Last weekend was SheJumps Annual Winter Camping Trip. SheJumps is a non-profit organization that aims to get more girls involved in the outdoors. The Annual Winter Camping trip is an intro to winter camping, snow analysis, and a good time with some adventure loving ladies. This year, we joined forces with White Pine Touring in Park City and hiked to the Castle Peak Yurt in the Uintas. We still dug in a tent for extra warm snow sleeping and wind protection and learned how to build a snow cave, but the yurt did make our winter camping a little plusher than previous years.

The monsoon rains arrived late this year and overstayed their welcome well into September. The rain just kept coming, flooding the streets of Kathmandu, grounding airline flights, and making nearly everyone edgy and irritable. I kept postponing my scheduled visit to the field, hoping to make it out once the rain stopped, but was eventually forced to bite the bullet, grab my favorite umbrella, and march reluctantly out into the rain.

I’m 35,000 feet above somewhere between Washington DC and Doha, on an airplane full of salt-eyed travelers snoozing under the tiny fluorescent lights. I realize now that I am aware of death, but I do not understand it at all.

Nepal has fallen victim of yet another nationwide strike called by the Maoists in their attempts to gain political control of the government. This strike has been called indefinitely and the Maoists claim to use all of their cadres (100,000 strong in Kathmandu alone) to enforce the complete blockade of all businesses, transportation, and government services until their political demands are met. Today, even people riding bicycles were sent home by angry Maoists armed with sticks and slingshots posted at nearly every intersection in the city.

I’ve never been an antique collector, although I admire old things and occasionally have the urge to surround myself with them. Nepal is full of cool old stuff, especially in the remote areas in which we work. Many of my friends collect old Buddhist artwork or furniture from across the Himalayas and, thus far, I’ve always been more of a voyeur than a serious collector.

Dear my seven or eight readers –

I made two new year’s resolutions around my blog. First, that I would write more frequently and try to include photos. The second point was that I would try to focus my writing more on our work and to also mention what kind of silly adventures my Marmot gear ends up in as I stomp around the hinterlands of Nepal. I have been admittedly lax on both points, as I feel one should be with resolutions.

Since the beginning of time, it seems, one of the main forms of political protest in Nepal has been the general strike or, in Nepali, the bandh. These bandhs occur with varying frequency depending upon the immediate political atmosphere, but tend to average around one per month. During times of turmoil this number grows significantly, often reaching one each week or more.

A friend just brought a steaming thermos of salt and butter tea into the office, and the greasy brew warms me a bit as it goes down. But the tea is quickly cold in the frigid office. It’s noon and I haven’t removed my down jacket today, and nor do I expect to.

It’s not that Kathmandu is all that cold, it’s a balmy 43 degrees outside right now and this is about as cold as it ever gets here. But, the complete lack of indoor heat seems to drop the temperature another ten degrees at least.

Happy New Year! It has been a very happy new year in Chamonix, France. We have skied blower powder for the past week! All of the ski areas are open, and we are even able to ski from the top of the Aiguille du Midi right now. It looks like it will be a great year. Check out our recent videos at http://www.steepskiingcamps.com/SSCW/Video.html

It’s the holiday season and I find myself, yet again, vowing to be a more regular contributor to my blog in the coming year. It’s not that the outcry from my seven readers has been terribly deafening, but rather that sitting down to write is a very cathartic and healthy thing for me.