Winter v. Spring.

Blizzard!

Yep, full blown, snowing hard so you can't see, blowing, freezing, blizzard.

Today, we witnessed an unexpected bout of climatic pugilism that I haven't seen for years. Throwdown at the hoedown! Some had written this season (winter) off as over (I'm referring to you, Mark. You should have called me last night). Not us. Now, back to the heavyweight title match of the season.

The opponents: Winter and Spring. Spring was heavily favored given that we passed the equinox a week ago and it's been on a steady training regime. Besides, the earth is tilting in Spring's favor. But the underdog, Winter, got the upper hand on this one. It was like Rocky IV, a bloody battle. The final decision: Winter in a knockout. In fact, today, Winter beat Spring all the way back to fall. One for the record books, for sure.

It's been a funny season weather-wise. Not the best snow year--we just passed 350" today; last year it was much closer to 600" (not typical, but nobody was complaining!). The Pass opened on December 19th--pretty average for Oregon. The standard is that the weather plays hard to get, and then it dumps 4' in one week--with any luck, sometime before Christmas. Then we got five or six weeks of sunshine in late January and February. The snow finally returned by late February, but this being Oregon, and our local hill being low elevation (the base is 5,250'), we get a lot of freeze/thaw cycles.

At any rate, I was feeling guitly for bagging on the Free Heel Festival (free the heel and free the mind) yesterday. The weather was kind of crummy--cloudy and about 38 degrees. Maybe enough to soften the base, maybe not. But, the forecast called for a Severe Weather Alert in the Cascades: 10" to 20" of snow! That seemed worth waiting for.

It was.

Better yet, the weather report was accurate. The people I work for are not as forgiving as the ones that metoroligists work for. Where else can you be wrong more than half the time and still keep your job? Wall Street you say? Fair enough.

The resort snow report said 6", ODOT said 8", and it was 12" where we were skiing. It was 20 degrees again, and the snow had that light, fluffy Colorado consistency. What a treat for the Cascades in March.

Dylan gets the money shot!

This is probably the best ski picture anyone has ever taken of me. Thanks Dylan!

Phew, that's a lotta snow!

Dylan was clearly enjoying himself.

As was I. Phew, that's a lotta snow for March 29th.

D pushin' the pow.

Today was simply awesome. Epic. A totally overused cliche, but appropriate for today. We got in 19 runs and more than 28,000 vertical feet. As a reference, I crossed the 500,000 vertical foot mark earlier this week; with any luck I can get to 600,000.

I have been encouraging Diane to get a new pair of skis for a while. She took me up on it on Friday. She chose the K2 Hunka, Hunka Burnin' Luvs. Elvis would be stoked. I bet if Elvis skied, he would still be alive today.

Good choice! She's skiing better already--and liking the new boards.


Today, winter beat the living crap out of spring. In fact, it was an avalanche. Uh-huh, Winter kicks ass! We were there for all 19 rounds. Winter came out of the gate strong. Spring got a few blows in mid-day as the sun broke through and the clouds whipped by, but in the end, it was Winter's day.

Today was the last day of regular operations for The Pass. That means only weekends from here on out (not such a problem for us). It also means we're coming into the home stretch on the 2008-09 season. Boo.

Rematch next weekend! Winter v. Spring. We're still rooting for winter, but we know that spring will win in the end. Either way, we enjoyed the match.