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.