Damn that’s cold!
How does Hawaii sound right about now? Kelly Slater in the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau competition in Waimea Bay, Hawaii held yesterday for the first time in 5 years. Photo: Michael Goulding/Associated Press
My season has gotten off to a very slow start due to a combination of recovering from shoulder surgery and the general lack of snow in Colorado. This week I was looking to break the drought as my doc says it’s only a pain issue now and big storms were promised. Today was going to be the test drive day for the shoulder and although the storms did not produce as promised for the northern mountains (snowforecast.com actually apologized for over forecasting as is their tendency) it still seemed like a good idea till I saw something in the National Weather Service forecasts that I have never seen before – a “Wind Chill Warning” for the mountains. They’re always posting expected wind chill readings but I guess when it reaches “30 below to 50 below above 10,00 feet” – that merits a warning. So instead I decided to stay home and do some nice warm surfing on the web.
Speaking of surfing, thanks to a huge swell in the Pacific, they held the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau competition in Waimea Bay, Hawaii yesterday for the first time in 5 years. Strangely enough I first saw something about it in the New York Times which had a small slide show and article. I then went straight to the source on the Quiksilver website where they had a great collection of videos from the event – well worth checking out.
Meanwhile, back in Colorado, the Southern mountains did get pounded with 51 inches on Wolf Creek Pass, 42 inches on Coal Bank Pass, and 46 inches near Irwin Lodge north of Crested Butte. Further north the highest snow total at a resort was 12″ at Snowmass so not a huge amount of help there but there’s another storm headed our way this weekend so hopefully we’ll have better luck with that. I personally am feeling a strong need to head to Wolf Creek and start my season in style so I’ll be heading there sometime this week – I’ll let you know how it turns out.
