IN THE DEEP

Tomorrow starts the 6th annual all mountain ski camp with STARS and Adaptive Adventures, and the snow has welcomed everyone in!

The morning report said 6" but its been snowing since sometime after midnight, and it was up over my knees in the 130, 1230, and Sundown trees! The latter being the best of the morning by far!

We're in a Winter Storm Warning until 6pm tonight, so if you missed today, tomorrow should be divine as well...

Steamboat TV18's and NRC Broadcasting's Eli Campbell injured his knee early this season and has been unable to ski since the start of the year. We ran into Eli and his lady Erin at Creekside one day, and discussed the idea of monoskiing... it gave him something to look forward to... when the doc would clear him for some strapped-in safe snow sliding! That day was finally yesterday, March 29, coincidentally one day after the anniversary of Craig's ski accident.

Eli's a great snow athlete- one look at his Facebook pictures and you can see he has a thirst for adventure in the woods. So with even more powder coming at us this week, we think we've timed this perfectly! Hopefully Eli will take this lesson to the next step and make some turns.

101 Fitting
Fitting the monoski bucket, foot cage, and outriggers to a beginner stance is primary; you should have an expert help line this out for you. Once you've mastered the basics, you can adapt to a more intermediate stance.

101 Control
Even more so than able-bodied skiing, when monoskiing you must start out slow to control the rig. It's a heavy piece of equipment that can hurt someone; so control of the device is of the utmost importance.

Push forward and backwards, lift up, pivot, and get an overall feel for your balance in the bucket and on the outriggers. Then on a flat surface practice getting up some momentum and stopping yourself. Monoski stops are made by pressing down with your arms and shoulders and pivoting one way or the other, as if the outrigger is doing the job, but it's your body is setting the turn in motion. Once you've mastered stopping the rig on a flat surface, move up the bunny slope to begin working on turning.


Eli did great at the base; he took to the rig right away, and was able to find his balance quickly. As a ski racer and athlete, Eli wasn't learning to ski, he was learning to adapt his existing (excellent) skiing skills to this particular equipment. The concepts are mostly the same, so he had a head start; but even his success far succeeded anyone's expectations!


101 Turning
Turning the rig is similar to turning when standing skiing; your head/eyes and thumbs should direct your turns. If you're overturning, you're looking into the next turn too late. [Overturning on a monoski will cause "wash out," where the ski turns back uphill and the bucket slides
out beneath you.] Prevent this by staying ahead of the turn by always looking to the next side once your turn has begun.

Now you're monoskiing!

Eli made some great turns, first twice down Headwall and then Craig took him to Swinger, and as he picked up momentum he seemed to pick it up, by the wide part of the trail, he was bombing away, turning less, and really getting the hang of it!




Thanks for being such a good sport, and thanks to TV18 for putting together the video of yesterday, we can't wait to see it!

We probably wouldn't have gone up today had it not been for Jeffrey Krauthamer (left) celebrating his birthday on the hill all the way from MD... we woke up to a 1" report and bad reports all week about the hill. Craig had been up once, made it to Thunderhead, and turned around because he said it felt like a skating rink. Our temps have been warm, too warm, and we just haven't gotten any snow for about two weeks. Some locals go up every day. Some, like me, are just way too picky for putting up with subpar.

But the skies were unloading by about 9am, and by the second report, there were 5 new inches to be had! We'll have to thank Jeffrey for getting us up there to appreciate it. He visits every winter since I can remember, and had his adaptive turns scheduled for 10am today. We met them at the top of the Gondy shortly after, and made some fabulous, and I'm not exaggerating, turns in Wally World.

There wasn't much to be had in the obvious places, but first turns in Sundial trees and I was in heaven, even on my short groomer day board. At least a half a foot and untouched, on top of a relatively grabby surface. A surprise from above. We kept searching for the stashes along the sides, and beelined down Ramrod for some more.

Sunnyside was the highlight (left), although the turns in Sideburns on our final descent was what we live here for as well. Light, fluffly, untracked, and deep enough to get some yips out of us!

Hopefully we'll get a few more turns in before we leave town on Monday, snow or no snow. With Jeffrey in from MD and Kevin in from Scotland, it's likely! ... video?

Yesterday was a spiritual experience in the backcountry; in a rare location that's skied only 15% of the season by Powdercats, Soda Mountain's "expert terrain" is even most spiritual to them. Facing south, the terrain is often burned to crust by the sun; giving the steeper runs higher slide potential. With careful safety monitoring over the past few days, PC safety manager Eric ok'd us for entry. No monoskier had ever been taken to Soda before. After about 12 new inches last week and sunless skies, the terrain was mint for its inaugural turns of the season. PC Guide Scully was chomping at the bit.

We scored a gorgeous, chilly bluebird day and spent the morning on the south side of Soda until the climbing sun began to cook the top layers. Craig was gifted with the virgin run down Tasty Wave. We followed with The Tube, and finished the south with the Funnel. The Funnels' rocky couloir-like narrow chute gave them the most testing terrain, with rocks to one side and trees to the other. Kent parked me somewhere in the middle to film for Genchi, and I panned them as they all blazed by.

We stopped on the ridgeline for lunch and finished the day with two runs down the backside on the north slope, a wide open glade with scattered trees and a windlip the size of two men that the monos took turns jumping off. Cambell jumped both runs the highest, but blew the bucket off his Praschberger on the second landing, bolts and all.

