Well it’s March 9th and I’m hanging out in the Unofficial house resting up for one of my final comps of the season. I started off in Chamonix with Tim Dutton, JT Holmes and some of the official unofficial guys. It was a good time but my comp did not go as well as I had hoped. I guess my head wasn’t really in it when I was over in Europe. I was skiing ok, but not good enough. So the results were the same, ok but not good enough.

After a fun but somewhat disappointing trip in Europe I was back to Squaw for the third stop of the tour. Well kind of, I was first on the wait list hoping to get in. They made me sweat for it. After a few no’s they finally decided to give me a chance! Well it was pretty much all or nothing from that point on. I knew I really had to prove myself if I was ever going to be able to compete on this tour again.

It was the morning of the comp and it had been once again moved to Silverado instead of the Tram Face due to poor avalanche conditions. I wasn’t in much of a rush to get up to the course. I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go I just wanted to see some of the guys runs first. Most of them where going into the area I wanted to. I was concerned about landing in their bomb holes so I decided to go over them, well, atleast try. My plan was to go from the top. I spoke to Jimbo my Electric TM and he said as long as I went straight from some of the pepper at the top I should be fine. Well after landing an ok size cliff I headed straight for that pepper and like Jimbo said let it run from there!

I landed and bounced again another 20 feet or so. When I landed on my feet again I was a bit surprised to still be on my feet. I guess I was just so determined to prove myself and land it that I did. It was in the same area that a lot of men had bounced and not been as successful as me. After run 1 I was in the lead for both the women and men!

Go here to check out my run!

2010 Tram Face Women\'s winning run!

Tom Dozel was also in rough shape after partying all the way down from Toronto. He along with Sherry and Tal joined the crew for a quick 50 mile ride from Cambria to Pismo Beach. It was so nice to finally have a tailwind!

Later on that night Carston, Shane, Suz and her brother joined the group for our ride to Santa Barbara. Carston killed it on his custom made tall bike!

The ride to Malibu was a rough day. It started off flat and mellow winding through Ventura and a few other towns that I can’t seem to recall at the moment. I was in the last group taking our time when all of a sudden everything went wrong. Poor Shane hit a bump in the road and was flown off his bike onto his head. When we called Alex to come help us with the support truck he was dealing with his own emergency. A tire on the support truck had just blown! Perfect timing! Oh and did I mention I blew a tire, not just a tube. Well long story short Shane was picked up by super babysitter Jen and taken to the hospital for staples. Pep decided to break off from our group and try to finish the 30 mile ride to Malibu. That boy hauled!

Ahh Malibu! The second to last day of the trip. We flew this day. It was a pretty flat ride and surprisingly the group was feeling pretty good. We made a few tourists stops in Venice and Manhattan Beach. Tom Dozel tried to breakout his Borat thong in Venice. According to him he was shut down the second he walked out of the restroom. Wait a shame.

Newport Beach to San Diego!!!! Our very last day….

The group got even bigger today. A friend of Tom’s joined us from Newport. I’m not really sure where he broke off from the group. Then we picked up Greg Strokes, Tess and a few others from Oakley who were lucky enough to get the day off. And further on down the road we met up with Derek Taylor from Powder. It was so nice to have a big group. Sherry and I worked our butts off to stay in the pack, once we got in the draft it was so nice. When we would fall off it was panic time to catch back up. Honestly I couldn’t believe how strong my legs still where. Although the long hills still killed me. I think I’m more of a sprinter, ha! Well 70 something miles later we finally made it to San Diego! I can’t believe it’s all done. It’s been a week now and I can’t believe I’m going to say this but I actually miss my bike. I recommend this ride to anyone that has a bike. It was an amazing experience and I can’t wait to get out and do something like this again.

Thanks also goes out to Max Kuszaj for organizing such a great event. Donations can still be made at www.cycleforacause.com

By day 3 we had made it to Oregon! I was starting to feel a little bit more confident about this trip. I was tired and sore but making progress. The only thing that really killed me was the 4.1 mile bridge from WA, to Astoria. The longest bridge of my life! I felt so bad because Pep was stuck behind me while I crawled over this massive bridge. It was so narrow and congested with traffic with just made matters worse. When we made it to Astoria Riley Poor’s parents had met us there for lunch.

