The Test

After yesterday's expedition, we knew conditions would be, as they say "epic" today. Not only that, but the snow report indicated 10" of new in the last 12 hours; the DOT, 20. All we needed was some electricity to get the lift moving.

The drive up was frustratingly slow. It got cold in town and big stretches of road had a layer of black ice. No big deal with studs, but a scary proposition without them. Moreover, some assjack trucker was going 40 mph all the way to Oakridge and didn't have the courtesy to realize there was a long line of anxious skiers behind him. The nerve.

As you might ascertain, we made it. We boarded the lift at 9:05, five minutes later than scheduled, but before the first chair made it to the top. Looking up Success from EPA. If you look closely you can see our boot pack line up the left side. Not much left of it due to the 10" of fresh overnight.

It was a bluebird day. We don't get many of those this time of year in Oregon, so you have to enjoy them when you can. Looking west from the 50-degree face of SDN.

As conditions dictated, no stopping for photographs occurred until run #8. We ravaged the runs, then worked our way into the trees on the front side, and ultimately over to SDN. I found myself in a spot I didn't want to be in on the first trip down--at the top of a cliff with few options. For a moment, it looked like I might have to bootpack out; the worst of all possible outcomes. Instead I billy-goated over a small tree to my left and found a chute to slide down to where I could ultimately shred out.

That did not happen a second time. We dialed in on a few really good slots and hit them over and over. All you needed to do was move one line of trees over to get an untracked line.

Dylan shreds the steep and deep (very deep... 3+ feet) on SDN.

I.

II.

III.

I'm really enjoying the new camera (thanks Diane!). It has a burst mode that is fast enough to get some really nice segments. The three photos above and below are all from the same lines (not necessarily in exact sequence of the burst).

I got the next line over below the cliff band.

I.

II.

III.

Thanks to Dylan for stopping long enough to hold the shutter down. Some of the best powder skiing I've ever done. I keep saying that, so we must be in the right place.

On to the topic of today's post: The Test. I call it The Test because what better way to put my new fatty boards through their paces than in three feet of powder? If you can think of one let me know. I'm here to report that they passed. I'm getting the feel for the skis and really like how they handle in deep snow. My theory is that it's a combination of the width, the rocker, and the twin tips that makes them so easy to handle. They turn on a dime and it's really easy to scrub speed on them when you need to (like to jib around a tree to get to the next slot on SDN). In short, they are precisely the ski I hoped the would be. Thanks again to mom and dad for setting me up.

We were rotating runs through the trees with hits on the road so Dylan could practice the front flips.

He's getting it dialed in.

The aftermath.

Diane came up later and we did a run from the top. She got to witness Dylan's progress on the flipping action. I'm not sure she entirely approves.

I'll close out today with the cold smoke of Dylan shredding through the trees.

Happy penultimate day of 2010!

The Expedition

After watching it rain all day yesterday, we were enthusiastic about the weather report. It called for freezing levels to drop substantially and for 15" - 24" of new snow at pass levels. I had a good feeling when I woke up and saw the temperature was 35 degrees at our house. That means it will be somewhere around 20 degrees at the pass. The DOT report said 9 inches; The Pass said 15. We decided to see for ourselves.

So we left early. It was snowing hard by Oakridge. People were chaining up at 2000'. The trip up the pass was as bad as I've experienced, but the ski wagon can do anything with the studs on.

We arrived at The Pass to a line of cars backed up on the highway. It was easy to see the problem: some bonehead in an Audi had abandoned his car (no snow tires or chains) in the drop-off area and the cat was broken down on the other side. Pretty standard operating procedure for The Pass... let it snow a bunch and don't bother to plow the lot until it's too deep to do effectively. The got it done... sort of.

The base looks, um, adequate. There's a good two feet.

In short, La Nina delivered.

We got ready and headed for EPA to catch rope drop. Something, however, was not right. Nobody was standing in line and lots of folks were heading for Twilight.

This underscores one of the flaws of having a 480 V 3-phase electric left at the top of the pass. It doesn't function so well when the power is down. It was looking like we would be spending the day riding Twilight with the holiday gapers. Oh the horror.

What you can't see from this photo is that most of those people are bogged down in two feet of fresh snow. The lower mountain is not steep enough to ride with this much snow.

We knew at that moment what had to be done and who would do it. The Expedition was on!

