We were over in Kemerovo this last week, we had a project scheduled, but the contact had to

postpone to another date. Kostya and Uliana, asked us to go skiing with them. So we went for a

couple hours, the owner found out we were american and insisted that we ride his Russian

snowmoble. big mistake. my back was sore for several days. but it was fun to talk and visit with the man, and caperon two of our members. Kostya is trying to serve a misssion this fall, but he is waiting until july to see if the army inlist him or not. Uliana has helped us alot with russian and lives in Tomsk. we have spent alot of time with both of them over the last several months.the snow is about 4 to 5 feet deep and hard packed. There is a layer of fresh snow that we are skiing on. But when I push the poles down. they never bottom out, everything has a frozen state here. it is different snow than in Utah. the tempreture never comes above freezing until late march or early april. it doesn't pack, it just freezes in layers. Then in april it turns to mud, deep mud until it soaks or runs off some wheres.