Early Bird Special

Well this morning I did something I don't normally do I got up at 5:45 and hiked up our lovely ski area for some Powder turns. If you are not skiing there is absolutely no reason to get up before 7! which reminds me of my younger years, growing up in Colorado even when I was there gave us quite the opportunity to get up at the butt crack and start the slog up to the ski area or to Loveland or Berthed pass. Most of the time with my dad listening to Fleetwood mac or Dan Fogelberg and driving the speedy sparrow. And thank you Stu for all the memories in the purple mini van (ya whatever we know it was purple) good times. Like that one time we ran out of wiper fluid and I had to scrape the window with a spatula that for some reason was left in the back seat oh ya and never mind pulling over let alone slowing down there was powder and so I leaned out and with spatula in hand scraped the windows while Stu drove 70 mph down I 70 not a bad day skiing either if I remember correctly. Oh man there are many more were that story came from if you care to here more I will divulge more when the time is right, when the PBR is flowing and the friends are plentiful.


So back to this morning. I didn't look at the thermometer because I didn't want to know how cold it was I just knew it was cold so I took all the warm gear and headed out. we hiked up to the top of Coal creek and then skied the back of the mountain it was pretty good about 6-8 in of new snow over night and some of the 1 foot from last week was still good. Needless to say I was a little late for work this morning but the boss was cool about it so that was nice.
oh ya when I got home the thermometer read 5 degrees, it was pretty chilly.

Second Anual Rink Install

So This last weekend we installed the Red Lodge Ice rink at Lyons park all went as well as one could hope for when there is stakes that have to be put in frozen ground. So we enlisted some muscle and got to work on Saturday morning drilling holes in the ground every 4 feet using jackhammers and hammer drills. (not light tools) After about 6 hours of drilling and pounding we finally had all the boards up not to bad and only a few places were the boards are a little crooked. once that was completed we made a B-line to the tap room for some much deserved beers.

On Sunday morning we got up bright and early and rolled out the liner and started the patching process (this year the rink is 20 feet longer than last year so we ended up with some holes from last years use) then we got to filling it up. About 3 hours it took to fill the liner using a 6in diameter fire hose. While the liner filled we had to Wangle some bubbles which is always quite a sport.
After all of that now all we can do is wait for cold weather and hope it doesn't snow (I still cant believe I don't want it to snow because I really want to ski).

As of last night when I check the ice level we had 2 inches of frozen ice in 2 days pretty good I would say if we can get another 2 inches we are in the clear and ready to play some HOCKEY! I will post the pics later.

Last post for the Day I promise

Lauren walking!

One more powder pic

One more parting shot of our great day of skiing.

The day of thanks

So yesterday was thanksgiving so I figured I would list a few things I am thankful for.
1. Family The ones here and the ones far away.2. having a healthy and happy baby.
3. POWDER! and especially making powder turns on thanksgiving day. while everybody else was at home eating and sleepingand last but defiantly not least FRIENDS. thank you to all of you for always being there.

Snow Day

Here They are the Happy couple of snow lovers L and Cooper.

Opening Statement

So I am a Blogger sounds nasty but seeing how it may be easier for others to check in to the life of Mapp and Mapps in and around the area of Red Lodge I figured it wouldn't be such a bad deal.

Today we here In the North Country have received 1 ft of snow I don't have a picture yet but I will work on getting one. So the one to the left will have to do for now. So I wrangled my 1987 mint condition Trek Antelope to the office this morning with one hand on the grip and the other on my coffee, and for you that know the of the excellent plow job that our city does you know that it was no small feet in getting here, but I figure riding is much better than walking so I went for it. I am here and only shy a few drops of coffee so not bad I would say. I think that I need to put this snow to better use but seeing how it is the first snow of the year it would be pretty ugly skiing at the mountain. which I hiked last Friday in hopes of making some turns and ended up taking a long hard hike with Cooper up and then did a semi ski semi walk down the mountain. Any way it is a good sign for the start of winter and I am STOKED!

I will take some pictures and update this later.

signing off
-G