Lincoln City

Day four rolled around and I finally got a camera. Go Pro had donated cameras for the trip! This is awesome especially since my camera no longer works for some reason. And, no it’s not the batteries. I left about a half hour earlier than the guys this day. I wanted to get as far ahead of them as possible. As much as I hate to admit it they are faster. The section of the road from Seaside to Tillamook was much hillier than the rest of the trip so far. I have no idea how those guys never caught up to me. Although it was tough going the views were just amazing. Every climb was rewarded with amazing views. Just like Jesse Hall I was motivated to get to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I was determined not to stop until I had arrived there! When I finally made it, it was the best site of the day. The big green grassy yard to lay on while I waited for the boys felt amazing! We stopped for lunch and a tour of the factory then moved onto Sandlake.

101 South of Lincoln City

By day 5 I was so tired and sore. I had no idea how I was going to make it ten miles never mind 50. We stopped in Lincoln City for lunch and I just wanted to pass out. We still had another 20 miles or so till we made it to Beverly Beach State Park. Dreading the ride I set out ahead of the guys again. Somehow I got another wind and was feeling so good. I think it was the amazing views that motivated me. I just wanted to see what was around every corner.

Day 6 was a big day for me. 85 miles, I believe that is a personal record for myself. The morning was a bit off a rough start for myself. It was foggy and the road was rough. I struggled for a bit but after a few hours I was starting to feel better. We met up with Dave Stiener about 20 miles from Florence. After a big mexican lunch fiesta, which was a bad idea, we headed onto Winchester Bay. About 15 miles from the bay I started to notice some pain in my left knee, no good. Just before sunset we strolled into the Surfside RV Park and enjoyed a hobo dinner.

Today was not a good day. We headed into the town of Winchester Bay for some coffee. We stopped at a great little spot where I had the best bear claw ever! Dave got behind the counter and made Lattes for the group. Apparently the store had recently opened and they had not yet mastered the espresso machine. After our little coffee break we headed out towards the town of Port Orford, about 70 miles away. I made it 5 miles and had to stop because my knee pain was increasing. I hope by tomorrow I’ll be ok…

It had been a long journey. I left Salt Lake City at 1:30pm on the 14th of August. Tim Dutton met me in SLC and we traveled together to Buenos Aires where we had planned on meeting up with two other guys from unofficialsquaw.com. We found Patrick and waited around for a half hour looking for Greg. We had to take a shuttle to a domestic airport to continue the rest of our trip. It was 9am on the 15th and Greg was no where to be found. We had to run because our flight took off at 10:10am and we had atleast a half hour ride to the next airport. I had very little faith that we were going to make this next flight.

We arrived around 9:40am at the Buenos Aires domestic airport. It was crazy, I’ve never seen anything like it. You couldn’t tell where the line began and people were almost out the door. So we stood around like lost tourists wasting more time and almost accepting the fact that

We arrived at the gate at 10:05am only to find that it had been delayed. Two hours later we boarded the plane and embarked on the sketchiest flights ever. The landings on our way in to San Rafael and some other small town I fail to remember the name of where so sketchy.

We finally arrived in the town of Las Lenas Argentina about 30 hours later. I was so ready to eat then pass out for hours.

AHHH, Las Lenas! This place looks amazing. I couldn’t wait to ski some lines. The bottom of the mountain was nothing to brag about but the upper part is amazing, or so I hear. The Marte is what makes this place a resort to ski. We didn’t expect it to open our first day, it had just stormed the day before so the locals thought maybe it would open in a few days. Ha ha ha….

Tim and Scott waiting for the Marte to open

It was our third day skiing and the word was that the Marte was supposed to open in an hour. We headed up to wait for the opening, checking out lines while we waited. It looked like so much fun.
After a few minutes we got word that it would not open today. We then looked up the lift only to notice that one of the concrete avi barriers had fallen into a lift tower. Not, good. We had been told that it happens often, usually its a quick fix and sometimes a season ender.

I have two more skiing days left at Las Lenas. The majority of my days here have looked like this…

We all hope the Marte will open before we leave, but for those of us going on to New Zealand on tuesday we fear we wont get to ski the Marte. I hope we are wrong.