Sunday, March 28, 2010

Jed's Winter, in 5 Photos

While Annie's been diligent with documenting her remarkable recovery from ACL reconstruction, I've hardly been responding to e-mails, much less contributing to this running tally on our lives. Here's my effort to catch up. The dominating factor in my world has been my full-time, seasonal guide position at Sierra Mountain Guides. While I'm overwhelmingly thankful for all the days out and the steady income and the comfort of a real, full-time job, it's been a lot of work! It was a bit of a shock to be "on-call" and close to home for the past 3 months. Scheduling time for fun and socializing has been tough. Thanks to Annie, friends, and my employer for all being flexible as much as is reasonable. Anyway, I started this work binge immediately after Christmas with a steady diet of avalanche courses and backcountry ski guiding in the June Mountain area. It's a beautiful place to work and play and one couldn't ask for a better mid-winter ski and avalanche-training location! Check out the sweet powder skiing!
Early and mid-winter also bring ice climbing and gym time. As Annie has mentioned, we rented a place in June Lake and enjoyed some quiet, civilized evenings playing "grown-up". We missed the chaos back at the Zoo, but also appreciated the time in our little mountain cabin. Forever seeking balance... As the days get longer the ski adventures get bigger. In early February I scored a trilogy of big days- two guiding, one just for fun, all of them more than 7000 feet of human powered turns!

Sunrise while headed to Tinemaha Creek:March has brought overnight trips (twice to Mount Whitney):
And steeper, firmer skiing:
As of right now, I have one more day of my full-time obligation. That leaves me free in April to work more than full time. Well, I'll actually end up working the same amount, but it's hardly the break I had once envisioned. In any case, it'll be a little more relaxing because in this model, when I have a day off, I can count on keeping it free. And the trips just keep getting cooler and cooler!

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