Leunig TV

Though I’ve managed this far in life without one, I now have a TV. It started with the wonderful cartoon by Michael Leuing, a comment on the absurdity of mediated experience, and evolved through an extended wine fueled creative conversation with my room-mate Michelle, into a garden installation. Stephanie joined our little conspiricy, provided the TV and assisted Michelle with the painting. I cut out a space to plant a zucchini in the back, affixed a vinyl sticker of the cartoon I’d had made, secured it to a cedar post, and planted it in the vegetable garden. We can now watch TV while watering, weeding, barbequeing, drinking beers on the deck, or swinging in the hammock. Most excellent.

Dirtbag Grant

Simon Clissold passed through Rossland and my life many winters ago, but left an impression as an unusually thoughtful and committed adventurer, so I wasn’t too suprised to discover he’s been awarded a Dirtbag Grant of US$3000 by the outdoor clothing manufacturer Patagonia. I’ve copied his grant application from their website, and it’s well worth a read.

New Red Resort Trail Map

It seems that Red has finally addressed how impossible it has been to navigate using the previous trail map, given that it tried to represent 360 degrees of terrain from one view. This year’s trail map will utilize three views, all artistic renderings of actual aerial photos (from a helicopter last winter), to create a fairly accurate (though many sections of tight trees have been portrayed as evenly spaced glades) and useful representation of the mountain. I’ve been helping them to correctly identify and decide which ski runs to label on the map, and expect that most skiers are going to be pretty happy with the results. This is the view of the North side runs and Squaw basin, without the ski-runs labelled.

Summer Grooming on the Shoulder

It would be great if Red Resort actually devoted the resources to complete all the necessary Summer Grooming, but the reality is that the condition of the mountain and the quality of the skiing is not a priority for owners and management. As millions are ploughed into condominiums and the new beginner chair, the forest is reclaiming the ski runs. So yet again we were up on Granite, clearing out existing lines on our own time. The dense stands of Christmas trees on the Shoulder were well over the height of the maximum snow depth, and really compromised the skiing last winter, but with Cam and I on the saws, we mowed everything down in a broad swathe along the ridgeline to the cliffs above Jakes. It’ll certainly be a strong contender for first run on powder days.