A Run called Taylor St.

It snowed here today. A lot. The first image was taken around 10 or 11 am, and the latter one just after 3. Around 1:30 I took a couple runs down some local streets. The video of one of those runs is linked from the title of this blog entry.

School is closed tomorrow, but if I don't go in I have to take a vacation day. So I'm going in, but being that it's atop a hill AND it's supposed to snow some more, I'm bringing my board for the commute home.

It's eerily quiet around here, the train tracks are buried, cars are non existant in the park below and even on the main street above my home. I wish it snowed like this more often, but I know this is all we're going to get here this season.

November Powder Storm

Yesterday I took my first turns of the season. Chair 1 had a long line and after some miscommunication and gear forgettals and remembrances (hey I'm out of practice) Jennifer and I were set to go and "kill some powder", a phrase she picked up from a mt baker dirtbag last year, but the ticket agent said it would be another 1/2 hour before it opened. So we skidded down to chair 3 (this is the only resort I know where every lift but one is accessible from one or the other parking lot) and began our slaughter. The first run was barely cut up, light-for-Baker powder, and soon we turned off the run into something that was so deep and a little on the steep side I didn't know what to do with myself, being it my first run of the season, since April, I mean, I wasn't ready. This was "hotels" one of those runs that isn't named on the map. Every time I fell, I could feel a slough of snow filling in behind me, pushing me to keep going. I quickly realized my decision to bring my "rock board" was a mistake, but it was too late now. The bottom of the run was a 4' gap with roots sticking out onto a slough. At that point I was a little glad I had the rock board.

Next run we hit chair 6, which brings you within about 75 ft of the highest lift access point on the mountain. We could see boarders flying down under the chair bouncing off rises, floating and landing effortlessly in the pillows below. We cut right into the trees and I finally "let go", nevemind that my face was completely covered and view blocked by flying snow, just keep heading down hill and everything will be okay. And it was more than okay.

The only trouble I managed to get myself into was our run from chair 1. There is a cliff line that stretches for maybe 1/8 - 1/4 mile with only a couple sane ways out, but cutting it close to the cliff line can afford some great powder rewards. We dropped into a bowl too early. I watched as Jennifer got stuck in a toilet bowl shaped situation with one track, so I tried to stay higher. Only I wasn't high enough and the light was as flat as it could possibly be. My board wouldn't budge any more, only digging in deeper. I was buried to my thighs. She told me to try taking off my board. When I did and stepped off it I was buried up to my shoulders. I panicked in a way that I am ashamed of, and she went to get ski patrol.

I saw a way out that would have involved her backtracking and finding the cut over into the Chute, underneath chair 1. She didn't want to go that way, so I figured she would cut to the right to get out of the cliff area. Soon she disappeared over the rise and I was left as a little blue flower bud popping out of a field of white.

Get a grip, I not in any real danger. It's not even noon, there is a ski track about 50 ft away, and hey I have a shovel! By the time I put my shovel together any buried person would have suffocated (need to work on that), but it's not like I was in any particular hurry either. Mostly I started digging to give myself something to do, keep my mind occupied and my body warm. I was wearing my spring pants, the ones I wear as a joke - two blue and two black vertical stripes per pant leg with a string cinch and velcro-closed pockets. The gaitor doesn't stay around the boots very well. I wore these because when I got to my boyfriend's house I had forgotten my bonfire pants and had lent these to him the week before. (He found something less loud to wear.) They weren't much defense against the falling snow and stinging cold of the snow ditch I found myself in.

I tried to reattach my snowboard but quickly found out that I would just sink again up to my thighs, and that digging was easier with my feet free of bindings. So I just placed the board next to me and started pitching snow downslope, digging enough for one foot to move forward a few inches, then the other. I continued this as I could see people from chair one looking over at me, and the luckier ones having the powder run of their lives on the ridge above; the ridge I should have been on. Where is the patrol? I'll have myself free by the time they arrive.

After what was probably a half hour of digging and inching, I reached the slightly filled-in skier track. The track had compressed the snow just enough that now I could get on my board and I wouldn't sink! Getting up was no small feat; I had to use my shovel as a prop. And then a propellor. It was still pretty flat, so I used the shovel as a kind of oar, digging into the side of the track to push myself forward. I managed to get to the edge of the rope line, and put my shovel away. Just then three guys came, two skiers and one boarder. The skiers gave the thumbs up to the boarder, and it looked like he followed my track and then completely biffed where my track and the existing one intersected. They gave a hearty laugh and I realized these weren't patrollers like I originally thought. I asked them if you could get out of here going to the right. "By hiking up the hill, but we're going to the left." I could see tracks heading off to the left following the rope, and started worrying about Jennifer.

