Utah Backcountry Skiing - Days Fork

Since I'd only been backcountry skiing once this year (on a day when the snow was horrible & we missed our trail) I decided to have another go at it with my buddies Marty Tuttle & Ross Hager. Surprisingly, the Utah Avalanche Report came in Saturday morning with a Low rating - on most aspects. We decided to hit Days Fork, a normally avalanche-prone area.

We got lucky & followed an established up track from a few days earlier - only a few inches of snow covered it. The hike was pretty difficult with multiple deep switchbacks & lots of steep ups. It took us some time to reach the Reed & Benson Ridge, which is about 10,000 feet - but the hard work proved to be worth it.

Marty hiking up.

The picture at the top is me taking a tight turn to spray Ross with a pile of pow. Ross' photography skills actually made me look like I know what I'm doing.

The ride down was amazing with lot's of deep powder, face-shots & untouched snow everywhere! We stayed in the trees for safety & smiled all the way down.

Ross getting a face-full of Pow on his split board.

Me, pointing the way up to
Reed & Benson Ridge.

Free Your Heel - Telemark Ski!

The Emperor's Pants Have No Knees

One day I woke up & went to put on some jeans for the day, and a bad realization occurred - I didn't have any jeans I could wear. All of my blue jeans, including the ones that fit well & were fairly new, suddenly had holes in the knees!

Well, obviously, I can & do wear these on the weekend - but pants with holes aren't especially good for work. The reason for my holey jeans is that I've been spending a lot of my time on the floor on my knees, with my 10 month-old son, Finn.

So, in a way, it sucks that I went through some good jeans so quickly. But on the other hand, I'm glad I'm spending so much time down with the kiddo! Seeing the world from his perspective is one of my favorite things to do today!

My poor sick buddy

Two weeks ago, I picked up my 10-month old son Finn from day care & they told me he had a fever. He was obviously very fussy & upset that night, didn't eat much & really didn't sleep. During the daytime over the weekend, he seemed to be okay, but at night, he wheezed & coughed & had trouble sleeping.

Finally we took him to InstaCare on Sunday. The Doc checked him out & said he looked fine & sent us home with some other meds for his childhood asthma (reactionary airway disease).
Well, after two more sleepless nights, Finn was really struggling to breathe - so we called our pediatrician & the nurse told us that if he was having a hard time breathing to bring him immediately to Primary Children's Hospital.

They immediately identified that Finn had RSV, which is really bad with a little guy who also has asthma. Well, I don't want to go over all of the horrible details, but pictures tell the story:

The good news is, the little rascal is back to normal, & as happy and funny as ever.

In all, seven kiddos in the infant class at day care came down with RSV. One baby has been on a respirator & is still in the hospital. It just goes to show how quickly things can go bad. We feel lucky to have the good health care we have today.

By-the-way, our home thermometer doesn't work at all. For the entire weekend, it said Finn never had a fever!