Jay Richards

Beautiful day in West Yellowstone. Bit warm for Nordic enthusiasts but there is some snow cover and skiing this morning was okay. Gorgeous in the woods and the scent from the lodgepole pine is unreal since the trees are freezing at night then warm temps during the day release the aroma. Probably the highlight this morning was burning some turns on the telemark slope that was bombproof (thanks to rain last week) and about a inch of sugar on top. About as good as it gets for ripping turns with the skate bords. Fun stuff. Afternoon took Bruce down the road to the north and he did some fly fishing. I watched him a while, and he even caught a nice little brown trout off the bat and later on he caught the biggest trout he has ever caugh, a nice rainbow (photos below). Since there was no hot spring coming into the river where he was at so I could just chill and watch him, I went back to town and skied a hour or so on the better parts of the Rendezvous system before picking him up and watching the beautiful sunset.

West Yellowstone is a dead town this time of year. Shoot, can't even find a store to buy Jonell one of those t-shirts "my husband went to West Yellowstone and all he bought me was this lousy t-shirt" type of thing. The park closed November 3rd and now it is the off season. According to one local, the off season is when everyone in town walks around drunk. Some good read in the local paper. Photo of new firefighter with the caption below "sorry guys, she is engaged" And always enjoy reading the police log like "a report of getting some bad gas" then two days later "report of bad gas smell. No leak found" and "report of cat wandering in back yard" two days later "cat found at school" and "person reported their gate being open and dogs were missing but called one hour later and said they found their dogs"

We went to a small burger joint this evening and lights were off and closed sign was on. Took a peek through the window and saw the cook, opened the door and said she would cook us up some grub. I don't think I have heard the f word bombed so many times in a restaurant in my life. Not that she was mad or anything, she just like to toss the f word around. She said her dog might be acting funny because it was its birthday and they went across the street and the dog had a couple bowls of beer. Oh yeah. We asked for a beer and she said to go across the street and we could put it in a coffee mug. Went across the street and everyone in the bar was smoking and the guy in the middle was classic....out fishing but he wasn't catching any fish if you know what I mean. Anyways, quick ski planned for the morning, load up the grooming equipment at YTS and then hit the road for home.

Bruce climbing "hill 191"

Keeping out of the ruts on the downhill.

Burning some turns. As far as I can tell, I was the first one this year to take on the hill. Looking up high, I am sure there is some incredible backcountry skiing right now but just don't have the time on this trip for that.

Video clip of one of the runs.