Posts tagged #Ski

In The Rearview Mirror 2018 pt. 1

IMG_6052-March 03, 2018.jpg

Flashback Friday

Memories

First quarter of 2018

    It is quite amazing that we are in 2019 now. I feel like, just as any year, that 2018 flew by. Since W was supposed to graduate in the summer of 2018 we knew we were going to move, just not to where. I spent a lot of time organizing my own research in the early parts of the year, and then this summer we moved to New York City. Quite a big transition, and it has been quite a rough transition for us. I also yet again had the opportunity to go back to Alaska, which you probably know how much I love. Fall went by fast, and after a trip up to Montreal and Adirondacks, Christmas was upon us. And now, the new year has already started.

January

    We celebrated Christmas and New years on Madison, WI, which is a bit rare. Usually we go back to Bozeman, MT, but we decided to stay this year. I spent quite some time up at Trout Lake, for two writing retreats, one with W right after New Years Eve and the other a bit later with the Stanley lab group at CFL. I did quite a bit of skiing, but not as much as I had hoped for. As January went by the snow kind of disappeared, but plenty of people had prime ice to do some ice skating on. We also introduced Tycho to David Attenborough’s Planet earth, and the boreal forest, as you can see he loved it.

February

    In February we returned to Trout Lake for yet another (my third) trip and this time with the Turner Lab. We did some more skiing, and once back in Madison we received more snow. Although that snow kind of disappeared pretty fast and we were once again hoping for more snow, which never arrived. I did some baking, the Swedish semla, to celebrate that specific day in Sweden. We made homemade Pizza and visited our favorite bar in Madison. I helped out with some soil experiments at work and worked on a manuscript for a leaf decomposition experiment, and before I knew it February was over.

March

    In March we started to realize that we were soon going to move and took the opportunity to finally travel up to Door County. We spent a couple of days there before heading back to Madison. Still old snow, and no new snow ever showed up (not enough to ski anyway). By this point it started to get pretty warm off and on. I took some pictures around our neighborhood. I baked more, of course and we celebrated the Swedish waffle day.

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror and tagged Madison Madison life Skiing Ski Hiking Northwoods northern Wisconsin rearviewmirror 2019 rearviewmirror2018 Spring.

In The Rearview Mirror 2017 pt. 1

Flashback Friday

First quarter of 2017

    I can not believe that 2017 passed so fast. My first whole year in Madison, Wisconsin. As always a lot of things happened during the year. In January we celebrated the second day of the new year by going downhill skiing, and in February we all of a sudden had 61 degrees F. Finally came March with a trip to my favorite place in the world, Alaska. 

January

    We spent the second day of the new year at Maverick Mountain, which is an old ski resort that just recently got reopened again. We drove there on January 1, braving bad road conditions and snowstorms. When we finally arrived we went to the hot springs, well they were hot springs but not really that hot unfortunately, but still fun (could also be because the temperature was between -20 to -30F). The next day we braved the cold (-20F) and were the first people on the ski lift. We skied in our down jackets, and I got tired after only a few runs. Before we traveled back to Madison we went to the Madison river outside Bozeman for a short hike and saw some cool wolf tracks. It was still cold in Madison once we got back, of course, but we did some curling indoors. 

February

    February brought some weird weather. It was cold, but then all of a sudden we got 60 degree weather. We went to Devils Lake state park on a very icy hike. We made some sausages with our new attachment to the Kitchen aid that we got for christmas. We went up to the Northwoods, no skiing but pretty hikes and lights. I finally got my sign up for my office, and felt like an official research specialist, finally. And then before you knew it, the ice on the lakes had melted. 

March

    February might have thawed the ice on the lakes and made the trees disoriented, but we still got snow events in March. I made the Swedish baked good Semla, but the mini version, for the second time this year. We also went to Guillermo del Toros exhibition at the art museum in Minneapolis. I love that director. Going through the exhibit was a mixture of wow and oh and eek. We also finally went back to Alaska for about a week. We went skiing to Castner Glacier, east of Fairbanks, on a sketchy ski trip that could have ended up in one of those pools of water by the trail. We also timed our visit to Denali and were lucky to be able to borrow our dear friends dry cabin there. What a trip.

