I am writing this missive from T-line. It's about 60 degrees and except for a few deer, it seems like I am the only one around.

New Trail. The construction team hit a rock ledge that needs to be blasted. I will to hike up there later today and take a look to see if the blasting has been completed.

Learning area near Silver Queen. Timberline is leveling the small learning area below Silver Queen with earth movers. I think the intention is to make this slope more gradual and also to save snow. In the past, the resort has had to lay down a huge amount of snow on this little area, which sits in front of the Northwoods B units, to make it level enough for beginners. Hopefully, the contouring will save T-line from having to build a "wall of snow" every year.

Northwoods. It looks like the construction team has finally started moving to the A units. There's a big dumpster in front of A now. F, G, and H look great--almost new with the new siding. Richard V, our Assoc. President, deserves great kudos for all the hard work he has put into this project. Thanks Richard!!!

In other news, the birds are great. I walked from Timberline to the Freeland Rd area of the Wildlife Refuge (near WG) and among other birds, saw:

--two house finches
--an Indigo Bunting
--A bobolink
--two Kingbirds
--A blue-winged warbler
--A nice flock of Cedar Wax Wings. Yes folks, the wax wings have returned and they are as magnificent as ever.

We stayed so late at Freeland that we ended up walking back in the dark. We also met a couple of birders from Ohio. One of them had a very fancy new Nikon on a tripod with a huge telephoto lens. I hope he will e-mail me the shots he took, and if they are decent, maybe Scott will post them to help break the DCSki summer doldrums.

Any chance we can get some pics of the new trail and basic earthmoving at SQ?

Hey John .. I know this is way off topic ski-wise, but can you recommend any book/CDs/etc on bird songs? ... Because of all the friggin trees and their leaves where I live its awfully hard to identify birds you can't see.

Thanks.