Well I just got a hold of some good pictures from the downhill mountain bike race I won the past weekend at Huff Hills Ski Area.  It was a great event and tons of fun.  Sketchy as anything I have ever done but sketchy is fun right?  As long as you kept the speed up and didn't turn you were fine... but we know how that goes, just about everyone rag dolled at least once and I nearly tumbled into the spectators on at least two occasions.  The sections right before and right after the jumps were especially rutted so if you made it into the air straight you were half way there.  Anyway I got lucky and managed to link recoveries to get a clean first run.  The second one didn't go as well, unless I was being graded as a gymnast but the first run time held and I took hold the 1st place solid gold painted assortment of welded together bike parts.  It must have looked good because Beth (my personal an call ski patroller) asked if I was hurt when I made it to the finish.  This is what makes life so fun.  Great people and great event.  Can't wait to teach the little guy the ropes... just kidding Beth.

Well we decided we need to do a little more local exploring for my birthday.  As a result we headed a few miles north and discovered some more nice xc ski trails buried in snow like the rest of the state.  There is nothing like post holing to wear the dog out and nothing like cold fresh air and a ski to put the soul at peace.

Believe it or not I am not talking about a long flat  run at SnowBowl, this is the real thing.  Having joined prior to becoming pregnant Beth returned from Christmas determined to get her required ski patrolling days in before she was too far along.  She has now made it and in the process we have found a fun little hill does in fact exist just south of Bismarck.  Huff Hills boasts a whopping 450ft of vertical and belive it or not was the site of a real avalanche this year.  See the crown in the center of the left most picture.  It was of coarse caused by the failure of a wind loaded cornice, lots of wind you know. 

On the plus side of all the driveway shoveling was the great snow conditions.  We are told that normal at Huff Hills is boiler-plate, but so far the conditions have been pretty good.  You do have to keep in mind where the wind does and doesn't deposit snow before you blindly hit jumps.  I rotated around on a couple blind 360's to find myself landing in lightly dusted grass.  Luckily rock is not plentiful here.  All in all much better than sitting on the couch, and some nice variety for our normal XC skiing.  Beth continues to make telemarking look easy.  

Here are a couple pictures of funny things we have notices in our brief ND ski careers.
- You bump your own chairs, the lifty stays warm inside the shack.
- Ski lessons are free and provided at the rope tow by the ski patrollers when available.
- In place of wimpy colored rope boundary fences are standard barbwire.  See the pictures of the fence and the tractor driving on the other side.
- I have been using my ticket bails upside down all these years?  Or have I?  See Picture.
- The last picture is of the patrol hut.  It is a retired FEMA trailer from the Grand Forks flood that is now located directly under the green lift.  Presumably so that patients can more easily drop in.   

Again this year I managed to worm out of two weeks of work so that we could take full advantage of Beth's only real vacation for the year and head back to the promised land.  We began our trip with a trek West to Helena where we spent most of a week enjoying some time with Beth's family.  We blew in with a small rain storm but the snow cover held and we still managed to get some XC skiing in and spend lots of time socializing and dog herding.  

Next we continued West to Cd'A where we spent most of another week with my family.  The weather was much less white than the year before but the company was just as good.  We did one day of downhill skiing on slightly crusty and sketchy snow.  Beth being pregnant was not a very big fan of the hard conditions so we curbed our desires for speed and got several more very nice days of XC skiing in.  Like always the house was a zoo, with five (5) full sized furry four leggers wrestling around the house.

Here are a couple of the XC skiing pictures, the snow was great for the most part but ask nick how it was at the bottom of the hill he was approaching in the first picture.  Even Beth and my dad trying their hardest to be on vacation ended up taking care of an older lady that crashed and hurt her hip while I skied up to higher ground to call 911.  Again none of us wanted to leave, especially Max who kept trying to get left behind every time we visited someone.

Finally we began our trip back East with a stop in Kalispel and a great day of fresh cream skiing at Whitefish resort with Craig and Amy.  Then on to Cut Bank to see Beth's grandparents Ed and Beverly.  We are truly lucky to have such great families and friends to visit each year.  Hopefully we can continue the tradition and even move a little closer.  Couldn't let the little one grow up in the flat-lands after all.