Thursday Morning at Timberline

Thursday Lunch at Timberline !

A bulldozer digging out the tow truck that came to TImberline to rescue us as Ben's Jeep had broken down!



Ben looking a litle peeved about the towing of his Jeep . . . Took 30 mins to get out of the parking lot . . .

We had soooooo much snow, look at this poor vehicle in the upper lot . . .



Explinations to follow :)

As you may notice I am making some small changes to the blog. I have got a snow day counter, extra blog links and there may bemore changes to come if I can be bothered in a few days . . .

OK, so this has tickled me pink!

As you know I was up the mountain snowboarding yesterday. Had a great time, conditions were great! I called Dave and told how good it was, I then sent a text to Tons-O saying the same . . .

I got no reply from Tons-O, which was a little odd. I was expecting a phone call calling me all sorts of names and saying how good it was to be in Australia.

Anyhow . . . When I got home there was a post on my blog fromTons-O, I have copied it below:

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did i get to australia before you got snow.

im sitting in the lounge in sydney waiting for my connection to brisbane now - sunday 9.50 local time- i have no idea what time that is anywhere else in the world!

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I was suprised there was no mention of my snow related text message.

Things got cleared up for me about 20mins ago. Dave called for a chat. . . . And it turns out he spoke to Tons-O yesterday.

Turns out Tons-O needed to find out how much it would cost to send a mobile phone from England, well specifically his flat, to Australia. . .

I laughed.

A LOT!!!! :)

Right now I am grinning like a Chesire cat!

I am going up the mountain for my first turns of the season in the morning (pending car parking at resort . . . long story) and it would appear that the road to Meadows (where I have a season pass) will be open on the 15th December! ! ! ! !

I am now going to have a few glasses of Talisker over ice, I will post photos /links as appropriate!!!

Actually, a 3rd reason to be jubilent:

My dear Sister and her eternally patient man have tied the knot! Sunday is the family celebration. Unfortunately I can't make it over but I will hope to talk to them both over the weekend. I don't know how Shen deals with her, he is clearly a stronger man then I!!!!!!

No offence Sis but you know where I am comming from!

I have just been checking out the damage to the Hwy 35. Wow, these pictures are on the route I normally take. The picture are all between the village of Government Camp and Mount hood Meadows. Apparently the North blockage between the village of Hood River and Meadows is not quite as bad . . .


This is the debris on the road, only a few small rocks. . .


No idea how they are going to clear this bridge let alone evalute the integrety of the structure afterwards. . .


lol! This used to be a road!


SO estimates are for this section of the road to be knackered until early next year, then it will need more work in the Summer . .

The north blockage, it not meant to be as bad and could be open in a couple of weeks . . . Boarding at Meadows at Thanksgiving is looking to be a pipe dream.

But as people keep saying, it is amazing what can be accomplished by those big yellow machines! I will keep posting updates, even though it is only me that cares!!!


For the record, the snow forecast for between 3Pm friday and Sunday night is:


Top lift 23.3"
Mid-station 21.7"
Main lodge 15.1"

Some local news on the closure of the Hwy35. It could cost $20M to re-open . . . . Ouch!

Meadows snow forecast from Friday morning to Sunday night:

Top lift 21.6"
Mid-station 21.6"
Main lodge 12"

We are getting good snow, but it looks like it could cause problems for the work they are trying to do on Hwy 35 . . . . Hoping they issue an updatelater in the day . . .

It is started to look good. This is the top of the main lift (Mt Hood Express) I guess it is about 2/3 up the mountain.

Good news and bad news . . . Good news, we are getting tons of snow :) I have found 3 RVs that we can choose from for the trip in Jan, looks like more people will be in Whistler the same time too.

Bad news, Marty looks like he may not be comming :( , There is no road acces to Meadows . . . Ouch. It actually hurts to say that. Due to the mega rain from the pineapple express the highway 35 north AND south of Meadows is knackered. See here for details . . .

Next weekend was meant to be the opening weekend. Well now it looks like it will be the staff orientation weekend and hopefully the north part of the road should be fixed by the end of November . . . I am gutted . . . I really hope it gets sorted .. .

I am off to bed now :(

Todays snow report for Meadows. Between Thursday Morning and Sat night we will see the following:

Top lift 21.7"
Mid-station 18.6"
Main lodge 15"

Looking good! Not sure what the outlook is for next week, but if it stays cold there is a good chance I could be boarding next weekend :)

I will be keeping you posted.

Question is, will Santa bring me an early present? In the shape of that 686 jacket?

hmmmm Saw this jacket in the US outdoor store in downtown tonight. It is the updated verison of the one I got in Austria about 2 years ago that cost £280. This new one costs $335. That is £178. It comes with an outer shell, a fleece zip in liner, a base laver and a beanie . . . It is uber water proof 20k/15k material and looks the mutts.

I have always been a fan of 686 gear. It is just smart. The cable routing for your ipod, the zip in liner. Zip off hood and pow skirt. Pass pocket on the sleeve cuff. Money pocket by the cuff. Zillions of pockets (we all know how important that is . . .)

I will stop boring you now.

Oh and the Portland Trailblazers just beat the LA Lakers, very convincingly - 101-90!!!!!

