Grand Junction Getaway

This week I visited Mesa State College in Grand Junction, CO. It's a four-hour drive from Denver on Interstate 70. I invited Jane to come with me for a little get away. We left on Thursday and had snow from the Eisenhower Tunnel until Vail. With ski season nearing it's end I just had to stop and get in a few runs at Vail while I let Jane shop in Vail Village. It snowed the entire time and was foggy up on highest peaks. It turned out that one of our favorite places to ski hadn't been groomed for a long time because it had had a bunch of snow, and with very poor visibilty I dropped into the bowl into about two feet of powder snow, which I have no experience skiing in and really struggled with. At one point I fell and ejected both skis, both of which disappeared into the snow. One was barely sticking out, and the other I found digging down about a foot. In the first picture, last time I rode this lift (the "Orient Express" for those of you who know the "China Bowl" the dips and bumps were about 2-3 feet deep; here they are all covered up in fresh powder. After about three hours I was wiped out and came down the mountain and we finished the remaining 2 hour drive to Grand Junction. Friday afternoon Jane and I went for a drive; it was about 80 degrees and a nice change to drive around with the windows down. We thought our community of Highlands Ranch had some challenges when it comes to naming streets, because they reuse the same name about 5 times and just change the type of street ie: drive, way, road, street, avenue, circle, etc. Well Grand Junction has it even worse; or maybe they are just into math. We also saw this amazing tree house that trumps anything I've ever seen. Saturday, we drove home and stopped at Vail again for one last try; this time with beautiful sun. I had some great runs and an amazing wipeout (think yard sale) that didn't hurt. Jane really got into the shopping spirit as you can see in the last photo. Vail veterans will recognize the sculpture at Vail Village.

Annual Family Ski Extravaganza

February 9-14 we had the pleasure of once again hosting Jason's family for what is becoming our annual (this was the third) ski extravaganza in Colorado. We have always been blessed with great weather and this time it was no exception. The first day at Breckenridge Ski Resort was very cold (how does -20 sound) and windy, but that only served to make our next two days at Vail seem even more amazing. Most of the documentation we have is video via Jason and Jarom's helmet cams, but I snagged these individual photos off of the resort "Sharpshooter" photographer's website. They sell these full size digital for $60 each (I don't think so....) but I snipped these smaller ones from my account gallery. Vail is about 2 hours away, but the drive goes by fast by fun conversation and great scenery. Leslie's altitude meds make her a little drowsy so she sleeps most of the way. Last season I was recovering from knee surgery but this season I'm much improved so we all kept together pretty well, even on the steeper stuff. I also tried my first "double black diamond" (expert) run and survived. Leslie upped her game this season with hot pink pants and plaid jacket, and this was Kevin's first trip to Colorado with us having just come home from his church mission in Poland and he did great. Both Jason and Leslie sported new boots and skis. We missed having Brandon (on a mission in Bolivia) and Seth (at BYU) with us this year. If you don't know our color schemes: Randy: torquois pants & white jacket, Jarom: yellow pants, Kevin: multi-color jacket, Leslie: pink pants & plaid jacket, Jason, camo jacket (we'll have to talk Jason into something flashier for next year).

Snow Day: Church Cancelled

The e-mail this morning read:

"Brothers and Sisters, We are all grateful for the moisture that has come today. We have some concerns about the side roads and parking lots that are not plowed and will make it difficult to be safe entering and leaving the church. Because of this we will not hold regular block meetings at the chapels today. Today is still the Sabbath and an opportunity to teach one another and have personal study and worship. Today is a good missionary opportunity to go out and meet our neighbors and to invite them to church and get to know them better while shoveling snow. Please give your leaders a report on who you meet today. We wish you joy and happiness in your efforts. Best regards, Highlands Ranch Stake Presidency".

I know this isn't much snow compared to what Staci has been dealing with, and that Levi and Chelsey sometimes have to cope with up at Tahoe, but its pretty hard to feel disappointed when church is cancelled. I wish they would have provided a bit more direction about what to do about Fast Sunday though. Like are we fasting next week? Is there too much snow to fast, like, do we need the calories to shovel the snow?

Molly and I did a bit of shoveling yesterday, but we received another six inches or so last night so we were out first thing clearing the driveway and sidewalks so the infrared coming throught the clouds could help with the melt. While Molly and I were shoveling Mom took some pictures. The funny part is that Allie's said they got about 1/8th of an inch, and they are just an hour north of us.

Shower Damage: For Jason

Beaver Creek, Colorado

Jarom and I and Jarom's friend Nick decided to give the Beaver Creek ski resort a try today. It is pretty upscale; even a little more than Vail, but much smaller in terms of acreage. It is about 15 minutes west of Vail, and we were hoping for something new, and also hoping to escape the weekend crowds. There were some really fun runs, and the weather couldn't have been prettier. All told I skied over 20,000 vertical feet and Jarom snowboarded over 24,000 today. Wish more family would/could join us!

Jarom tackling a big jump in the terrain park. Notice the perfectly groomed snow.

Jarom's Big Jump at Beaver Creek, CO from randy guthrie on Vimeo.

Experiment: Night Photos of Snow

Starting Saturday evening we had about 18 hours of steady snow that left us with about 6 inches in the yard and some respectible low temperatures (like 3 degrees). I wanted to take some snow pictures and decided to do some experimenting with my 50mm lens and new tripod. All of these pictures were taken in natural light at about 11pm with very long exposures and an ISO speed of 100. You can tell it is night by how brightly any artificial lumination source glows. In the third photo taken from the loft, you can see the lights from the high school off in the distance. One cool thing is with the long exposures (about 6 seconds) you don't see the falling snow. All of the color is "natural" (no photoshop). Since most of the outside lighting is sodium vapor with a single wavelength, you end up with a mostly black and white sepia-tone affect.

Science Feature: Lunar Eclipse

On Monday, Dec 22nd Christmas we had a total eclipse of the moon. It started around 11pm and didn't finish until after 3am. I was having a restless night so I got up and put on my 200mm telephoto lens and captured a couple shots. Not having a great tripod made this hard (thank-you Staci for helping Mom get me a good one; I love it!) but having an image-stabilizing lens helped a lot. I'm really thinking as a grandpa I need to get a decent telescope that will take my camera body so we can do a better job when these things happen. For those of you who didn't stay up to see it, or were busy doing other things (like James and Allie finishing their Christmas video), you can see what you did or didn't miss. The last photo is the constellation known as the Pleiades, that appears in the winter sky near Orion. It is a tiny little "dipper" that you have to have good vision or good glasses and a dark sky to see.