I don’t think I’ve passed along anything useful recently, unless you’re looking to water-harden a bit of steel. More of the same today, but with pictures (click on the thumbnails for bigger versions). Weekends recently have been pretty low-key. Gunnar hasn’t exactly latched onto skiing with any vigor, but he enjoys it for an hour or two on a nice day. And we’ve had some really nice days.

One nice thing about the Callaghan Valley is that it’s seldom too cold to be fun for a kid. There was one week where it was kind of icy after a rain storm and no subsequent snow for a while. That left it perfect klister-covered conditions, and a little hair-raising for four year olds. But usually it’s new snow, kind of silky and slow - impossible to hurt yourself on. As a result Gunnar has developed an appreciation for the very biggest downhills he can find. We go up on the Olympic race trails and look for the fast downhills. I generally tell him that it’s a bad idea for a kid his age to try to go down a hill that big all by himself, and that he should wait for me to put my poles on so I can hold him. That’s enough to send him scuttling off down the slope until he reaches terminal velocity. Sometimes critical speed comes before terminal velocity, and he takes a header. Other times it’s a corner that does it. But it’s seldom a big deal.