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror and tagged rearviewmirror2017 Alaska Denali Denali National Park Madison Madison life Montana Skiing Ski Mountains Hiking Northwoods northern Wisconsin Wisconsin2 2018 rearviewmirror Spring Winter.

Driving on a Snowmachine trail?

 

Adventure Tuesday

Christmas

    We celebrated this past Christmas in Bozeman. It has become our tradition, well maybe my new tradition. I have spent several Christmases in Bozeman and each year we always do something new. This year W's dad had booked a forest service cabin outside Butte, Montana. We went skiing in the morning and later on drove towards the cabin. When we got closer to the cabin the wind had created some pretty hardcore snow drifts at places, to the point where the snow drifts were becoming a hazard if you didn't have a truck, and even then. W's mom and dad were in a truck and W, his brother and I were in a Subi. It quickly became pretty hard to maneuver the car on these snow drifted roads so we decided that maybe it would be best/safest? if we all got in to the truck instead.

 
 

Snow Adventure

    We all started to unpack the car and moved everything over to the truck. We continued on the road, that now looked very very much snow covered, as in it didn't even really look like a real road anymore. I didn't feel good about this snow covered road but had graciously been given a first row spot for this adventure, the passenger seat. Probably to be sure that I could see the ditches along the side of the road. And, when I say ditches, I mean more of a hill on the side of the road. We got to a point where we decided that we should probably just walk the rest of the way. I had already put the coordinates of the cabin on google maps, but the cabin was not really close to where we were, it seemed to be way off of this road, which was weird because you were suppose to be able to drive right up to the cabin. W's mom and I started walking through the deep snow while the guys were going to turn around the truck, on this narrow road. Something I did not want to watch.

 
 

Cabin Hunt

    No sign of a cabin, and at this point I started to get grumpy. W had started walking towards us too now, with a big cooler in tow. But where was the cabin? All of a sudden W starts calling for us and it appears that they found the cabin. Down the hill on the side of the road, was a cabin. We had walked right pass it, that is how far away from the road it was, and this road we were on was most likely a snowmachine trail...whoops. We trekked back to the truck, got all the stuff back into the truck and again I was left with the passenger seat. You could feel the truck slip and slide to the sides, closer to the edge of the road and I was wearing sunglasses, closing my eyes behind them and hoping that we would not fall down the hill with the truck. Luckily W's dad is an excellent driver and finally we got back to the wrong turn. 

 
 

The Arrival

    We took the correct turn and drove a bit further. But this road was also looking sketchy because of all the snow drifts. W's dad and mom took the truck up to the cabin with all the gear and food, while we hiked instead. The road was passable, and when we got closer to the cabin W's dad had already turned around and was going to drive back and forth to the cabin a few times to make sure he made a good imprint in the snow so that we could get out the next day. He picked up W and his brother for some extra weight and I continued on to the cabin. 

 
 

Fleecer Cabin

    We had a great afternoon and evening at the cabin. It was nice to finally relax from all that adventuring we had been doing (well to me it was because I was a little frightened by the snow driving). The cabin has all amenities you can think of, a kitchen, bedrooms, a wood stove and even a flushing toilet and shower, cold shower of course. We started a fire in the wood stove as soon as we arrived at the cabin and while the fire started going we got all the gear in. We cooked food, read through the guest log, which is always so much fun, and had a beer or glass of wine while we digested the food in front of the wood stove. Later in the evening we had a bonfire outside before we all went to bed.

 
 

Getting Out!   

    The next morning we had planned on going for some hiking/ski adventures. We had breakfast and a pretty slow start to the morning. The wind had picked up during the night and the road was once again snow covered. At this point W's dad got a bit nervous, because we needed to drive quite far on this sketchy road we came in on, that already then was pretty much snow covered. And in a few minutes, we had decided to leave, like immediately. We decided that we were going to pack the truck, and then W's dad drove it out. We skied out, and it was so windy, and cold, but we finally arrived at the car we left the day before and started to drive out. The road was even worse than the day before and we had some sketchy passages but we all got out perfectly fine! The overnight trip had been a success with plenty of adventures, which is what I wanted so I was satisfied.

 
 

    Did you guys go on any adventures this Christmas?

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Montana, The great wide open and tagged Winter Winter Adventures Montana 2017 Christmas Adventure Ski Skiing snowscapes Snow snowmachine snöskoter snö vinter äventyr Fleecer cabin Elsewhere Wintertime.