalanche book made me feel both more prepared and more overwhelmed.
We spent the day Sunday watching the Seahawks vs Packers game. I was mostly packing and preparing for my trip while Alex watched it, but the very end of the game was so energizing I stopped what I was doing to pay attention. Seahawks fans are pretty awesome and it’s really fun to be in a city with not only a winning football team but one going to the Superbowl for the second consecutive year! I feel like this means I should get a Seahawks t-shirt?
In other news, we are still anxiously awaiting the final bid from one of the landscaping companies to re-do our backyard. The first bid we received was extremely reasonable – lower than we expected, surprisingly. It will be an exciting process to go through. I had never really considered hiring a landscape architect to do anything before but there has to be something said about a professionally landscaped yard, especially in the city of Seattle. We’ll see what happens, but we’re on the edge of our seat waiting for this proposal…
So far our new week is off to a good start… We’ll be doing our snow dances and praying to the snow gods for snow this week in the mountains instead of rain, as is currently forecast for this weekend… Fingers crossed that my ski class actually happens!
