"No Friends on Powder Days" Defined

If you've ever ventured to the slopes, or been around those that have, you've probably heard the phrase: there are "no friends on powder days." Now, there are probably a ton of different ways you could go with this phrase, but this is just my humble interpretation.

In order to lay out the guidelines encompassing the "no friends on powder days" rules, we will follow our fictional skier friend: Sarah the shredder.

Now, Sarah is a friendly fun loving girl, who happens to love skiing and shredding pow. She’s skied with a variety of skiers at many different levels over the course of her life. Sarah is taking an epic trip with friends to Whistler (or insert Alta, Telluride, or any other epic mountain) and is stoked out of her mind because there's supposed to be a ton of fresh powder. Sarah also lives by the "no friends on powder days" principles. Now what do these principles look like?

1. If you are Sarah's friend, don't be offended if she doesn't ski with you for part of, or the full duration of the day. This does not mean you and Sarah are no longer friends. The girl loves to pillage powder pillows and will take full advantage of this epic ski trip to do so.
2. Don't expect Sarah to wait at the bottom of the lift when the mountain opens if you're late. She’s cool riding up with you if you get there on time, but if the chairs are moving, and the mountain has opened, she’s probably already on her way to the top of the mountain. You wouldn't show up late to your flight would you? If you did, the plane would have no qualms taking off without you. In the same way, Sarah would wait around, until she couldn't wait around any longer.
3. Sarah actually enjoys skiing with others, even on powder days. But, if Sarah is having to wait every hundred yards or so while watching others shralp fresh tracks, she’s going to be sucked in like a tractor beam and will be fulfilling fantasies of freshies. She didn't spend hundreds of dollars on lift tickets, lodging, and travel to wait around when there's freshies to be had. She'll be more than happy to wait for you on another day.
4. Powder doesn't always stick around for the full duration of the day. Maybe Sarah and some of her friends will meet you up later in the day on the mountain, or at a lodge for lunch. If the snow is all skied out, she’s probably more than happy to ski with you and the rest of her friends for the afternoon. In fact, she actually enjoys this. But, if the steeps keep spitting out fresh snow like manna falling from the heavens, just plan on meeting Sarah in the hot tub once the mountain closes :)
5. Just because you aren't skiing with Sarah, doesn't mean you have to ski alone. Partner up with a buddy, or a few friends of similar ability level and have fun! The stories will be much better in the hot tub if everyone has a good time.

So, I hope this clears up what my interpretation of "no friends on powder days" actually looks like. You and Sarah are friends for 365 days per year, you can probably get by spending a few hours apart for a day. To some, "no friends on powder days" may look like a severance of relationships like Urban Dictionary defines it. But, to me, it's a civil way to ensure everyone takes full advantage of those blissfully perfect powder days.

*Exceptions

• If your family member, friend, or anyone else is taking you skiing on their dime and you haven't seen them in quite a long time, you should probably arrange to ski with them as much as you can. Take a few runs along adjacent powder slopes and meet them at the bottom of the lift. That's totally cool. But, remember that you wouldn't be enjoying this epic vacation if it wasn't for them in the first place.

Luke 2:52 Wrap-up

I just finished up my 4 weeks goal last week and for the most part stuck to it. I was pretty close to my weight goal, but it's hard to calculate how much "excess" weight you've lost when you gain some muscle weight working out 6 days a week. It was really great being able to pray for people every day too. It made me realize I should definitely be doing more of that for people anyway. The hardest part was sticking to a "no sweets/ sugar" diet. Also, it was tough to eat less. For those of you who dont know how much I eat, it's probably twice the normal amount :) I really enjoyed reading more in the word and being more intentional with frends. I'm hoping to take a lot of the good habits I took on during this time and put them into practice.

4 Square Life

Over the next 4 weeks I'm going to commit to something I think is worth committing to.

On my way to the gym, I wanted to make it a goal to lose some excess weight and become more "nimble." After working out in the gym and figuring out how much excess weight I could safely lose in 4 weeks, I decided I should also commit to enhancing my relationship with God and others.

So, it hit me, I would be using Luke 2:52 as a model for the next couple of weeks. It's the only verse that describes Jesus' life between his youth and ministry years. It says, "And Jesus grew in Wisdom, and in Stature, and in favor with God and men." So how does it look for me to model this? Simply by growing in all four areas. I'm committing to gaining wisdom in the Scriptures, in health, and in diet. I'm committing to exercising, weight training, and eating smart and intense over the next 4 weeks. I'm committing to spend time with the Lord in Word and prayer several times a day. I'm committing to having intentional conversation with others and specifically praying for people everyday.

If this is how Jesus modeled his life, I want to model my life around that too. So, by September 15th (roughly a week before I start grad school) is my short term goal to have all of these accomplished.

