SkiSickness

Finally did a real day of skiing in 2016! I've mostly been climbing and crying and tweaking on parallel computer codes. After a very cold couple of months with a majority of days having sub-freezing high temps, this last week has seen plenty of sixties in Santa Fe, which feels very nice. Micah and I explored one section of the Nambe Chutes (backcountry in the Pecos Wilderness just north of Ski Santa Fe) yesterday.

Zone de jour

This is something like 10-20% of the Nambe Chutes Freeride Zone, which covers elevations from about 10,400 ft to 12,200 ft on a predominantly northerly aspect.

I haven't been skiing at all and we are going to Whistler for a week at the end of the month. Better see whether I can still ski.

This is the obvious little ramp in the middle of the previous photo, exiting on the right from the choke in the chute.

We actually had another chute in mind for our second lap, but due to poor navigation we skied through the middle of the huge cliff band to the looker's right of the chute.

There were some nice turns on old powder.


Then we were in full shenanigan mode through the cliffs. This is dumb.

"If only Micah had a Ph.D. this never would have happened!"

Followed by a few pillows before the slog to the car.


Thanks for a great day, buddy. Next time I'll pretend I'm in good enough shape to carry a camera! New iPhone is not so bad I guess.

looks like a fun zone.

good to see you back to your old form, old antics

hope can catch you when you are in these here parts

Hey, boo! Hope you can break north.

Let's begin


Hit the zone for another chute yesterday.


We managed to locate a very prime chute. Micah near the top.


However, conditions were less than ideal.


Santa Fe Baldy is now looking quite bald, at least on its southwest side.


We opted against more laps since a few of the warm windy afternoons last week had hammered the snow. It was a very funky mix of windslab and rotten facets. We need to reload!

Tracks from last week.