One of those days

We skied a lot today at Bridger Bowl. Not as much as many other people, but far more than we would have done at Spirit Mountain in Duluth. The sore thighs I was developing in the afternoon are no longer bothersome, but getting motivated to do anything is "bothersome".

I should answer my brother's email, I should practice singing, I should write some more meaningful blog entries, I should… Maybe I should go to bed, but 8:00 just seems too early.

One of the minor interesting things is mentally adjusting clocks. I reset my watch to Mountain Standard Time, but I didn't reset our car clock. I reset my iPod to MST but not my computer. Then my iPod's alarm goes off an hour early in the morning. It's back on Central Standard Time!!!

Ah ha! I synchronized my iPod with my Mac and that changed the iPod time again. So now I've set the Mac to automatically adjust the time to its location.

I suppose I should reset my camera clock also, but will the exact time matter on the photos?

Tomorrow is our last big day of skiing. I hope I have enough energy for the half-hour drive back to Bozeman. And enough energy to write emails, to sing, and to write a meaningful blog or two.

Avalanche!

We are now in Bozeman MT while skiing at Bridger Bowl as part of the annual Ski Hut trip.

This morning I had a lesson and my wife chose to stay in town. After the lesson I stopped at a mid=slope chalet for coffee and then went up for another run. I was so tired that I decided to ski back down to the base, have lunch, and then maybe go out again. This was about 11:30.

Some people in our group said that they had seen an avalanche from the lift and heard that people were in the area. Later Scott Neustel, owner of Ski Hut, came in looking distressed. He was on a nearby ridge when it happened and his group was told to stay put for a bit.

He had managed to take a picture of the avalanche and passed his camera around. Imagine the tree tops reaching to the bottom of an "e" in this text; the top of the avalanche cloud reached to the top of the "e". Some people said the snow was moving at 70-75 mph.

As of 4:43 MST, no one had been reported missing, but stories are circulating about close calls. The authorities are still checking by helicopter and snowmobile.

Anybody taking the lift to the high country is required to take a working transponder. But authorities never can be sure that somebody didn't take another route up.

When I drove back down, almost every turn out had people stopped and looking up at the mountains. I don't know what they could see other than a helicopter circling around.

Don't throw out the sports section!!

When we get the Sunday Duluth News Tribune, we separate out the glossy ads, the classifieds, and the sports section and put them into the recycling pile. We've been doing it for years, pausing at the sports section only if there is a human interest story on its front page.

For some reason a week ago I paused and said I should check for the Outdoors section on the last page of the sports section. Goodness, gracious, there was an article about Wes Neustel, former owner of Ski Hut and organizer of the annual Ski Hut trip to Bozeman MT. We know Wes, like thousands of others, and look forward to this trip.

Yesterday, I paused again before tossing the sports section on the recycling pile. On the Outdoors page was an article about Tim Bradach finding locked moose horns near his property in Brimson. Gosh, his and some friends' property is right across the road from ours. And double gosh, on Saturday I was musing on how long it was since we saw any moose tracks on our trails. The moose hadn't disappeared; we just hadn't looked hard enough.

If God created the world, why is it falling apart?

As we drove across eastern Montana, we marveled at the buttes and other rock formations. Most were sandstone in many layers, some brown, some gray, and some red. Their common features were the cracks, erosions, and the tallus at the bottom (the buildup of broken rock). When we were westbound last week, we saw a sign that said, "Watch for falling rock."

See "What is God?"

The green is not grass, the green is trash

As we were driving I-90 through Montana and my wife looked out over the brown landscape, she said, "I see a bit of green." I looked out and saw a green pop bottle and said, "The green is not grass, the green is trash!"

I hadn't really paid much attention before, but the amount of trash along the side of the highway was appalling. There must have been at least one bottle or can every two feet. I don't think I've seen as much trash along the more heavily traveled I-35. Either many Montanans are bigger slobs than some Minnesotans, or Minnesotans pick up trash more often.

Temperature: It's all relative!

When we went skiing today at Bridger Bowl, many people were complaining that it was cold. I think it was in the low twenties; I hardly noticed. As of 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the snow report said it was 20 at the base and 15 mid-mountain. Since the slopes are east-facing, I would imagine that the temperature dropped quite a bit as the sun sank over the mountains.

My gosh! Temperatures in the 20s at Spirit Mountain in Duluth would be a warm winter day.