Adventures in ski touring: part I

You know how sometimes an event or milestone seems so far off you kind of subconsciously assume that it's never going to happen? That's how I have felt about graduating from UW with my PhD. I haven't taken classes for about three years now, so I settled into the mindset that my research is my (extremely poorly paid) job, and that getting a 'real' job was something that I'd worry about much later.

Turns out I'm going to graduate this May (insert-your-deity willing). If you follow my exploits at all, you know that I do an inordinate amount of traveling for my research: Tennesee, California, Maryland, Washington. This was a mixed blessing in that it has taken longer than I would have liked to finish my degree, but afforded opportunities to meet and network with many different people at different places of potential future employment.

First on the list was the lab in eastern Washington state. Well, I take that back--I always thought my best prospects would be the lab in eastern Tennessee, but a serendipitous job posting in WA (basically my thesis in job format) changed the game. This had the unplanned side-benefit of making the relatively remote Tri-Cities area look like prime real estate to the copilot in comparison to the dirrrty south. I went out for an interview last week, and the copilot joined me for the weekend. He did a project in Seattle for a couple of years, but this was his first trip to the eastern region. Just to provide some perspective, imagine your stereotype of Washington state--lush green trees, mountains, the overcast weather at a constant drizzle--now imagine the complete opposite. That's eastern Wash, arid and sunny, rolling hills, ideal for growing grapes. Hooray for Wine Country!

Another enticement for the copilot (and me, I suppose): drive as little as 80 miles, and you're in snow capped, ski-able mountains. We decided to go backcountry skiing, meaning find our own route and climb up the slopes instead of using lifts at a resort, near Alpental in Snoqualmie Pass. For Saturday, the copilot and I chose an alternate route from the one we had discussed earlier in the week based on the avalanche danger conditions. On the map, it looked like a short hike up to the treeline, then more hiking (with the skis on, called 'skinning') up to the summit, Granite Mountain.

We met a friend who lives in Seattle in the parking area at the foot of the mountain. Optimism was high.

Gearing up with our buddy in the parking lot

With no snow visible, we strapped our skis to our packs and hiked.

This doesn't look like enough snow to ski on...

Fording one of several streams

And hiked, and hiked, and hiked.

The false dawn.

Hey, some snow! We must be getting close...about an hour later, more hiking, and closer examination of the map indicated we were about halfway to the start of the real snow line. Carrying skis and walking in ski boots is worse than listening to Rick Santorum talk about his version of 'family values'. It was too late in the day to start another route, and by the time we got back to the car we gave up and bought a couple of lift tickets at Alptenal.

When the copilot and I got married a couple of years ago, we honeymooned in New Zealand during what was their winter. One of our many adventures was a trip to the one of the club ski fields called Craigieburn. The concept of the club fields is a good one: cheap operating costs and little overhead make for affordable skiing in a small area--but in reality it ended up being a miserable time. The unplowed one-lane gravel road turned into a sheet of ice near the top and we almost slid off into a ravine (they don't believe in guard rails in NZ), the snow was shit, and the lift was difficult to operate. Long story short, my day ended after the 40th or so unsuccessful attempt to ride the upper lift with me laying in the snow and quietly sobbing.

Post-Craigieburn, circa 2009

After that, the word 'Craigieburn' became synonymous with 'fiasco'. Granite Mountain = the next Craigieburn?

Post-Granite Mountain, circa 2012-hey, same jacket!

We managed to get some good turns in after all:

Alpental 'side-country' saves the day

Over some apres-ski drinks, our Seattle friend happened to mention that the nearby town of North Bend was home to the real-life site of the 'Double R Diner' used in the filming of the show Twin Peaks. Netflix had really been pushing Twin Peaks on me (we predict five stars for AC!), so I gave in and watched the whole series about six months ago (20 years after everyone else I was asking with anticipation, "Who killed Laura Palmer?") and became an instant fangirl. I may have clapped my hands in glee and made a little high pitched noise. The copilot took the hint and drove the 15 miles to North Bend.

