1st time Alpine Ski -- Grüsch Danusa

Let's try some thing new and still missing in Py's set if skills.

A day of Alpine ski experience. So far so good -- looks like the fun can start with a few more days!

Mini Tour, about 1/2 way up to Vilan

Looking for a little more endurance workout once in a while and a free no cost activity right out of the doorstep. Gearing up with a strapped on backpack snowboard big snowboard boots... no avalanche equipment nor a buddy -- so keeping it save and staying at the lower half of the mountain in safe terrain. Just a quick walk up pretty much following the gradient with big steep steps on some existing tracks. The ride down was very enjoyable but also way quick and short. However, good change of mode and not transportation needed today -- 1/2 day off, relaxing and shopping with friends.

Rothorn

One more different location to ride. Py has not visited the Rothorn (and related Weiss- and Schwarzhorn) peaks of Lenzerheide in a while. So he ventured there to ride 'em all.

Starting a little chilly on the early morning shaded slopes, little hard, "sandy" feeling, near icy at spots but almost empty that time, but already better with the next run and first ray's of sun hitting the surface! Making it all the way over to Schwarzhorn... checking out the FIS worldcup super slalom piste with some challenging super hard packed and super flat near icy hard steep... a slow down ending up a huge cloud of snowy dusting. A great place to ride and avoid traffic as this side does not provide any easy and only a very few medium level runs.

Scuol-Sent -- pow!!!

Next day, trying to escape a little further into the deep Engadin taking a scenic RhB train ride to Scuol-Tarasp. Lightly snowing, but mostly diffuse sunny. Nice, a lot of easy accessible off-piste safe often untracked pristine powder to dust up, repeating, finding new paths down almost all the way, awesome, finishing the day with the famous "Traumpiste" into the village Sent...  -- what a day!
Returning with the mountain taxi, bus and a little unfortunate delays missing the connection train -- so what, no on a hurry.

Klosters-Davos

Once a year once again returning to the big mountain for a good day of Snowboarding at Klosters-Davos, Parsenn. As usual  taking the big Luftseilbahn Gotschnergrat all the way up with one half way lay over. A few warmup runs on the Klosters mountain side on 4a/b... before heading over the Schiefer and finding a pretty good queue at the Gondola to the Weissfluh with connection to the very top to find his favorite run No 1. A great day up there -- so must many other have thought today. To higher up and steeper black runs were not crowded at all, just the intermediate runs and the way up there. Early lunch, good idea to get a good seating, but the hope for less traffic at noon was kind of false. However, about 15min extra delay... still not to bad looking at a 35..40min ride all the way up -- depending on the timing to catch the connection gondola to the peak Weissfluh! Finishing the day with a good set of long runs, adding the Parsenn slope before descending all the way down to Klosters train station.

Epic 4 hours of XC ski at SHS

Thanks to Nemo's huge dump of snow, excellent best ever snow conditions at SHS!

Blizzard Nemo

It seams not also Snow Storms are getting assigned names -- Blizzard Nemo hit in particular Eastern Long Island  with a huge load of heavy snow -- at it's peak between Selden ... Brookhaven covered in up to about 3ft of snow -- 34 inches official max. From stuck cars on the LIE and else where to for often over a full day unplowed roads. Py got home in time Friday afternoon from work to continue on some coding project while he had the idea to to a time lapse capture of the development -- starting with one shot/minute until midnight then 3 min interval shooting -- here is the result:



While the first hours of very wet snow Py decided to take care of his drive way and remove the 1st layer of icy wet mess to hopefully have a little easier time next day... Still a good job of shoveling on Saturday morning -- that storm dumped at peak 4..5in/hour!!! Hard to find a representative snow depth as reference -- varying from 20...35inches -- little lucky the drive way was a bit sheltered by the hedge on the side where the  wind was blowing in from!




After that done -- here Py stopped with the car full width digging actually at the still unplowed road! Later XC ski good in RP neighborhood....

Pre snow: good 4 hours on old tracks... RP2IPBP-JP+Camp

Late ride w Niv. Steady work, flat fix stop -- N found a tiny wire!, chilly cross winds out east, warmup and refuel at Duffies, long haul back into the wind -- not to bad keeping up power generated enough heat to stay comfortable, dropped N off at the Camp NG -- late, but good ride, time to get home just a few minutes to five, almost pretended to see a few flurries on top of "water tower road"... :-)

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