Life According to Kellie: Skiing Alaska

Skiing Alaska - November '11 favorites

Well, what can I say? Alaska's early season was pretty much all-time this year . . . it was such a nice way to transition back home after Argentina, to reconnect with friends and feel like I hadn't missed a beat! Of course, my photos are spotty at best, but there are at least a few good ones in here!

11/7/11 . . . skiing with Corky and his buddies on the Sunnyside before it opened to snowmachines - a super beautiful and sunny day, cut short unfortunately by sketchy windslab and some avy action . . .

photo: Corky Still

photo: Corky Still

photo: Corky Still

11/8/11 Turnagain touring with Tim Glassett - Tim's working a bunch and in school, so it's a rare day that we get out touring - we had an awesome day though: Sunburst south face-Pastoral S face - super bowl - magnum W face . . . classic Turnagain mega tour!

dreaming of Goldpan lines!

Tim, our snow science enthusiast!

11/9/11 Magnum with Sherrie - this girl has got to be one of my favorite partners of all time and I feel so lucky when she comes skiing with me . . . when we ski together, I am not sure if the focus is skiing or chatting because both happen at pretty high levels :-) We had some wind this day, but still managed to have some excellent turns!!

11/10/11 - Sunnyside with Sherrie and Erin . . . this was Erin's first time touring and it helped both Sherrie and I realize that ski touring is actually really difficult!! Erin is a world-class athlete, but the heavy setup and new sport made for a funny day :-)

Sisters on the sunnyside :-)

Sherrie!

Erin and Sherrie

Me 'n Sherrie

11/12/11 . . . ladies day on Sunnyside - well, not so sunny, but excellent skiing regardless! It was fun to be out with Sarah Heck, Cortney Kitchen, and Erica Madison - all strong skiers and climbers, and super fun ladies!!

me, Erica, Cortney, Sarah

11/14/11 - my last day home and a super fun day on Turnagain . . . the snow was shockingly good and we were inspired to venture further than we'd planned . . . CB #2 couloir to Goldpan to the corner pocket area and out the magnum west face . . . finish at dark, all smiles to fuel some daydreaming at work!!

Russ above Goldpan

Russ on Goldpan

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Inspiration

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland.

“Stoke your fire with meaning everyday in your life so you literally burn with the desire to go to the next level…Be adventurous.” John Friend

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. - Howard Thurman

"Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir, open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us, guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love, the clarity of hatred, the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we’d know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we’d be truly dead."

� Joss Whedon

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

Truth Lies Within Ourselves:
Truth lies within ourselves: it takes no rise from outward things, whatever you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness and to Know rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape than in effecting entry for light supposed to be without.
-- Robert Browning

"When people show you who they are, believe them."

Living Life's Course:
It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.
-- Bhagavad Gita

Later that day I got to thinking about relationships....
There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.
-- Sarah Jessica Parker

I don’t want to be somebody’s crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And i don’t want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me. And if they do something I don’t like, I’ll tell them.
— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“…but now he was convinced that she wasn’t in heaven, she wasn’t with God. She was dead. He decided people desperately wanted to believe in God because the thought of death was too great to bear. They were wrong. They were fools. They were weak. Once you knew that there was no God, life became more important -- it was life that became sacred. He believed in death. To love life you had to believe in death.”

-- John Smolens, in The Anarchist, A Novel

A Little Inspiration

The Rhodora, on Being Asked, "Whence is the Flower?"
In May, when sea winds pierced our solitudes
I came upon a rhodora
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook
To please the desert and the sluggish brook
Its purple petals, fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay
Here might the red bird come his pluemes to cool
And court the flower that cheapens his array
Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing
Then beauty is its own excuse for being.
Why thou wert there, o rival of the rose
I never thought to ask, I never knew.
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.
-- Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Ode to the Present

by Pablo Neruda

This
present moment,
smooth
as a wooden slab,
this
immaculate hour,
this day
pure
as a new cup
from the past--
no spider web
exists--
with our fingers,
we caress
the present;
we cut it
according to our magnitude
we guide
the unfolding of its blossoms.
It is living,
alive--
it contains
nothing
from the unrepairable past,
from the lost past,
it is our
infant,
growing at
this very moment, adorned with
sand, eating from
our hands.

Grab it.
Don't let it slip away.
Don't lose it in dreams
or words.
Clutch it.
Tie it,
and order it
to obey you.
Make it a road,
a bell,
a machine,
a kiss, a book,
a caress.

Take a saw to its delicious
wooden
perfume.

And make a chair;
braid its
back;
test it.

Or then, build
a staircase!
Yes, a
staircase.
Climb
into
the present,
step
by step,
press your feet
onto the resinous wood
of this moment,
going up,
going up,
not very high,
just so
you repair
the leaky roof.
Don't go all the way to heaven.
Reach
for apples,
not the clouds.
Let them
fluff through the sky,
skimming passage,
into the past.

You
are
your present,
your own apple.
Pick it from
your tree.
Raise it
in your hand.
It's gleaming,
rich with stars.
Claim it.
Take a luxurious bite
out of the present,
and whistle along the road
of your destiny.

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Skiing Alaska - November '11 favorites

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