I’ve been in Kauai for a few days now, and I’ve been having a blast! The water is 75° if not warmer, and I’ve had a wonderful time beach-hopping on the North Shore the last few days. I even decided to go on an adventure and got lost in the jungle last night on the “Hunters Moon!” However, I feel like my excitement for this winter and falling snow cannot be tamed by this island paradise. I’ve been; watching ski movies in the morning before the day starts, checking out ski news online at night, and I even ran into my first ski coach, Jeff Mintz, yesterday while walking down the street! Small-World right?  Now I’m sitting here, looking at the snow stake webcam on top of Baldy, and I can’t believe that it snowed 9 inches last night!!! Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I’m stoked for this winter.

Hiking through the forrest on the way to the beach

Beginning of the Napali Coast

Hunter's Moon adventure

It snowed 9in last night (10-23)!!!

This morning I woke up and I was ecstatic that mother nature gave us over two feet of fresh light fluffy snow for Christmas! There was so much snow in fact, that I couldn’t find my car when I went out side to look for it! Anyway, after standing in line for 2.5hrs with my friend Chris Tatsuno, the ski patrol finally declared the lower portion of the mountain open at 11:00. The scene was awesome, people were hootin’ and hollering and laughing and there was a vibe of an old resort, where everyone is in a great mood and having a blast. Chris and I stormed down for first tracks on Exhibition, passing about 50-60 poeple, and we continued charging down the whole morning. We ended up getting eleven runs in on the Exhibition chair before the top opened at 2:00. By the time the top opened the mountain had already tired out most of its morning skiers, and we had to many untracked lined to choose from the rest of the day. During a quick water break, Chris and I met up with Lynsey Dyer and Sven Kueenle and we skied until the mountain closed at 4:00. This was probably one of the days I’ve ever had at Sun Valley resort, and it was the best present I’ve ever received for Christmas

Dude where’s my Car?

.
Lift Line

Megawatts=best powder ski ever!!! I love these skis

Chris and I are loving life!

“Powder Day!!!” These were the only words I could think of when I awoke to a beautiful white blanket of 15in/38cm of fresh snow this morning(12/13/08). It was great to finally ski on some “good” coverage, as snow has been scarce this early season and conditions have been dismal at best. In addition to the newly fallen blessing, Sliverstar resort open their backside, which is where the majority of black and double black diamonds are located, which meant even more fun for me. This powder day was just what I needed, my legs were burning, my heart was pumping, and I was having a blast. However, in my overly ecstatic state of mind, I didn’t heed to the signs clearly stating “Caution: Unmarked Hazards Exist,” and I ended up introducing my thigh to a very mean tree stump. Ultimately the wicked stump left me with quite a large bruise; thankfully I suffered no major damage. Other then my little incident I had an amazing day.