Adventure: Backcountry Ski Trip-Upper Rock Creek, CA

After a very busy beginning to 2011 I am finally slowing down enough for some long overdue blogging! As some of you may know, I released my new album "Driftwood" in February (nickibluhm.com) so music has been taking over my world for the last few months. Fortunately, we have been able to squeeze in some ski trips this winter/spring to keep us sane. Here are some photos from our trip to Upper Rock Creek, CA.
Our journey began on a beautiful spring day. Sunny and warm with a slight breeze....perfect weather for our 8 mile skin into our base camp we would call home for the next 5 days.
First things first, we dug for water in the lake nearby and were successful. Delicious Sierra mountain water was now available to us for drinking, cooking and keeping ourselves tidy.
The second evening of our trip, the winds began to pick up and the temperature steadily dropped encouraging us to dig a snow kitchen. This provided us with a great shelter from the wind and a cozy place to hang out during the evenings for cocktail hour and dinner. Digging a kitchen or any other snow structure is also a great activity to do if you're trying to stay warm.
Cocktail hour in our kitchen was a blend of Bacardi 151 and Sailor Jerry's dark rum. It's a great way to pack the liquor cabinet light...but with a punch. We always bring along Crystal Light or Cool-Aide and when combined with our rum blend you are left with a drink we call "The Mule Kicker".

Since we do a lot of snacking throughout the day on things like bars, jerky, cheese, crackers, dried fruit, nuts and candy, it's no wonder that when it comes to dinner time...we get a little more serious. Because we burn so many calories skiing and winter camping (and all it entails), it is essential to eat enough fat and calories. Since we'd had pretty good experiences with Mountain House Foods (http://www.mtnhse.com/) we were willing to try Backpacker's Pantry since that's all we could find where we were. Big mistake, huge. We found that not only were these meals watery and unfulfilling, they also contain very little fat, calories and protein (mostly just sodium). Luckily we brought along chocolate to soften the blow of having a bummer dinner but we won't make that mistake again.

Tim was kind enough to entertain us during our down time by reading "Lawrence of Arabia" aloud.
Although we got 4 beautiful, calm and sunny days, the nights were anything but. Every night we had gusts of wind up to 80 mph and temperatures that dropped into the single digits. Luckily, our friend Brian over at Marmot (http://marmot.com/) gave us some gear to try out including the Alpinist 2P Single Wall Tent above (http://marmot.com/products/alpinist_2p?p=118) which proved to impress us.
The last 24 hours of our trip left Tim looking like this! Our last night out, winter struck hard. We had even stronger winds, greater drops in temperature and steady snow fall creating blizzard conditions all night and into the day. Skiing out was a bit of an adventure but we made it out safely and still smiling.
I was so happy to get back to our cabin so I could take a hot shower, drink a cold beer and slip into my new thrift-store find...Patagonia fleece overalls!

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Created by Tim Bluhm

Videography by Tim, Erik and Nicki Bluhm