March

The last few weeks have been a blur. The first week of March was the Tour of Anchorage. I finally bit the bullet and raced the 50km. I was incredibly intimidated by the thought of the Spencer Loop; the horror stories I had heard about blowing up by skiing too fast up the monster hills and slow snow of the Spencer kept me awake at nights in anticipation of the race. The day finally rolled around and I was feeling quite good-- race start was early, and we were off and skiing at 8:34am. This was the only race all season where I can honestly say I pretty much skied exactly the way I wanted to ski. Despite relatively slow snow, I hit my goal time of 2:45. The new snow Anchorage we received prior to the race made for absolutely perfect trails and the grooming was excellent. And the real icing on the cake: I won my age group for the first time in a long time, and seventh woman overall.

After the tour I worked the first four days of spring break before heading down to Washington state for my grandfather's memorial service. He passed away on March 4th of cancer. While he had been quite ill, no one expected him to slip away so quickly. While it sounds cliche, I suppose his quick passing was a blessing. The service went smoothly-- and I jetted back to Anchorage after driving to Seattle, and flying home through Salt Lake City. I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I returned to Anchorage on Monday night.

The next adventure found me cutting class this past thursday to head up to Turnagain with some crazy guys: Charlie, Jeff and his Aussie friend Chris (aka Darlo). We toured up the Bertha Creek Valley under sunny skies and in warm weather. Once we reached nearly the headwall, I set up shop and waited for the boys to ski the big shoot above me called Granddaddy. Darlo ended up skiing back down the headwall and waiting at the bottom with me, our cameras ready to shoot Charlie and Jeff on their descent. Charlie dropped in first and did a ski cut, letting loose a two foot crown of slabby blocks into the shoot. This set off a small avalanche clearing the whole shoot of loose snow. At this juncture I was so glad I was down below, and that Charlie and Jeff were safely above the accelerating snow. The two skied the cleared shoot without incident and we headed back down to the car after a glorious day in the mountains.