More snow!!

Funny - I haven't been in Seattle this much in a while, though in reality I haven't been in Seattle much this time either. A lot of skiing, including a road trip with Dave up to Canada - we took three days to explore the Coquihala area, about an hour northeast of Hope, BC.

It's still not a great snow season in the Northwest, but it was really fun to explore a new area and see some new mountains. There were many discussions about how much terrain is nearby, just over the border in Canada, and in many cases closer (to Bellingham) for climbing and skiing than driving south to Rainier or deep into the North Cascades. Funny how our maps show blank space above our border, and we somehow internalize that and forget to go check it out!

One thing you have to love about Canada - they expect people to be out there. Unlike most places in the US, we were allowed to camp out at a rest area in the mountains (or at least, weren't chased off). Dave's truck provided a good base camp, and with bathrooms and a little heated picnic room mere meters away, what more could you ask for? He's got a great system worked out for cooking, storage etc, and for a low-budget trip, it was pretty posh. A great way to get out there!

But now it's off to India, where it's hot and humid and has way more people than Canada. Plans changed suddenly a little bit ago, and instead of working with the government climbing institute in India, I'll be working for Alpine Ascents on the Everest Base Camp trek and Island Peak climb in Nepal. An opportunity I'm very excited about! But it does throw my India plans into chaos. Too much gear to bring for skiing, perfectly wrong timing to work with the climbing institute, and too early in the season to climb in the Himalaya here. So I'll basically just be taking up time here until it's time to go to Nepal. A little biking in Bangalore, perhaps some down time in Ooty's cooler hill station, and maybe, just maybe, I'll actually go see the Taj Mahal this time! Or not - we'll see...