ZOMG best day ever!!!

I tried reeeeally hard not to make a total ass out of myself despite the almost irresistible urge to immediately order some cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee. I played it cool. If you're ever in North Bend, I'd recommend Twede's Cafe (its actual name) not just for the novelty, but for an excellent selection of burgers and homemade fries.

We also planned on ski touring the next day...

How I still don't have those stupid socks finished

Seriously, you guys. Still not done with these fracking man-socks. Well, technically I finished them, in the sense that they have all the components neccessary to constitute a sock: heel, gusset, toe, etc.  However, when the copilot tried them on together for the first time he astutely observed that they were not the same size.  So I drop kicked them into the revision pile and flipped them off, as one does.

This left me in a little bit of a conundrum on a recent trip to visit some friends in Berkeley + a work trip to WA.  If I wasn't going to revise the freak man-socks, I was going to need some yarn on-the-go. Fortunately, my friend had passed by a local yarn shop a time or two and took me for a shopping trip. 

I snapped a picture, since the name was so weird I figured I'd never remember it.

  I wanted to address a problem. I'm not much of a runner, but I do enjoy jogging in my Vibram Five Fingers shoes (referred to exclusively as 'feetie shoes' in my household).  In case you hadn't noticed, it's been getting a little nippy outside, and one cannot wear socks with feetie shoes--resulting in an exposed gap of flesh between shoes and running tights that is vulnerable to the elements. 

Article Pract had a cool deal of "Employee Picks" that were discounted 20%, and I picked out some Berroco Ultra Alpaca (with a name like ULTRA how could you go wrong? And the color was Berry Pie Mix). So while I was in Washington, I made myself some....wait for it....

LEGWARMERS!

 

They're back in style, I swear.  And they're totally functional. 

And toasty warm!

The question is: can I wear them in public (in non-running situations?)

Breaking out of Winter Purgatory

Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (boy is that hard to spell), Happy Kwanza, Merry Fesitivus, and Happy New Year. Phew, glad we've gotten that out of the way.

Seasonal affective disorder, the big D, the black dog (ya'll know I love dogs, but this one I could do without). Whatever you want to call it, depression always comes to visit during the darkest days of the year.

Wah waaaaaah.  Yeah, this was me the last month and a half.

Seriously, dark at 4:30 PM??? Wisconsin is bullshit. I bought a headlamp just to go to the dog park (as well as a can of mace, as my mother is convinced that I'll be mugged). I had to hook Sammy up with a rear bicycle light on his collar just so he wouldn't get lost.

As most of us do around the holidays, I've been all over the place. A trip to Washington state for work (that was the last time I posted), off to Illinois for Thanksgiving, then to Indiana for Christmas. It was almost as if since I couldn't get away from my real life, I withdrew from my online persona. But I've had a few signs that I need to get back to it.

My sister-in-law got me a gift certificate to Stitch Diva Studios, inspired by blog posts (genius!). I had relatives I was unaware that they even read my blog saying "Are you aware that you haven't written since Nov. 15? What's up with that?" I even had a bloggy friend inquire to see if I was dead in a ditch (I'm not and it was very sweet of you to email, Heidi!). So I've hit the reset button on my reader feed and am ready to catch up with my fellow knitters. Here are some dog pictures to entertain you in the meantime:

'His' recliner

Stuck after an attempt to get the last bits of cereal from the bottom.

Testing the ice at Devil's Lake

In his uncle Rocky's bed (a Yorkshire-Shih Tzu mix)

(I posted this from my phone, so I'm curious to see how well it worked...)

Sale temptations

My girl crush the Stitch Diva has some awesome sales going on for some gorgeous yarn! TREAT YOURSELF. This has been your exercise in trying to resist temptation for the day. :) ETA: If it encourages you at all, I gave into my own temptation. 10 skeins of Washington Silk. We'll talk more about that later though....

