March Light Show Round 2!

Monday night, I was once again mesmerized by those gorgeous dancing lights in the sky. This time, it took the #1 spot on my aurora sighting list! This was by far the best light show I've ever seen. I have no words for the pure joy and excitement I felt while looking up into the cosmos and being greeted with tie dye lights. Most of the time, you don't see reds at all. Reds and purples will show up in photos, but rarely to the naked eye. This time was an exception and wow, was it awesome! When the reds started showing up, you could probably hear us hootin' and hollerin' for miles! My friend Bryce took some amazing photos, and here they are:

Stoked!!

What a wonderful zen moment.

Why not just kick back and relax?

Bryce, the best aurora photographer around!

March Light Show

The spirits in the sky came out once again for us last night, and man oh man was it one heck of a show! It was definitely in my top 5 aurora viewings since moving to AK. Thankfully my friend Bryce texted me the good news that the northern lights were dancing, and out I went to North Douglas to join the crowd of nature lovers. Lots of people were out enjoying the show. Bryce is an excellent photographer, and captured some great photos of the lights, along with some of me and my friends. 

I managed to take a few photos myself that turned out pretty good, and when I have a bit more time I'll post those here as well. 

Here are a few of Bryce's awesome photos...

My friends and I mesmerized by the lights.

Here is what I've been trying to get a photo of for a while! Headstands under the lights!

 

 

Me under the spirits in the sky.

 

Reaching Goals

For the past four days a few of us have been in an AASI Level 2 snowboard prep clinic/exam. After learning tons of new stuff, nailing new tricks for the first time, and progressing my riding and teaching even further over those days, I am happy to say that am now a Level 2 certified snowboard instructor! Woohoo! It took quite a bit of studying and dedication, but I knew I could do it if I put my mind to it!

Thanks to all my fellow instructors and friends to helped me through this! You guys rock! 

Here's some eye candy for ya :)

^My shiny new bling :) 

^Starting the last day of the exam with a ridge hike! 

^Looking off the backside of the ridge at the beauty below me. 

^The crew! Photo by Lisa Miles

Back to the Ice Cave

Since Mendenhall Lake is nice and frozen and somewhat 'safe' for venturing across, a few friends and I decided to hike out to the ice caves both Monday and Tuesday. The ice cave, known as Brown's Ice Cave, has been there for a number of years, and let me tell you... it is surreal how amazing it is in there. There is some risk involved, especially getting to it from walking across the frozen lake. When there's snow and ice on the ground, walking across the lake is certainly the safer option compared to hiking West Glacier Trail to the cave.

That trail is pretty gnarly in the summertime, and trying to navigate it covered in snow and ice is super risky. I suppose if you had ice cleats, rope, a harness, and ice pick, and a crew of knowledgeable fellow hikers it wouldn't be that bad, but that gear is a bit pricey. I'll take my chances crossing the lake :)

Once in the cave, there's the risk of it collapsing under it's own weight at any moment. The way I see it, if it's been there for years and years, and it happens to collapse the very moment in time that I decide to explore it's glory, then it must just be my time to journey into the afterlife. No doubt that one day it will eventually collapse, I just hope no poor soul is in there when it happens. It is without a doubt one of the earth's most beautiful places. Being under a glacier, surrounded by ancient ice is something most people only dream of experiencing. The brilliant blue glow of the cave is almost hypnotizing... the energy of that cave can't be put into words.

I'm super thankful to have ventured into the cave three times now, and walked out alive and happy. The snow is almost too deep to make it out there again until summer, but you better believe I'll be back.

Here are a few photos from that adventure. You can see the entire album HERE on my Facebook page.

Sandy Sunrise

Dustin left for work a little after 7 this morning, so I decided to get up and take a stroll down to Sandy Beach to catch the sunrise since it was a clear morning. Man oh man am I glad I did! It was SO beautiful. One of the most beautiful sunrises I've EVER seen. I'm not real sure what time this happened. I know I started walking towards the beach around 8, and the colors really started popping a few minutes after I got down there. The colors didn't last long though. 5-10 minutes at the most, then faded to a dull orange. After I got a few photos and I couldn't feel my fingers anymore, I headed back home. 

Street Skinnin'

So yesterday we had these big plans of meeting some friends at Eaglecrest, hiking, and getting some awesome face shots from all the fresh, fluffy snow that was dumping on us. We were in the car, ready to roll, pulled out of the driveway (that we had to shovel 30 min just go get the car to move) and what happened? We went nowhere. We sat and spun, slid, and slung snow everywhere just trying to get more than 15 ft away from the house. Usually I have no problem in the snow with my car, but my tires aren't the greatest this season, and they hadn't plowed the road yet and the snow was above the bumper, so essentially I was plowing the road. Once we managed to 'slide' the car back in the driveway and realized we were going nowhere fast, it was time for beers. Oh wait, we didn't have any beers! :(

This is where the next plan of action was born. Why don't I just split to the beer store? Yeah, why not?! So I did. It was interesting. I had people waving and yelling with excitement as they passed. I guess they were stoked SOMEbody was enjoying the snow lol. I also managed to capture on my GoPro an Evergreen taxi van going way too fast on the snowy road, then pulling a 180 and slamming into a concrete retaining wall. By the time they hit the wall, they weren't going very fast at all and it was really only a light 'tap'. Just enough to know nobody was hurt and it was ok to laugh. They were obviously going WAY too fast for the turn they were making.

When I finally got to the Breeze In, about 2 miles one-way, this guy from the Juneau Empire just so happened to be hanging out taking snowy photos and asked what I was doing and if he could take my photo. Sure, why not?! So he did. He said it would be in the newspaper tomorrow (today) but I haven't gotten one yet to check. It was on the Juneau Empire website though. My 15 minutes of fame...