Hmmm not too happy at the moment. Meadows is supposed to open in 9 days, the 17th November was meant to be the start of my season. It now looks like I will be travelling for work that day and I will miss it. Never mind as the 18th will be good enough :)

The reeeaall down side is, in order to open they need 20" of packed snow. That means more then that needs to fall and they need to get the grooming machines out to work it . . .

Although we have had flash flooding here in Portland (and most of Oregon) this week there has been little snow. The reason is a phenomena called the "Pineapple express". This is a warm wet front that comes in from the Pacific dumping warm tropical rain. I.e NOT SNOW!

On the plus side the weather is turning colder. Between now and Firday night the accumilated snow at meadows will be:

Top lift 15"
Mid-station 13.5"
Main lodge 11.2"

What does this mean? Well the 18th as an opening day is looking optimistic, but not impossible. . . .

Did the Earth move for you?

As some of you know, when I was last in Tokyo I got woken up one morning by an Earthquake. Totally bizarre, being on the 27th floor and about 60 miles from the epicenter of a magnitude 6.7 quake . . . Most odd.

In some what stranger set of events, about 9:30pm when I was watching Fight Club my apartment shook. It was as if a truck drove in to the building. It was in fact another earthquake . . . Details

On another note, I think I found the right RV for our trip in Jan . . . mmmm 35ft 6 sleeper . . . mmmmm . .

A month is a long time in the world of blogging. Many things can happen. Colin McRae can get a WRC drive, Alonso can stretch his lead in the F1 and I can score another goal for the mighty Kiwis! To cap it all Spurs beat Chelsea in the Premiership, for the first time in 16 years.

Yep that’s right, playing footie last night (9:50pm kick off, that is just not fair) with 3 mins to go in the 2^nd half I get the ball on the ½ way line dribble up to the edge of the penalty area having taken on a defender then get a low drive in between the diving keeper and the right hand post! That took us to 10-9 down. Keeping to form last week I went out on a high and subbed myself off, John came on and with 6s to go he score the equaliser, amazing game!!!! After 2 heavy defeats we got a hard earned draw against a team that normally plays a division higher then us!

I am getting a little ahead of myself here. I have yet to mention how the birthday weekend went. Well work on Friday got in the way of an otherwise fine day! Lunch at Hooters (not my choice but not complaining), Ana bought me a Hooters calendar, Brett made the girls sign it, so I hung it up in the office general area. Much better view then that sodding gooner scum calendar Ana has!

After work I went home to clean up, then made my way to Christa’s, dumped the car there, had a quick glass of sparkly then made it to the Bitter End for a couple of PBRs (Pabst Blue Ribbon beer). We were there for about 45 mins, a load of the guys were there. I had not seen Steve since the last Timbers game I made in August, Catherine and Carlyn (Sp?) were there to, although they had to leave to tend to their dogs/Children (what’s the difference???).

On we go the Harvey’s comedy club, premium seats up front; Victor makes it just in time (no surprise there!) And we had a lot of beer, Nachos and some top laughter! Ana got dragged on stage to help with the magic act ( I those pictures on file for my annual review!) I think the funniest thing that happened was when Victor had to wait 7 mins too long for his next Jack and coke to arrive, he hauls up the waitress and says “Just bring me 1 of these every 20 minutes, even if my glass is full, I will catch up with you. Every 20 minutes. . You got that?” Then Kiwi Dave butts in “Yeah, yeah, and bring me a beer to yeah?” Best thing is, she did do it!!!! next time I go to a busy bar and it is table service, I am going to adopt the same attitude! GENIUS!!! Brett proved once again he is safe and secure with his metro sexuality but wearing a funky pink shirt! I really liked it, may go get one myself for next weekend.

I digress. . . After the comedy of Ana being on stage, and a very funny female comedian there was a slightly crap guy that I was too drunk to notice. It was then onwards to the local meat market, to make sure I felt 30 we went to the Dixie tavern. Now the average age in there, including the offset of our group of waning thirty-somethings, could have been no more then 22. It was hysterical watching some of the guys “try their luck”. . .

Things get real sketchy around here, we ended up in the Gypsy (another bar) then the Alibi (a karaoke place) and then we called it night, went back to Christa’s (live over the way from the Alibi) and called taxis to get home. Now as we were 1 short on the taxi front and I was snoring on the sofa . . .You can see where this is going . . . I woke up with my jacket on and a cat sleeping on me as I was sleeping on the sofa. Christa later let me know that she managed to take my shoes off but I was so grumpy she did not bother trying to wrestle the jacket off me!

As a thank you I took Christa out for breakfast, not the same as a full English but good none the less. The guy serving us looked worse then I did, I was going to ask him if he slept in his clothes too, but it did not seem appropriate . . .

Eventually I got home and got under the shower and on the to sofa. I spoke briefly to Smurf, then passed out! The guys made it over to mine about 5 pm and we set up a big table on my deck for the poker to begin!

I will be short on the details only because I remember very few . . . We played poker, Brett and I drank lots of fine scotch (various Taliskers and Obans). I won the first hand of Poker I was dead chuffed! But then I lost all my winnings in the subsequent games. But overall I broke even, which I guess is a great situation!!! I will let the pictures in the previsous post do the talking here.