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This picture is from last night, just after our arrival at the Monashee Powder cat-skiing lodge. Justin and I made the drive from Nelson to Cherryville, BC in about five hours, followed by an hour long rally up a bumpy dirt logging road behind Monashee’s big yellow school bus. We hopped into one of two cats parked at the end of the road, and continued up on snow to the backcountry lodge.

My grandpa always talked about sunsets and would film really special shots of sunsets in his travels around the world. So many beautiful colors and vistas, but it was the sunsets he captured over the Utah desert that really impacted me deeply. The shots were taken from behind the barbed wire of the Japanese-American internment camp which my family called home for over three years during WWII. He always said that his feelings of confinement fell backseat to the freedom that those desert sunsets could instill in him. To him, the sky could never be owned by anyone, and was shared by any and all.

Now, whenever I see a sunset, whether it be the pink and blue swirls over the Pacific Ocean or the bright orange alpenglow lighting up the mountains, I think of my grampy and the ultimate freedom that skiing and the open road have given me.

“Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal.” - Elbert Hubbard

After two long days of shredding Whitewater Ski Resort here in BC, the crew, with the welcome addition of Casey Vandenbroek and A.J. Hobbs, headed up to Mike’s Pub to let off some steam. Located at street level in the historic Hume Hotel, Mike’s tends to bring in a wide sampling of local Nelson color.

Last night was no different, with Casey, Justin and I getting our dance on with some ladies from the Cheesecake Burlesque show tour that just wrapped up in Nelson. The ladies were still in their costumes, with all their womanly parts on display, and Casey took no time in getting a dance party started with them.

The highlight of the whole evening was meeting Ms. Judith Stein, who recently was inducted into the Burlesque Hall of Fame. At 62 years of age, she taught us some moves that were barely legal on the dance floor. I wish we had more time to hang with Ms. Stein, as I’m sure she has some stories to tell.

After some good songs and some fun dance moves, our little crew said our goodbyes to the ladies and bid them good luck on their trip back home to Victoria, BC. Next time, I hope we get to see their show!

On Wednesday, I checked my Twitter feed from my phone and found disastrous news: pro skier CR Johnson had passed away skiing at his home resort of Squaw Valley.  I had just pulled in to our hotel here in Nelson, BC, and the various tweets paying respect to CR hit me hard.

CR was a skier that many of my peers, including myself, watched with disbelief at the style, speed, and airtime he could manage off of natural terrain features and in the halfpipe.  His signature bio 900 trick in the superpipe at the X-Games a few years back helped push skiing to new levels and new heights, sending airs upwards of 22 feet in the halfpipe. (more…)