"FIRE IN THE HOLE" is all I hear, as I keep walking up the
steep pitch with my head down trying to keep the bone
chilling wind off of my exposed face. I finally reach the
starting point for my avalanche control route. I pull out
the explosives, arm them, yell "FIRE IN THE HOLE", and throw
the charge over the edge into the starting zone of the
avalanche path. "BOOM", the charge goes off with a soul
shattering sound, I peek over the edge to see the results.
This time, just a big hole in the snow. The snow is coming
down at 2" per hour rate, I know we are in for a HUGE
snowstorm! This means lots of over the head powder turns,
but also lot of avalanche control work. This was today, an
EPIC day in Aspen. Tomorrow, my day starts in the pre-
morning darkness riding the chairlift to the top, 11,600'.
It is a strange feeling riding up the mountain in the dark,
looking down to the valley floor where most people are still
snoozing away. After getting off the chairlift at the top,
we will begin trudging through waist deep snow to find the
sweet spot for our avalanche explosives. The Central Rockies
is in the middle of a wonderful snow cycle, but with snow
cylces comes avalanches. I am anxious to get up early and
see what mother nature has brought overnight, today we
recieved almost 2 feet of snow, and up to 2 more feet
predicted tonight and tomorrow. This avalanche control work
makes you realize your alive! But so does Unicycling! And to
think that just yesterday I went on a 2 hour COKER ride in
the snow/ice roads. All this story comes down to is "LIFE IS
GREAT!" , get outside and enjoy
it.
--
aspenmike - unicycling albino
------------------------------------------------------------------------
aspenmike's Profile: unicyclist.com3768Open ↗
View this thread: unicyclist.com29695Open ↗