La Cabane a Sucre.... Sugar Shack!!!!

Marie and I made that...BAM!!

Grand-Mere Marie getting a ride out to the Shaq!

After what seemed like days wandering through the woods of Quebec, there it was!!! We found the Sugar Shack!!!! Time for some fun!

La Foret des erables.....

Such a cool little hut out in the woods. I am going to start a "Sugar Shack" like this one!!

Marie and I were put to work! If snowshoes are used for work im in! You are looking at future maple farms owners!

L'eau d'erable... Thats what comes out of the trees. People are actually considering bottling this watery maple flavored substance for a drink! I say good idea!

Dede and Elise

Fresh from the tree to my mouth!

Minou taking the maple water back to the sugar shack....

Such a cool place! I love this photo

Lots of work to be done...

Stoking the fire to boil the maple water...

Each section is a different temperature and in each section more sugar is boiled into the syrup until you have pure 100% maple!!

Things are getting hot!

The first taste..

A perfectly warm day for making syrup!

Renald, the Sugar Shack owner and master syrup maker tending the maple...

Marie making Maple Butter...mmm

Testing the buoyancy and density of the syrup.

Testing the flavors of the different stages of the sugar!

Sharing spoons :)

Grand-Mere couldn't get enough of the butter.. she took the pan and ate it all!!!

Nice work Grand-Mere Marie!!!

Lost Trail Lodge Day Dos!

Yup 71 degrees! 200 inches of snow + 71 degrees = Considerable Avy danger

Day two consisted of an amazing oatmeal breakfast followed by a hungover skin up the Shallenberger Ridge to get a view on Donner lake before the storm hit... The avalanch danger was considerable and we witnessed a few nast slides the day before so we were cautious in our route, but we ended up finding some nice skiing and an amazing lunch spot! Following skiing we drank more whiskey and built a little jump over a river! I have a ton of video that I will have to edit at some point that documents this is a great way!

Not too lost any more- We found a train

Skinning up Shalenberger with the Crest in the background

We made it!

Lunch tastes so good when you are at places like this! High above Donner lake

Skiing back to the Lodge. You can see it down there in the meadow next to the river

Apres skiing lounging

Apres ski skiing! Whiskey in one hand, ski pole in the other. One of the more radical things we did that afternoon!

Until we built this jump over the river! Yeah thats right! Video coming soon

Tandem apres skiing!

They need to work on that one...

Day three is coming up next!

Lost Trail Lodge: Day 1

Last weekend I went with my sisters Ali and Megan, my brothers in law Jesse and Paul, and Kathrine and Josh Transue on a backcounty skiing trip to the Lost Trail Lodge up Cold Stream Canyon in Tahoe!! It was an amazing adventure and great times were had by all. The skiing was not the best that it could be, but we did find some amazing corn on the last day of the trip and on the other days we had some nice heavy spring sloppy snow which my Atomic Blog back-country skis turned into powder! haha not really but it is always fun to be up in the mountains with friends and family.  The lodge it self was really special.  It had been all built by hand over the last 20 years and had hundreds of random artifacts all over the palace.  The most fun activity after a few drinks was to pick up an instrument and proceed to preform impromptu jam session. I really want to go back to the lodge in midwinter and enjoy the amazing terrain around that area.  Here are some photos from the first day of our trip.  We parked the cars at Sugar Bowl, and skinned up Mt Lincoln where we then skied down and along the Anderson Ridge to the high point and dropped off the ridge to the east and down into Cold Stream Canyon to the lodge.  It was a great ski!

Bella, Megan, and Jesse high up on the Anderson Ridge

Day one lunch spot! Granite Chief Peak is the farthest peak on the horizon in the background.

Skinning around some amazing snow features. Its amazing to see how the snowpack looks after our record breaking winter of over 700 inches!

Lyon Peak, and Needle Peak.  The terrain back there is amazing. Too bad there isn't a lodge down there! :)

Mount Lincoln at Sugar bowl is it the upper left corner.  We skinned and skied from there all along the Anderson Ridge.  There was a huge cornice that was breaking off all along the ridge. A little scary!

The "family room" in the lodge. Drums, a Mandalin, Guitar, Piano, horns.... If only we had more musical skill we could have had a band!!  But that is where the whiskey and wine come into play making up for the lack in talent! We were good!

Josh and Kathrine. Josh practicing for our hunt/whiskey skiing (see Lost Trail Lodge Day 2)..

From left to right Megan, Ali, and Josh enjoying some apres ski touring win and whiskey.

Paul getting in the mood playing the washin' board!

Day one was a whole lot of fun!  Skiing, good food, good company and being in the mountains!!!  Get ready for Day Two: River Jumping, Whiskey Skiing, Shallenberger Ridge, blisters, and Donner Lake!!