And for the record, I was skinning, not skiing. And I bought beers. Plural. Not a beer. Think I would go all that way for a SINGLE beer? Does a bear shit in the woods?

Dustin took this one of me as I was leaving the house...

Overall it was a fun adventure. I love my split, even though I've only used it in split form. I'm sure it rides like a dream though when in snowboard form! It took me a few minutes to get the hang of skinning. It's a weird feeling, like I have to drag my toes almost. And man, was it a workout! By the time I got back to the house (with a heavy backpack full of beer) my legs and feet were on fire. Definitely one hell of a workout! And I like it! :) 

I can't wait to go on a REAL splitboard adventure!

Elite 8 | Eaglecrest vs. Revelstoke

Holy crap. We did it! We beat Red Mountain, last years Ski Town Throwdown champion! 

That means we are thrown into the next round, TODAY, against Revelstoke BC! Now we are in the Elite 8, and if we win this round we will advance on to the Final Four! Once again, the voting lasts two days this time around. At the time of this post, we are leading by around 300 votes! Woohoo!

Here is a screen shot of our Eaglecrest fans showing all their love!

I could go into a big long blab about how awesome Eaglecrest is and list a load of reasons why you should vote, but I won't, because I'm sure you've already heard it from me. :)

Anyways, enough chitty chat. Click this: VOTE FOR EAGLECREST! and show your love!

Show Your Eaglecrest Love!

It's that time again folks, we are in the Sweet 16 of Powder Magazine's Ski Town Throwdown! 

We are up against last years champs, Red Mountain, so we need all the help we can get! Stroll on over to THIS PAGE and VOTE for EAGLECREST! This time the voting lasts two days, so you have plenty of time to tell your friends to go vote too! :) Oh, and you can vote BOTH days!

It only takes a couple seconds, so why not? 

Eaglecrest has got more soul than a man playing the blues on a Memphis street corner. 

Yes, that's a lot of soul, and I've seen it first hand. People love snow. People love sliding on snow. People love powder. People love great terrain. People love EAGLECREST! Now click this link and show your love!

vote. vote. vote. vote. vote. vote. vote. vote. vote. vote. vote.

Adventures of Alaska Vol. 1

I'm sure most of you have seen the photos and videos that are in this lil video I made today, but I'm posting it up on here anyways! I made this video to burn to DVD and send to my grandparents and other family members who do not use the internet so they can see some of the amazing adventures I've experienced so far in Alaska.

This video only touches the amount of photos/videos I have on my computer, but I don't want to bore them with a multi-day long session in front of the tv :) Everything on here can be found on my facebook page or somewhere in this blog.

This is also my first video using Final Cut Pro X, a new video editing program I'm using. It's much, much better than iMovie, which was what I always used before. I'm still a video making newb, so don't be too much of a critic please :) 

Also note that all photos/videos were taken by myself or Dustin, except the first three aurora photos which were taken by Frank Pierce, and a few of the Sheep Mountain heli trip photos were taken by Bill Glude.

Be sure to view it in HD, it's much better!

Week 1 Complete!

Today marks the end of week one of P90X! I survived yet again! The first few days were hell... I was sore in places that haven't been sore since my last round of the workout over a year ago. Even though it's just been a week, I already feel more energized and just good all over. I'm excited to continue the workout and hopefully feel (and see) some more results soon. I know you guys probably don't want to hear about my workouts on a weekly basis, but by blogging it I feel more motivated to finish and workout even harder to get better results. 

Now that the soreness (well, most of the soreness) is out of the way and my muscles are getting used to all that moving around, I can push it further in my workouts and make myself sweat even more. 

Enough sweaty talk...

The snow is flying at Eaglecrest and I can't wait to get some altitude on my splitboard. Dustin is working late tonight and helping make snow. Eaglecrest only has a handful of fan guns, but every little bit helps and the more we can get on the lower mountain, the sooner we can open up terrain. There's a good amount of snow up top, so I've heard... I might have to check it out myself tomorrow :) I have a 'rock board' just itching to get some early season turns. 

The moon is nearly full tonight and it was nice and bright out, so I went out to test the night settings on my camera again. I swear, one of these days I'm gonna get a decent aurora photo! Here are a couple shots that were surprisingly impressive coming from my little point and shoot Canon camera.

This was take on Fish Creek Rd (the Eaglecrest road) on North Douglas. No, that's not the sun, it's the moon. Really!

Shot of downtown Juneau from Douglas Island.

Eaglecrest Needs Your Vote! *updated*

***EDIT***
We did it! Big thanks to everyone who voted for us and now we're headed to the next round, the Sweet 16! On Nov 18-19 we are up against Red Mountain, BC. Don't forget to vote for us again! We made it this far, can't stop voting now!
**********

Hola! Last month, Eaglecrest beat Whistler in Round 1 of Powder Magazine's 'Ski Town Throwdown'! That means we made it to Round 2 and we're up against Mount Washington, BC. It's a tight race so head on over to Powder Magazine's Facebook page HERE  or click either one of the photos below and vote for your favorite island ski area! 

It will only take a second and your vote will be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Pre-Winter Eaglecrest Hiking!

Today was bright and sunny with hardly any clouds in the sky, so we decided to hike up Eaglecrest to the ridge to get some sightseeing in for our friends that are visiting. It was kinda chilly, around 32*, but once we started that ascent we warmed up very quick. The views were amazing as always. There was a nice coat of snow about halfway up the Black Bear chairlift... one whole INCH! At least it's something :) I'll let the photos speak for themselves.