It's Winter!

 Yesterday my friend Shawn and his friend Nate and I headed up to the mountain f/n/a "Big Mountain" to earn our first turns of the season.  The thermometer on the Subaru read 20 degrees and figuring that sounded pretty warm, we decided to ignore the wind that was whipping around us and visibly blowing trees.  "If it's windy in the Valley it's probably going to be windy up high" I keenly observed.  "That's what we would normally say" said Shawn.  We all laughed and pulled up to the nearly-empty parking lot to gear up and head up the mountain.

First, I should note that there is a lack of pictures here because it was so incredibly horrible that the last thing I could think to do was snap pictures.

Shawn is a snowboarder and had his board on his back -- it acted like a sail.  The short skis he was wearing were definitely not providing enough surface area to let the skins to their thing and adhere to the snow.  I know things are very wrong when I'm ahead of Shawn -- he's an uber athlete.  Nate had already darted far ahead.  I kept looking back to see Shawn blown backwards, sliding around, falling and generally looking miserable.  I figured he'd rally and since it was so horribly windy and cold, and because my hands were becoming painful clubs, I hurried up the pitch hoping to find shelter from the wind where I could wait for Shawn.

He never appeared.  I figured he turned back, and thought to take my skins off and head back myself since I had the car keys, but it felt too cold to stop and I was nearly to the Summit.  I completed my mission and found respite from wind at the Summit House where I removed my skins, put on about 5 coats and began my blissful and hard-earned powder run down (a different run, out of the wind). 

Shawn ended up waiting something like 45 minutes for me in the cold, since nothing was open, but managed to forgive me (I think/hope).  We had both planned originally to hike up today (Sunday) as well, but agreed that it was maybe not so awesome when the wind and cold brings you to your knees.  It's a really good reminder about how mean winter can be if she wants to, which brings me to:

My shell sled for Susitna came.  I need to make it into the gear-hauling machine it is destined to be.  I need to get out and find out what it's like to run with a sled full of gear.  After yesterday's punch-in-the-face of winter, I'm thinking I will need many balaclavas and a lot of hand warmers.  If the weather turns like it did yesterday at Susitna, there's no reason why I am subjecting myself to that for 40+ hours.  Rest assurred I'm not that crazy.  Call me weak if you want...  I like my fingers and toes.