It is probably not much of a mystery to readers, just what this expedition entailed. But, in the event you have yet to catch on...

It entailed bootpacking up 800 feet of vertical through three foot deep snow. We were not in the least bit intimidated. The prospect of untouched lines through three feet of fresh snow was the only alternative.

Initially it was just Dylan and I. We were shortly joined by Brian, our new best buddy on The Expedition. We welcomed his arrival as a fellow brother seeking the best the day had to offer. Besides, having another warm body to break trail was not something we would argue with.

The going was tough.

But the tough kept going. Two more bros joined us about two-thirds of the way up. We got a lot of love for breaking trail that far; they were eager to share the wealth and immediately jumped to the front of the line.

New bro Brian looks back down The Expedition line.

We finally made it to the top. The big question was RTS or Success? It was Success, while others in the line opted for RTS, the wind was blowing a gale straight up it--our evaluation was it would be scraped for the first couple hundred feet and visibility would be sketchy at best.

Dylan braves the elements at the summit.

We ripped down Success in less than two minutes. 90 minutes of hard bootpacking for two minutes of ripping. On the balance...totally worth it!

So worth it, we did it again. The second trip up was like walking up an 800' column of slippery stairs. Much easier than breaking trail, but by no means easy.

Dylan ponders the value of The Expedition.

The weather is even more gnarly as we approach the summit for Round II.

Staging for the second run. We opted for Timburr this time--less wind exposure.

Dylan rips 3' of fresh I:

II:

III:

The snow was bottomless, but not in the sense that you sunk to the bottom. The float was outstanding--I didn't sink in more than a foot or so on any turn. Some of the best powder, and hardest earned, that I've ever skied.

We needed a break after 1600' of vertical (probably more like 2500' given the fact that every step smashed down more snow) and headed to the lodge. The lower mountain was ravaged and very difficult due to a combination of poor visibility and being hammered from all the hiking and skiing.

We retired to the lodge for lunch where we found out that we were soaked inside and out. Inside from sweating during the climb up, outside from, well, all the snow. We decided we'd had enough. The prospects of EPA opening today were slim to none and bootpacking up Success twice was all we could muster. The walk to the car was as cold as anything I've experienced in years.

Today was a new record for us: three runs in three hours and out. We probably got all of 3,000' vertical feet, but it was worth the effort.

With any luck the power will be on tomorrow and we'll get to ski everything that got left behind today.

Eyes of the World

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world...

Lyrics to one of the more poigniant Grateful Dead songs (here's one of many versions if you have no clue what I'm talking about).

My eyes on the ski world consisted of the Canon SD750 until Saturday when my sweetheart bought me an upgrade. As the photo below shows, the Canon was 7.1 megapixels. Not bad.

But only half as good as the Panasonic Lumix 14 mega pixel upgrade. She thought the quality of photos published here and in our personal archive could stand and upgrade.

Upgrade. Indeed. Thanks Diane!

Dylan told me that I should not have tested out new equipment on a powder day. Whining is all I get from him these days.

Today we had another 6" of fresh. La Nina continues to deliver the goods.

Tyler explains why the chairs have to be respaced yet again to the anxious customers. Most of them were kinder than I was...

I've been at this long enough that I'll eventually begin to repeat stories because I'm too lazy to check back on the archives to see what I have and have not written about. At any rate, Tyler told us they had to respace the chairs so they were stopping the lift. I asked why they didn't do that before they open in the morning. We got a story about the wind...I didn't buy it.

This reminded me of New Year's Eve in probably 2005 or 06. It was a beautiful sunny day to close on the old year with some skiing. Dave was down and we were waiting in line at EPA when they announced it was closed to respace the chairs. As we were walking to Twilight, I ran into Kayla, who was working at the time as a snowboard instructor. I made some snide remarks about the timing and Tim the owner overheard me. We exchanged a few words (he claimed I was demoralizing the help...I'm pretty sure he didn't need me to do that), I questioned why he closed the lift in the middle of the day to respace the chairs. I also asserted that he was being cheap and that the resort would be better off if it focused a tiny bit on customer service.

Lot of good that did (see item #10 on Bob's Local Mountain Guide).

Back to the camera. Fourteen (count 'em, 14) mega pixels of photographic data as Dylan shreds the trees.

We headed over to check the scene on SDN. It was pretty awesome. Dylan braves the wind flurries at the top.

...and makes some nice turns down below.

Snowplosion II!

