It's cold!

We're exepriencing the coldest stretch of weather seen in several years. It's hasn't been above freezing for about a week (it's 19 degrees right now), and a howling snowstorm is under way as I type this:

We're hoping we don't lose power for long, but with 60-80 mph winds predicted, we'll see. Unfortunately, I've been stuck in jury duty during almost all of this time. I skied a logging road on Thursday night across from my friend's house, which was fun as hell. Spent yesterday at Crystal (court was closed due to snow) with our friend, Brandon, where we found amazing powder all day in single-digit temperatures.

Amy and I took today off to get some stuff done and avoid driving as much as possible, but we'll hopefully be back at it tomorrow!

Winter arrives

At least in terms of temperatures, winter is making up for it's late arrival. On Friday, a blustery, cold storm blew in, dumping 12-30+ inches of snow in the mountains, and even a little bit at our house.

There was enough snow for Crystal Mountain to open some lifts Saturday, so I rode there on about a foot of powder over a crusty, thin base...when there was any base at all. With superfat skis and staying light on one's feet, I was able to stay above the worst of the rocks/stumps and had a great day.

My new, huge skis were incredibly fun. Can't wait for a better snowpack to really open them up.

After much discussion, friends and I decided against driving to Mt. Baker on Sunday for their opening day, fearing a slow crawl due to snow and ice, which coated I-5 Saturday night. The consolation prize was a leisurely skin up the closed Summit West ski area at Snoqualmie Pass.

Despite what the photo looks like, they really need another 10-12 inches to open even that. We did three laps in the bitter (by NW standards) cold. It was 10-15 degrees with some strong winds.

Took a drive over to Alpental afterwards, which got 17+ inches in the Friday storm. Still needs a lot more to open, but it's starting to look promising!

The White Ribbon of Death

The first Washington ski area to open was Mission Ridge on Saturday, thanks to their snowmaking. Mission is just south of Wenatchee, on the east side of the mountains. While it doesn't get much snow (this year: none), it's elevation and climate allow snowmaking. It was your classic East Coast shaved ice strip of white down a brown mountain.

Kind of fun, but kind of not. It's supposed to start snowing this week, so hopefully this will be the last time I have to stoop to this level.

Rainier powder, Hood ice

Had some of the best skiing I've ever had on the Muir Snowfield on Sunday. 2-8 inches or so of dry, light, smooth powder and sunny, mostly windless conditions. Rare because the wind usually hammers all such snow or just blows it completely away. If you balanced just right you could mostly avoid getting down to the firm, icy layer beneath.

Was joined by friends Brandon and Ann, who are both lungs on legs types. Despite having either borrowed or ill-fitting gear they both plowed up the hill. It was Brandon's first tour and I think we've got him hooked. Nothing like another enabler around.

Had a bit of a detour on the way down as we came across a sick skier. Ended up mostly hanging around as back-up for the people helping him, but the hanging around meant doing the last bit of trail in the dark, and I carried his skis down. Details on that nonsense here.

With the road to Rainier closed earlier in the week, I drove to Mt. Hood for the first time and rode lifts at Timberline.

They stay open almost year-round on a patch called the Palmer Snowfield, which tops out at 9,000 feet and is like a 1/8 version of the Muir Snowfield with lifts.

It was nice to ride a lift and try out some of the heavy new gear, but the snow wasn't the best, and the terrain was very limited thanks to the lack of snow. Lots of rocks hiding just beneath in a lot of places, but no big damage was done.

It was about a 5-hour drive, so not something that will be repeated any time soon.

There's little or no snow at the Washington resorts, and we're in a dry pattern until at least the middle of next week. Patience.

Muddling through fall

Winter is doing its fits and starts routine so far. One or two decent snow storms, then warm rain and flooding, and now wind/snow are on the way.

With the road to Rainier flooded out (supposed to open this weekend thankfully), I did a couple hikes last weekend: Kendall Katwalk on Saturday:

And McClellan Butte with a couple friends on Sunday, both in warm weather (50s).

The weekend before, Amy and I did a little skiing on Rainier, although the weather was a bit challenging: cold wind, snow and frozen mist, etc. The photo below is Amy and I eating lunch, taken by another party:

We later learned that we were only about 500 feet from breaking above the clouds and into the sun. Oh well.

After a wet, cold trip like this, the living room looks like this:

With the iffy weather, I've been doing quite a bit of work on gear. Waxing skis, modifying boot parts, etc. Three years in the making, I finally have my gear lineup exactly the way I want it. Behold the unparalled beauty:

From left to right, things progress from light, meadow-skipping, touring stuff to heavy, tank-grade mountain-destroying stuff. I can't wait for snow.

