The snow has come!

Daily snowfall totals at 2200 ft

Last Sunday we went for a ski tour up Mt. Ben Stewart

Stout went with us and used his pack to carry food and water

He thinks he is on the beach sometimes and digs holes

His hard work of carrying food up pays off

What you looking at?

This morning looking down on the airport from atop Eaglecrest preparing for some early morning turns

Lots of light new snow!

We have also been nordic skiing with our waxless skis out behind the apartment each night.  Stout is pretty exhausted after each tour.  He (and Hillary) would have came with me and Sam this morning to ski, but he had a vet appointment to have another neuter.  After noticing over the last month what seemed like another testicle growing we thought we would have him checked out.  We thought we were crazy at first, but over time we believed our assessment was correct.  The vet blew it off over the phone as a so-called hematoma or swelling, but we knew it was a left behind testicle.  The doctor was stunned to find a fully attached healthy leftover testicle on Stout when we brought him in.  I'm not really sure how you remove one of two descended testicles, sew him back up, discard the one that was removed and no one ever noticed that the job was incomplete.  At the office, embarrassment ensued along with a complimentary office visit, follow-up surgery (today), and gifts for Stout.  We could tell that he was mentally anguished the last few months and really confused about his sexuality and duty as a male dog.  We wondered why he was always nervous around female dogs, and it is obvious now that he was unsure of his ability to get the job done with limited equipment.  Now he will know that he has no chance.  I could have supplied pictures here, but I wanted to save Stout the exposure ... he just wants to put it all behind him as soon as possible. 

Blue Mussel Cabin

View towards the Chilkats from Blue Mussel cabin in Point Bridget State Park out the road

Our home last Friday and Sat night

Berners Bay from Cowee Meadows

Holding up the ceiling of a grassy cave with the mountains reflecting on the water

Stout on Cedar Lake inspecting the ice

Lounging on the rocks

3pm sunset over the Chilkats

Alpenglow across Berners Bay

Good Morning

Recovering after a long weekend in the cabin

Lights out

Hillary's newest purchase from Steep and Cheap ... Stout's new pack

After biting it for awhile he seemed to get used to it

Has anyone seen my toys?

I'm ready to play

Stout executing Mr. Whale with his huge paw

Stout's new friend, the wells fargo horse

Sometimes he cuddles the horse, other times he chews it and rips its hair out

Cold, windy, sun

Stout's bone, sunset, and shrimpin'

Yum

MINE!

These bones are now gone in about half a day

Stout and his buddy Ginger

Stout stole Ginger's pink salmon

Now who's the boss?

I'm gonna eat the camera

Let me go I wanna eat

Thane slide area while on the boat this weekend

Sunset from work tonight (taken at 3:15p)

Stout found a new stick

He doesn't make much of a deckhand

Now he is tall enough to jump out if he really wanted to

The towers tonight from work

Beautiful sunny day

Today was a bit cooler ... highs in the upper 30s, but the sun was bright and we could finally see all of the snow up in the mountains.

Stout and I went for a lunchtime run up Montana Creek trail.  The wet planks were a bit icy but we made it up to the divide between the Mendenhall River and Peterson Creek during our 75 minute run.

Didn't have the camera today, but here is Stout under the desk at work after the run.

Stout recovering from a tough day

This last weekend's activities:

'Weeding the forest' - helping cut an uphill/downhill route from the ski area up to wedding bowl (our most frequented bc spot).  Devil's club, blueberry, salmonberry bush snipping ... bow sawing larger trees and smashing down large heaves in the ground to allow for a nice skin and descent even with little snowfall down low.

'Chores at home' - cleaning the gear room, moving winter to the front and fishing/summer to the back of the closet.

'Car wash' - windows, vacuum, dusting.  It's pointless to clean the exterior here, but a window cleaning was needed to remove all the Stout Snot in both vehicles.

'Shrimp pull' - well it looks like the shrimp are getting ready to release some offspring (full of eggs), so we pulled our pot and will keep it out of the water for a bit to let them release their eggs.  Did get enough for a good meal though.

First day on the snow

On Sunday we got out on the snow for the first day this season.  Hillary picked up two pairs of waxless skis at the ski swap on Sat. so we were able to trudge around with Stout for a couple hours.  There was hardly any snow at the ski area base, but after a wet hike up to 2200 ft we were graced with almost a foot of snow that got deeper and started looking like winter around 2700 ft.

Stout at the bottom of wedding bowl

Up on the ridge around 2700 ft

Waxless touring up the valley

Stout comes to save me after a crash on my skinny skis ... and makes it really difficult to get up

A very tired Stout after a tough day of jumping around in the dense snow

Stout was pretty excited to be running around in the snow!

Random Stout

Ouch!

Sleepy time

Stout full of sand after going for a walk on Sandy beach during a rain storm with 40 mph winds

Tired from chewing on his bone