Dylan was mighty stoked today. He's been wanting to learn some new tricks and has been working on front flips when the conditions are acceptable. They were today. Moreover, I suggested that the road at the top that connects Rosary to Perseverance was the ideal huck site. Dylan was skeptical at first, but came around to see the light.

Huck.

Here's another version taken with the rapid fire mode (known as "hi-speed burst" in the camera settings).









That all took place in the span of a couple of seconds.

Here's a video version of another attempt.

He's getting close to having it nailed. A few more powder days and ff will be in the bag.

One last high-resolution blast through the trees.

I think this new camera is going to work out just fine. I need a little time with the manual and a bit more practice and to remember to charge the battery, but other than that, just fine.

I'll leave you with the full version of "Eyes of the World" (Hunter/Garcia)

Right outside this lazy summer home
you ain't got time to call your soul a critic no.
Right outside the lazy gate of winter's summer home,
wond'rin' where the nut-thatch winters,
wings a mile long just carried the bird away.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own.

There comes a redeemer, and he slowly too fades away,
And there follows his wagon behind him that's loaded with clay.
And the seeds that were silent all burst into bloom, and decay,
and night comes so quiet, it's close on the heels of the day.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own.

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own,
And sometimes we visit your country and live in your home,
sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone,
sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
the heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin' brings,
But the heart has it's seasons, it's evenin's and songs of it's own.

Happy holidays!

Christmas Eve

December 24, 2010
9:48am

Well then.

For the first time in over a week I didn't hack up a lung when I got up. Only half a lung. We'll call that progress.

As one might ascertain from the date and time above, we're getting a fresh early start today. For anyone that questions our wisdom, I refer you to rule #3 of the local mountain guide (see post c.f. December 19, 2010). This early start allowed me to get going on dinner preparations (pork tenderloin with a teriyaki glaze, scalloped potatoes, broccoli, salad, and our own special basil garlic bread.) Come on over.

December 24th, 2010
8:00 pm

Home now after a great day of skiing. The illness got the best of Diane, so Dylan and I went up. We took a warm up, and then Dylan wanted to head to SDN to show my the cliff jumps. I struggled through the steep, narrow tree shots--there was no fresh snow to shred through.

Dylan hucks it in the trees.

Skies of wonder abound on the blessed eve.

Skies of wonder II:

Skies of wonder III:

Skies of wonder IV (note Dylan down below):

Skies of wonder V:

Skies of wonder VI:

Skies of wonder VII (Mt Yoran):

Skies of wonder VIII:

Skies of wonder IX (it's windy up here!):

Snowboarding gives you wings!

I'll go out on a limb and suggest this may be one of the best of the several thousand photos I've taken on the mountain. I'm no pro (it sounds like an ok job to me, however), but I seem to get a few good shots here and there. This one is enhanced by the cloud cover. I tried several times to get that shot; it was simply a matter of luck (and a lot of practice with the little Canon camera I use) that it turned out as well as it did. I got it by laying down on the ramp of the jump on riders right (to take advantage of the lighting). The shutter snap was instinctive--a millisecond separates a great shot from a useless one. All of the elements of this one work--the position of the sun and clouds, the grab, the rider's proximity to the trees, even the flex on Dylan's snowboard is just right.

I really enjoy ski photography. I have very few shots from when I was younger--it was not that I did not have the equipment--but more a function of the ordeal of toting it around and using it. Despite photography classes and considerable coaching in the darkroom by my Grandfather, it was very difficult for me to figure out the right exposure settings. The digital cameras changed all that. The camera I use is about the size of a wallet. I stick it in the chest pocket of my North Face jacket (which, by the way is a very intelligently designed piece of outerwear). I leave it on auto settings. It takes less than a second to switch from camera to video. Setting up shots is not a huge disruption--I usually peel down in front of Dylan and set up and within a few seconds it's all over and we're onto the next thing.

Word is that Santa (Diane) is upgrading my camera. Joy, excitement, photos! More about that later.

We head down to twilight to see if T-Dawg is around. He's helping out aspiring riders. What a good guy.

T-Dawg.

What a joy it is to spend a winter day in the mountains enjoying the outdoors. Even though we go to the same place all the time, each day is unique--the weather, the snow, the people. Thanks to my parents for instilling a lifetime obsession with skiing. Thanks to my wife for playing along and thanks to my kids for sharing The Love.

Merry Christmas!