Spring snow in fall

Took advantage of some beautiful, sunny weather to get the second ski trip of the month in on the Muir Snowfield. There was less snow then two weeks ago, but what was there was remarkably good; awesome spring-like snow. It was so good, in fact, that I still pulled into the driveway with a smile on my face despite getting a $100 ticket for having expired tags on my car and destroying my left ankle on the hike down from the snowfield. See the photo below for the ankle carnage. Not broken, but a pretty impressive bruise. I was able to mountain bike today.

The aftermath:

Cleaning out the camera

Finally got a chance to look at some of the stuff on my video camera and realized I had some good stuff going back to August. With cold weather moving in, it's a good time to get summer off the camera. We'll start recent and go back:

Ingalls Lake/S. Ingalls Peak: Oct 18
Went here to see the larches, pine-like trees that turn a bright orange in fall. Turned out to be a beautiful, sunny, but cold day.

Muir Snowfield/Rainier: Oct. 11

This was technically my first ski of this season, almost 3 months after my July trip to Adams. Much tool long. No action shots, but you get the idea.

Alta Peak: Sept. 13

One of my favorite hikes in the Snoqualmie Pass area. You pass about 10 lakes and tarns and walk through miles of open, colorful meadows. View from the top is amazing, but I opted to take video of an avalanche path off the West side of the peak that has to be seen to be believed.

3rd Burroughs Peak: Mid-August

This peak just north of Mount Rainier (it's in the park) gives you an awesome view of the north face of Rainier. We've gone up to this area almost every fall since we moved here, and it's always worth. There's great skiing in this area in spring.

Red Mountain

Did a (gasp!) hike on Saturday, scrambling Red Mountain, a peak just east of Snoqualmie Pass. Great views from the top, and a quick trip to get ahead of some weather coming in and show up in time for my dinner plans. Drove Amy's sweet new Prius up there. Love that car.

Mt. Adams SW Chutes

Here's a quick video of a trip I took yesterday (July 12). Takes about 5 1/2 hours to drive to Mt. Adams, some of it along the Columbia River. I left camp at 5:30 a.m., and got the false summit, where my ski run starts, at 11 a.m. Beautiful, almost windless conditions. Skiied a long gully off the false summit. Skiing was OK. Not great. All told, it was probably a 10 mile rountrip. See everyone this week!

My ski bench

Put this little thing together in the last couple days. Materials only cost $60 or so, and I found a pretty simple plan on the Web. Still have all my fingers.

Next step is to get some vices and such so I can tune skis. Good thing to do on a rainy holiday weekend.

Certainly not up to Bertram/Dudley standards, but not bad for a desk jockey.

July 4 on the Ridge

Due to some seriously iffy weather (clouds/rain/thunderstorms), I'm hanging around here this weekend, cleaning the garage, doing some trail running and getting started on a workbench. The usual fireworksfest on the Ridge didn't disappoint. I imagine tonight will bring more of the same.

June 28: Interglacier again

Trying to get my legs ready to climb/ski Adams, I decided to do Interglacier again. Beautiful weather and the best snow I've had in this particular area. Usually the snout of the glacier is mucky, sticky skiing, but not today. Fantastic from top to bottom.

June 15: A leisurely Alpental tour

Feeling surprisingly spry after yesterday's trip to Interglacier, I decided to do an afternoon skin up Alpental. Still a ton of snow up there, though skiing to the car won't last long.

June 14: Interglacier

This is a 12-mile round trip taking you to the head of glacier (Interglacier) at about 9,800 feet on the north side of Mount Rainier. It's a bit of a slog thanks to a huge flood that wiped out quite a bit of the approach trail a couple years ago, but the skiing has always made it worth the time, and this Saturday was no different. A beautiful day in a spectacular place. I even saw a bear on the way back, but managed to forget to hit the record button on the camera.

June 7: Muir again

It has felt very much like fall here for the past week, topped off Friday by a snowstorm at the higher elevations that dropped about 2 feet of snow. Looking for higher-quality snow, I went to Paradise thinking I'd ski some treed terrain and bowls low on the mountain. A dreadful whiteout and snow aced that idea, so I decided to get another workout in and go up the snowfield. I broke out of the clouds at about 9,000 feet. The first bit of skiing was great: Nice, dense powder. The rest was horrendous in a classic Rainier whiteout. Slow, frustrating going. Here's some video of the section where you could actually see:

May 31: Muir Snowfield stairmaster

It's boring, but the Muir Snowfield on the south side of Rainier is a great tour for making sure everything, including your legs, are in working order before going further afield. It's about 4 miles and 4,500 vertical feet of skiing. I did luck out with the weather, as you'll see below.

Will these lifts please close?

