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Sometimes the truth hurts figuratively, sometimes the truth hurts literally, and on some special occasions it does both. This blog is about one of those days.

The day began when my friend Myron and I went skiing one not-so-early morning and we picked up some hitch-hikers who were here to take a heli-ski guide course in Haines. Obviously, we were not going to punish these guys and make them “ski” with us. Just in case they needed a place to stay, I gave them my number.

The next day, their ferry was canceled because of rough seas, so I told them I’d be happy to go skiing with them…and give them a ride in the process. I was VERY excited because they were into backcountry skiing, and I’ve been looking for people to ski the backcountry with.

So we put on our gear and check out some of the possible runs from the base of the mountain. I figure this cool, especially since they keep mentioning the cliff band up there. Great, they’re saftey conscious too…this is going to go super smooth.

The ski up was amazing. Sunny, cool, and gorgeous! The snow was fantastic, deep and soft. As we get further up the ridge, we begin to talk about where to ski down and figure out where that cliff band was, presumably to avoid it. As we continued, there was more talk of the cliff band, more than was necessary to avoid it…I thought. Whatever, no one would look for a cliff band to ski off, right? So we find a spot and it becomes clear, that we are indeed looking for the cliff band in order to ski off of it!

Oh yay! I can barely hold my own at the ski area and now I’m standing on top of a mountain getting ready to drop into god knows what….fucking great! Tim (who is at 500x better than I am) and I found another way down, but it was still really steep and filled with small spruce trees, which were tight enough to make it difficult to turn. I jump turned my way to the bottom and waited for Dan.

Dan dropped, and somehow recovered and skied out of it and I was damn glad I followed Tim. Anyway, I did my best to keep up those two and got more worked on the way down than on the way up. I’ve been up there a couple more times, but now I steer clear of that cliff band. Wide open glades for me, thanks!

The Suit – 1970′s era survival suit.

The Man - Cabin dwelling punk come database/GIS geek.

The Plan - Swim from shore to dock on a cold Alaskan winter day, not drown, and make it over to Illybob’s for homemade pelmini in under an hour. Ancillary objectives include testing the sea worthiness of an old survival suit found in garage and gauge survivability of going overboard in the winter sans survival suit.

Gumby Lives – On our quest for knowledge, the first thing we found was that Gumby was indeed alive and well, hiding in my landlord’s garage. Although the characteristic green is no longer the color of our beloved character, probably due to aging of plastic-like skin which alters its reflectance/absorption characteristics, the familiar stance is still evident.

The Swim - How does one test the sea worthiness of an old survival suit? Well, I’ll tell you. You strip down, put it on, jump in, and hope no cold water comes rushing in to take you to the bottom.

If you ever try this, be warned. When you enter the water the air from the suit is forced out of it. Since the only opening is at your face, it feels like your going down. Don’t worry, you’ll likely pop back up.

Success - After a couple minutes of backstroke I made it to the dock. It’s eerie being away from shore trapped in a suit that feels like it should not float. This makes for excellent lap times.

The End – What did I learn from this? Well, I learned that survival suits are fun and that the ocean is pretty cold in February. Most of all I learned that I don’t want to fall off a boat in Alaska…ummmm…ever.