We had a great group with three monos, Andy Campbell (UK), Lucian Smith (PA), and Craig; two three trackers including Chris Canfield from Breck who skis with poles (I guess that would make him a one-tracker?) and local Courtest Ski Patroller Ron McMorris; and Luanne Burke, a speedy little VI x-racer with her guide Mau Thompson of Adaptive Adventures and previous coach of the US Disabled Ski Team. Not bad for a first year; all these skiers floated through the near-knee deep powder with ease.

We were also lucky enough to have two photographers and a writer from Skiing Magazine, hopefully to push through a feature on the event sometime next winter season (09-10).

But all in thanks to Dave Genchi (SCI), Powdercats Videographer that was injured on Buff Pass in 06, who will be making the video of Legends of the Deep with the goal to expand this day into a world class event for adaptive skiers and riders to show their skills in the powder and gain bragging rights, as these guys did, in the coveted terrain of Routt National Forest. Thanks Dave, this is indeed your brainchild. Hope you're here next time...

Talk about In the Deep . . .

Today was one of those sweet surprises that only locals can truly appreciate for its goodness... there were many factors about today that would have made any visitor or occasional skier an antsy Nancy. The snow report said 5" at 5am and still snowing with minimal 9m/h wind and a balmy 20°. We knew it would make for some strange conditions, and we were right.

Driving up to the hill we could only see the bottom of the mountain, the top was socked in and the clouds were a very dark shade of charcoal. . . STILL snowing. You all know what 3 hours can do to the 5am snow report, and sure enough there was easily 10" in spots, and thick, like freshly churned butter.

We made it to Four Points in time for its opening, BC and Storm weren't running yet and we were antsy to make some turns. We teamed up with Doug Enochs at the lift and skied with Douglas all day. Sunset was barely touched and we carved big down to Duster, making our way slowly down into the Moonlight trees. A ride up Sundown showed the top in full glory- dumping styrofoam-like pellets by the bucketload, and visibility of only 4 chair lengths. It got darker the higher we went, and it was like skiing blind on Keith's Ridge, feeling our way down Sunshine Liftline and through the trees to High Noon. From there we took One O'clock to 1:30 trees, smoothing along this barely touched run like narrow boats on a glassy lake.

After that we did a top of Three O'clock taste over to Pumphouse trees, both with wide open freshies abound, and down Fawn to Southpeak for a taste of a groomed Rolex. There's nothing quite like a just-tilled Rolex with nearly a foot of fresh on top.

This time we traversed the top to Storm, and over to another fresh-till on Cyclone, but both were pretty chewed up by 9:30, so we bombed down Vortex and hit the bottom of the lift line on the right, not a track in sight. LALALA!

Doug suggested Pony, he hadn't been there this year yet, Craig hadn't been there in a couple years, and I was a Pony virgin. Seriously. Here is where we found the mid-morning goods, however, and now that Craig and I are more familiar with some of Dougs favorite Pony spots, we'll surely be back. Thanks Doug! We hit the trees on top of Longhorn to the left above Nash Junction, an untouched glade of goodness that started this neverending run out nicely. We cruised in and out of Longhorn's left side, and found a completely untouched WJW at the bottom. Someone should rename that W-OHHH-W, as it was definitely wow. We dumped back into Drop out and decided it was maybe time for a top-to-bottom... we had some work to do!

Sunday is the start of our annual ski camp for disabled vets and friends, so if we have time to post, we will. Otherwise, we'll see you IN THE DEEP sometime after the 16th's 1st Annual Legends of the Deep Powder Invititational!!

Oh! And we hit the slopes today with the new camera (Canon EOS XSi)... still ironing out the kinks of new technology and settings, but today's pictures came out better than they used to, no question there! Thanks to the Jehn Foundation for that!

Truthfully, we never ski on Scholarship Day.But we always ski on Thanksgiving.

Now, on a year when we have a powder day on opening day and I'm really THAT itching to ski, I might very well ski on Scholarship Day- proceeds for this day ($15 tickets, season pass or not) go to our local youth Winter Sports Club- but so far, that hasn't happened in 10 years. However for at least the last seven, I've skied Thanksgiving morning, before I start churning out pumpkin pies.

2006 was the most memorable opening for me; we had a week of snow and we were all choking on it during opening week. (11-30-06, left) The rest have not been... a few runs for the kicks of it, and that's about it. Get your legs under you again, see if all that "ski conditioning" exercise was worth the puking (yes, for the first time since I was 18 I threw up after running today, OMG), and test out your new boards- unless of course it's this year, then we're dusting off our "rock" skis. You know the ones, those 210s from '91 with serious gouges out of them already? Right. Those of us who ride haven't been knuckle-dragging long enough to have "rock boards." Pisser.

So... we're at one-more-day (!) and counting hours... 38... tick tick.

Halloween.

This is about the time of year it begins to snow. We've all been relaxed about it because last winter trickled out long and cold well into June, welcoming the warm sunny days and lengthy fall colors. But this week, we all started getting antsy. The snow we got about 10 days ago is melting off the peaks, the sun persists, and the Oak Creek Dowser's 08-09 prediction of 30% more snow over last year's epic and record breaking 550" season seems to be teasing us.

We know it will snow soon, but with 26 days left to build a base, our impatience has finally begun.
Perhaps part of the anticipation... Craig and I have begun to organize ourselves and our fundraising efforts for our 4th Annual All Mountain Ski Camp with Adaptive Adventures, Steamboat Powdercats and Steamboat Ski Area. By writing press releases about deep fresh snow and reviewing photos from last year, it's no wonder we've finally started chomping at the bit. We are also adding a new event to follow this camp (teaser) as well as a kids camp, so our hands will be full for the next couple of months as we grow what is already a proudly successful event. Stay Tuned...

-See you in the Deep