We keep thinking we've skiied our last day of lift service, but then they decide to open again. Amy had a new setup to test out so we spent and excellent day at Alpental today. It's extremely hot today (for me and for Seattle) almost 90, so we were glad to have 60 degrees at 4,000 feet. Here are some random photos:

Alpental lifts close with a bang

Did the last day of lift service today, and was suprised by some decent powder. Snowed the whole time I was there.

The photo looks toward Guye Peak, one of the two gateway peaks of the Alpental valley. This was the best winter season I've had, by far... and certainly the longest. Bring on spring!

Still going. Still snowing.

That's right, the lifts decided not to close after all. It's May 10 and not only are we skiing at a ski area, but it also snowed today. Unreal. However, the snow has definitely turned springlike, which means thick, slushy and bit dirty. Time to break out the burly skis. This is a run down lower International, and you can see very clearly that there aren't even any bare spots yet. This will be skiable in July.

There are photos coming from Quatro de Mayo, but not yet. One more day of lift skiing tomorrow!

Catching up...still snowing

Due to the sale of a certain company to another certain company, I've been a little distracted. But with many of the formalities out of the way, we can refocus on the important things. On the weekend after my last post, I had an enjoyable, sunny, mellow day with some friends a Crystal Mountain. It's big, open terrain (like Campbell Basin in the video below) is always a nice break from Alpental's gnarly, well...gnarliness.

That said, one day is about enough (gets a little boring), and it was time to get back home to Alpental. The weekend after Crystal, we had a nice, warm spring weekend followed by a weekend of yet another series of winter storms. I was only able to ski Saturday afternoon for a couple hours due to work stuff, but even then I found thigh-deep powder. Unreal!

This past weekend, we had a little of everything. On Saturday, there was boot-deep powder in the morning (nice!) followed by fun spring snow and more fun spring pitchers of beer on the lodge deck. The video shows just how amazing the snowpack is for this time of year. Still more than 200 inches at the top! Sunday was more of the same, except bottles instead of pitchers.

This coming weekend is the last hurrah for lift service. Combine that with impending Cinqo de Mayo and, needless to say, it will be a little...ummmm....enthusiastic up there. Kind of a sombreros and cervaza deal. Closing weekend is always great as long as it doesn't rain. It's kind of a relief, in a way. It's always nice to be forced to start touring, getting into some big, wilder terrain.

Results not typical of spring

We woke up on both days of this weekend to the scene in the photo. Needless to say, when it snows this low, the skiing is something north of amazing at Alpental. On both days we skiied outrageous, dry powder (waist deep in places) the entire time. Very tired now, must sleep.

Mission Ridge trip

With rain at Snoqualmie Pass and very long weeks at work killing our ambition, we went to find some sun at the Mission Ridge ski area in Wenatchee, on the east side of the Cascades. It's a little over 2 hours away from our house. Not only did we find sun, but also some great snow, even nice powder.

It's not the steepest ski area, but there are enough fun little chutes and trees to play in to keep you amused for a day. And the views were great.

The river in the video is the Columbia.

Putting names/place together

Here's a Web site that's helpful for seeing where the areas discussed here are located.

The return of pow

Finally snowed at the pass after a bit of a drought. About eight inches on the upper mountain, felt like more than that in the backcountry, which was great. Did three laps in the backcountry area called Elevator on Saturday, wondering why I was sucking so much, when I realized that my boots were in walk mode. This makes them about as supportive as a slipper. Not good. My legs got pretty burned out from the walk-mode escapade, but was still able to piece together a couple good days.

What's the weather like there?

The best Web site for checking out PNW mountain weather is on Turns-All-Year. This is a site dedicated to backcountry skiing, and the best source of local snow knowledge around. It's well worth a look at some of the trip reports and photo galleries. You can also see Web cams from spots we talk about all the time.

Why not?

Though it's a bit late in the ski season to start something like this, with the amount of snow we've received this year, the season might not end, so why not?

Amy and I will update this space as frequently as possible!

As you've no doubt heard, we had an extremely snowy January and February that left our primary ski area with about 130 inches of snow on the ground even now, despite the fact that we haven't had a good storm in three weeks.
Here's what it looked like on Feb. 2 at Hyak, the smallest of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas, but the best bet on a day when Alpental is closed due to avalanche danger:

Since then, we've had more stable weather, even getting some sun! This is good and bad: Good because the snowpack has become less avalanche-prone and you can actually see, bad because powder is a lot more fun than hardpack.

Here's a clip from this past weekend (2/21) of Amy and I skiing groomers at Alpental.

By the end of this day, I was incredibly bored with the resort, so I went up to about 9,000 feet on Mt. Rainier on Saturday (2/23) and had some excellent skiing with sunny skies. Explored some back bowls on a ridge above Paradise on the way down and even found some nice powder! Well worth the effort. No pics/video. I'm so used to going there that I don't take out the camera as much as I should. Next time.

If we don't get any snow this week, Amy and I might have to do more touring.