I followed in their tracks and managed to get to the Chute without difficulty. I had to take one more chair to get back to the lodge. Certainly Jennifer would be waiting for me there, but I only found Paul. I explained what happened and he reminded me that I should tell patrol that I was safe. I went to the info booth and a call had gone out; I heard her saying that "she dug herself out; was safe and here in Heather Meadows lodge." She thanked me for letting them know and told me to stick around the lodge to wait for my friend, as I was sure she had gone the wrong way out of North Face.

Jennifer showed up about a half hour later. Turns out the trollers had told her to wait at chair 3, only a stone's throw from the chair I had to take back to the lodge. I didn't think to look there. But she had gone the wrong way at the rope line, ended up hiking an hour through the snow to get to a familiar run. She said we could have gone straight it wouldn't have been that bad, in spite of the severe warning signs along the rope.

I didn't ride much after that. The snow was coming down in larger and more consistent flakes, Paul and I went out and played on the rope tow. For his first day he did alright, at least he wasn't cursing me for introducing him to this punishing sport that most people don't pick up unless they're in their more bounceable teens or 20s.

Mt. Baker Opens Thursday

I might have to eat up a vacation day. I've never been to opening day but I've heard it's fantastic.

I got surf yesterday at Clallum Bay, best known for its detention center rather than its rivermouth perfection. It was a freak gift, first place we looked at on the strait, no one out, perfect lefts careening over a perfect sandbar. Some freakishly large ones rolled in; it was difficult to position yourself with the river current and inconsistent sets. I missed as many as I caught, but the ones I caught gave me clean barrel cover-ups down fast, steep lines...

Things that go "ka blooey"

Hi. My name is Myrl. I've been around for about ten years, the product of overly aggressive manipulation of below-the-skin pimples. Most people didn't notice me, but I annoyed my host with great frequency. It's not as though she has perfect skin, far from it, but I was an extruding reminder of that fact. Until today.

I guess I got too big for my britches. I started growing, just a little, I mean I couldn't help it. 10 year olds have growth spurts. Well apparently this pissed her off because next thing I know, I'm getting injected with cortisone by a doctor of dermatology! I couldn't believe it, was she really serious about getting rid of me? It's not like I was causing any physical harm. I was just "there," enjoying what I thought was a peaceful coexistance.

Well I was really mad about that poke, you know, so I surrounded that cortisone junk with more pimples. A really big one, just over the top of me. It was hurting her so she tried to get rid of it, but all the pressure did was inflame me and move me lower on her chin. You'd think that would have taught her. But no.

A few more weeks later I got another needle spewing that awful steroid in me, and then another right next to it! Oh the indignity! The doctor even said I'd become "separated". Didn't she learn from the first round of cortisone? I shot off deep pimples all over around her mouth. They were coming up like dandelions in the spring grass. She even spent almost 100 bucks on some fancy prescription anti-acne treatments to mitigate the damage.

But I felt great. I'd never lived so large, or drew so much attention from her. I had little red blood arteries, as fine as a mosquito's nose, shaped like a tiny tree, blossoming right below the surface of the skin. I even had a dark brown spot that I'm not even sure what it was. But I liked it. It was new and exciting.

But I was in greater jeopardy than ever. She called that dermotologist again, trying to get in even sooner, complaining of the pain I was causing her and the size. Luckily for me, they weren't able to schedule her. I thought I was off the hook. How wrong I was.

Some of these newly formed pimples came up just on the side of me and some even right under the surface of the epidermis. There was so much pressure under me I could feel the skin canopy stretching. Pores that were hardly there before became gaping holes. One even became a visible white head, the kind that respond easily to pressure. She went after that one with a decent result. I could tell the pressure was getting to her. She couldn't leave me alone! Kept massaging me, measuring me, pushing on me, watching my shape change hour by hour. Yes, I had swollen to the jaw line, a huge lump mass.

My insides started pouring out at just the slightest hint of a steel blade poking at the stretched skin's surface. All my yellow, greenish, sticky substances, some that had been hiding in there for years, were now all over the bathroom counter, exposed, splayed. I was even suprised how little pressure it took to expel. That skin that had stretched so far for me was now a sagging pocket of redness. It took her three q-tip sessions to get rid of all of my insides, and believe me they're not pretty to look at.

But I'm still in there. I may be skinny and scrawny and have no character or depth, but one day I hope to fill again and be seen by the world.


- Mryl

My name in print

Thanks to Iain for noticing this.


http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/441302p-371761c.html


My story was worse than the couple of quotes he grabbed, but I didn't think it was enough to print because I ended up receiving the product in the end.