Day 7

Friday, June 26th

We had a late morning and met up with Tana's friend at the Whitehorse book store. After lunch, Morgan (Tana's friend) hopped in the motor home with us to head off to Dawson City. Jenna Berkan and Morgan are sisters, and Jenna will be in Dawson City tomorrow night. Morgan got off work for a couple days, so she decided to come along :) We only had one stop during the drive, Five Finger Rapids [insert pic] then headed off towards Dawson City. We arrived in Dawson City and all the RV parks were full, so we pulled up into the park along the Yukon river and cooked dinner. Apparently there was a canoe race from Whitehorse to Dawson City that took a couple days, and they were just getting it! It was pretty sweet. Very similar to the atmosphere at the Iron Man except there weren't as many people. Everyone was cheering on the finishers! After dinner, we heard some motorcycles a block away. They were participating in some motorcycle games. The guys drove and the ladies were on the back and had a series of events to compete in. One was a balloon toss over a fishing pole and then a catch. The other was a hot dog tied to a fishing line and they would drive under it and try to bite the weeny. It was a great time, especially when Susan decided she wanted to play, so she found a biker, and participated! Then, we went to the local Casino where I played some black jack. We headed back to the park, moved our RV (as if there were really going to be meter maids chalking tires here) and slept in the park right in front of a "no overnight parking" sign.

Day 6

Thursday, June 25th

Another long driving day. After hiking to the hoodoos in the morning, [insert pic] we headed towards Whitehorse. We did have one significant stop: The Laird Hot springs. At first, we didn't know if we had time to stop, but we thought we'd check it out. I'm glad we did. These were the best hot springs I've ever been too. They were the largest natural pools I had come across. [insert pic] They were hot, and one of them was 3 meters deep! I was swimming in a hot spring! [insert pic] After leaving Liard, I had a long driving section that lasted for hours after a quick fill up in Watson Lake. We did one quick restroom break right before the largest bridge we'd come across so far in Teslin, then made it to Whitehorse. We had successfully made it to the Yukon. We pulled into an RV park, cooked dinner, then Tana and I headed down along the Yukon River trail on bikes to Whitehorse 6 km below. The town was weird and full of interesting people. It was weird to watch people come out of bars at 11:00 pm while it was still very light. We were glad we didn't live in the town. We headed back up hill and I walked towards the check in desk to get on the internet. That's when I learned Michael Jackson died. My heart sunk. I can remember watching him moon walk for the first time and my dad and I stayed up all night trying to figure out how to do it. The man had an interesting life, but he was a legend and I'll miss him for his spunk and musical genius.

Day 5

Wednesday, June 24th

After waking up today, we went on towards Grande Cache where were were hoping to get just past Fort Nelson for the day. A long driving day. We did stop in Dawson Creek where the AL-CAN officially begins. [insert pic] (Alaska-Canada highway) There was a lot of history to the highway. It was always on the mind of the U.S. government, but during World War II after Japan had attacked some of the mid Pacific Islands, construction of the road went in overdrive. The rest of the drive was quite long and not as filled with sights as the day before... until we came across two Provincial parks. The first park was Stone Mountain Provincial Park, where we came across incredible scenery and Stone Sheep. These sheep are only native to this part of Canada. [insert pic] After leaving Stone Mountain, we came across Muncho Lake Provincial Park. This park was a high alpine area with lots of lakes, jagged escarpments, and incredible views of the sun going down. After driving around in the park for a little while, we kept looking for pull outs where we could sleep. They were all so beautiful but we finally set up camp near a lake at the end of the park. Since we hadn't had much adventure that day, I was just itching for something. It was 11:00 pm when we parked the RV, but still light out. The milepost said there were some huge canyon walls just down the road, so, I grabbed the bike, and started pedaling down there through the night while the girls took showers. It was pretty eery being on the road that late, but a huge rush. First, I saw some Hoodoos (erosion pillars) then the route started getting pretty steep. I had entered the canyon walls. This was an incredible section of the road. It hung to the walls of the canyon and had cliff drops on the West side. You could see the river valley for miles and miles, even at night! I felt alive. I started the steep uphill journey back to the RV, it took a little longer and worried Tana, but I made it home in one piece and after a shower, I was out like a light.