Centi-sock

I've had a finished object on deck that's been a long time coming (not a penguin sweater--they quickly announced they've gotten all they needed). Ravelry tells me that I started this project on January 1, 2011.

I guess it could be worse. I've been working on Mystery Wedding Project since 2010, and Mystery Wedding is long since over.

The copilot and some of our friends and I have a tradition of going to see a ski movie that 'tours' around the country for one night only showings. We made our annual pilgrimage last week, and as the lights went down and the first shot of overlapping ski tracks on pristine powder appeared, I shook the copilot breathlessly whispering, "It's just like my socks!"

Ski tracks - the namesake of the Powder 8s

Sidenote: I totally got shushed at the same ski movie last year. A little background: it's the type of movie where there's an MC, giveaways, and group participation like cheering is encouraged. Shushing someone would be like asking someone at a screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show to tone it down. So of course we were pointing out what gear we thought was cool, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at impressive jumps and tricks, etc. A grumpy looking couple was sitting in front of our group, and at one point the girl turned around and asked me, "Are you going to talk through the entire movie?" I may have imbibed a few adult beverages by this point, and I asked, "Are you having trouble following the plot? They're skiing." There was no shushing this year, but one of my friends did periodically ask each person in our group if they were going to talk through the entire movie.

I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the sock knit up after I put my mind to it to work on it. With that in mind, I started another one. I had purchased some Socks That Rock on a visit to Seattle entirely too long ago with every intention of making some man socks. Shades of gray, natch, since all men are colorblind (right?). I didn't even pick a pattern, just cast on a reasonable amount of stitches and started up--men are also patternblind.

Here's the thing, though. I don't think there's a huge market in the way of men knitters (sorry, dudes) and men tend to have big feet. And you know what they say about men with big feet....they need big socks.

Are you seeing what's wrong with this picture?

That's right.

My biggest nightmare. 80% of the time, if I wake up in a cold sweat, this is what I was dreaming about (the other 20% is when you realize that you have to take a final exam, but have forgotten to go to any of the classes--isn't that the worst?).

So what else could I do? I unraveled the top of cuff and attached it to the toe. It's now like a snake eating it's tail.

An ouroboros of sock (or suck).

I've done this once before and it worked fine, but knitting isn't always exactly the same unraveling from the top as it is from the bottom (actually, it usually isn't). If there's only one type of stitch, fine, but even the ribbing of the cuff is too complex to come apart easily. This....may take awhile.

Can we talk Indian Summer for a moment (Native American Summer if you want to be PC about it). Just two weeks ago, this was WI.

Note the shorts, and the lack of frost on the ground.

Now most of the leaves have changed, and the handknits are out. I might be rethinking all of my bitching about summer....no, I take that back. I'd just like a longer fall!

My entire life up until now has been preparation for this

One of my friends pointed out the subject of today's post.  I thought I'd be updating you on the crap I've been making, or my latest kerfuffle one of the local weirdos, but we have more important things to talk about today.

Penguins. New Zealand. Knitting. BOOM! I'm ON IT.

I've heard of this before--the sweaters keep them from swallowing the oil when they try to preen their feathers. And seriously, is anything more adorable?

Me and Murray on the NZ shore....stay out of the water!

ZOMG Adorable

I'm not usually one for internet acronyms but 'zomg' just seems to convey the appropriate amount of extreme excitement for my new stitch markers. I couldn't resist when Stephcuddles showed off her newest stitch marker creations, 'Afternoon Tea'.

I should have put a scale marker on the image, because these things are petite. The tiny detail is beautiful and impressive.  You can check out her Etsy shop here if you're interested.  

Full disclosure: I'm not entirely sure what my tea time treats there in the background are.  I think maybe I requested cookies? Oh crap, cookies are called biscuits in the UK. So what are UK cookies? Thoughts?