Day 4

Tuesday, June 23rd

If I had only one phrase to describe today it would be: "Banff and Jasper National Park are easily one of the most beautiful spots on planet Earth." But I have more so I will go into detail :) I tried hard to wake the girls up early because I knew there would be a lot to see. First, we stopped at Johnston canyon where we walked on catwalks that were drilled into the side of the Canyon walls. [insert pic] Then we headed towards Lake Louise. The drive generated tons of 'holy cow's' and many 'that is incredible's'. Castle mountain was truly spectacular. [insert pic] Next, we pulled into Lake Louise where we saw the Fairmont Chateau, a HUGE 5 star hotel in a National Park. I just couldn't get over how Canada does their National Parks. There were towns and resorts inside the park! Crazy! After scoping the sites on Lake Louise [insert pic] We headed North on the Icefields Parkway. This was voted one of the Word's 10 Best Drives, and it cracked my top three best drives list. There was mountain after mountain and Glacier after glacier. After multiple stops to scope the sights, we did a short hike down into Mistaya Canyon. The river and waterfall that was below us in the canyon was nearly 100 feet deep and only about 5 feet across from one wall to the other! [insert pic] I was pumping full of adrenaline hiking along the canyon because I was entertained by the idea of trying to reach across and wedge myself against the other side. After realizing that I would plummet to certain death in the violent washing machine and rock grinder below, I decided against it :) After stopping several more times, we reached the entrance of Jasper National Park, which we instantly decided was a little wilder than Banff. Banff had glaciers, Jasper had gnarly glaciers. Banff has awesome peaks, Jasper has +10,000-11,000 ft. peaks. After driving over a pass at nearly 7,000 ft., We pulled up to the Columbia Ice field. We drove to the base of Athabasca glacier and hiked right up to the toe of the glacier. There were warning signs and ropes everywhere about the rushing glacial river and crevasses at the toe. I wanted to lay in the glacier with my shirt off, but then I read the last three crevasse rescue attempts were unsuccessful and that I'd get a fatty fine, so I didn't. [insert glacier pic] There were tours that would take you right up high on the glacier. The machines that took you up there followed a road much higher up on the glacier and then just drove right across it! These machines were beefy! [insert machine pic] Athabasca glacier is the only glacier in the world that drains to the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans. Next we saw several falls. We saw the weeping wall, Sunwapta falls, and Athabasca falls. [insert pics] Sunwapta and Athabasca were definitely man-sized falls. Then, we pulled into the town of Jasper and had dinner, Susan's treat! She told us that'd probably be the only non-moho meal for the next week since we'd be on the road a lot, so Tana and I quickly agreed to the sit down meal. We ate at Evil Dave's, which was a spicy, wild themed restaurant in the little mountain town. After getting to Jasper, the sun was out and the skies were clear. The girls were pretty tired so we didn't stop many more times on our way out of Jasper park. We viewed the wide and maze like rivers, majectic mountains, and lakes from the moho.

We were planning on staying right outside of Jasper park but didn't want to pay for an RV park, so we decided to keep driving until we found a pull out. Unfortunately, the highway was pretty small so the pullouts would have put us almost on the road, which was pretty dangerous. We busted out the mile marker book and saw there was a nordic center high in the mountains and we decided to go looking there since nordic season was over. After being on a gravel road for a while and running low on gas, I had my first heart sink moment of "Oh no, are we gonna be able to turn around in here and make it to a gas station in the morning?" Then we came to a small pullout and flipped a U-ey. After driving up the the Nordic lodge which was closed up for the summer, I got out of the moho to do some reconnaissance work to see if we could stay there. That's when I ventured out on to the biathalon field and saw my first elk of the trip. It was huge! We both took off running: It to the woods and me to the moho. We got back on the highway and stopped at a pullout where we thought we'd sleep. But we were at the beginnings of a Provincial Park and saw a map for many lakes and campsites! So, at 9:30 pm with the sun and mosquitos still up and roarin', we headed on. We pulled into several camp sites and realized that although it was on the honor system, we'd have to pay, so we made the decision to move on and sleep somewhere on the site of the main highway road so as to better our chances of seeing the Northern lights. Tana busted out the mike marker book and we realized there wasn't a pull out for a while. But there was a free camp ground just outside of Muskeg. Tana told us it was only 50 km away! Which wasn't too many miles further. After driving for 20 mins. she re-adjusted and told us it would now be 50 km away from where we were. The 10 mins. passed and she said, "Oh shoot! these markers are in miles, not kilometers!" You figure that a MILE marker book might be in miles when the title of the book is MILE post guide to Alaska. Oh well, it added to the adventure. After pressing on to try and reach the free campsite, Susan kept trying to get us to pull off on one of the logging roads. Tana wasn't having it as it'd be tough to back up back onto the freeway. I was rallying behind the wheel at 11:00 pm with the sun slightly out when I saw my first moose of the trip about 5 feet from the freeway. I didn't want to plow into one of those during their prime grazing times, so I quickly became a fan of the road pull out stop. We then came across a pullout that was more like a grassy meadow so we set camp about 60 yds. from the free way. We hopped in bed, and set out clock's for 2am to try and see the northern lights. It was still fairly light out when we went to bed.