New Years Skitacular!

27 December 2014

Oregon/Idaho border.  Conditions are so crummy in Oregon that we had to bail and go to Idaho. Or through Idaho. We're on our way to Steamboat via Snow Basin, Utah. Day 1 was Eugene to Ogden.

We had some tire problems in Bend (blow out) and stopped in Burns to get some new wheels. Les Schwab had us in and out in 20 minutes...and $486. 

It's nice having another driver. 

We arrived at the Motel 6 in Ogden around 9pm. The accommodations were suitably sleezy.  Or unsuitably sleezy--this will be the last time we stay at a Motel 6. The blood on the floor did it for us.

Tomorrow: Snow Basin, home of the Grizzly downhill from the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics.

Redemption on West Peak

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Last day at The Pass.

The season will continue through May at Mt. Bachelor and Mt. Hood, but this is it for us. I got a grand total of eight days in at The Pass this season. We didn't get enough days to pay for our passes--which was a big disappointment. We were lucky to get to ride at all.

The crowd is a little thin today.

We did a few runs on the runs, which were kind of ok-ish. Then we decided to give the trees a try. We started with Cherokee Ridge on the backside with the intention of hitting the saddle  between Peak 2 and West Peak. We started exploring that area on the last day of last season, with the intent of fully mapping it out this season. That didn't quite pan out since there hasn't been enough snow to safely ski the trees all season.

This turned out to be a good call. The additional new snow overnight on top of last week's snow left about 16" of good pow in the openings. On the first run down the meadows I took a 5' drop while I was angling for an open area. Big surprise, but lots of fun. Dylan takes a slightly different line over smoke shack rock (because there's a smoke shack just to the right of where he is in the photo.

We explored a few new zones today--most of which were great (the exception being when Dylan took the far, far right line and pretty much had to hike a mile back to the lift). This was one of the amazing powder fields.

Dylan winds his way through the trees.

I.

 II.

The view from the bottom of RTS where the trail comes out.  They cut this out in the 90s when speed skiing was an Olympic demonstration sport. Skiers would straight line the 1000 vertical feet on the 54 degree run and hit about 110 mph at the speed trap. I'll pass on that, but it must have been a rush.

After 4 laps we were running out of time since Dylan had to work at 4. We decided to make the 15-minute expedition up West Peak and check it out.

There's my new skis (Armada JJ's) ready to shred down West Peak.

Rock & Roll!

The view of Peak 2 from West Peak (in the clouds to the left). It looks a lot further than it actually is.

Odell Lake through the trees.

Summit party!

Here I am starting my best run of the year. There's some amazing tree skiing on West Peak--1000 vertical of open slots.

Well, there's lots more to explore here. We were pretty stoked on this run and it was a great way to finish the season at The Pass.

I'll be back, but probably without Dylan. I'll be surprised if he sticks around next winter since he graduates UO in June. Bittersweet for me for sure. I'll have to find a new ski posse which could be challenging since the people I've skied with either don't go very often or aren't good enough to keep up.

The upside is that we trained Dylan well. He's got the love and I'm guessing he'll be pining for tree runs at The Pass at some point.

Onward to spring activities!

Winter's last gasp

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Winter finally returned this week. It snowed on and off most of the week. I considered going up by myself yesterday, but despite the 6" of snow, it was 34 degrees at the base and the forecast called for 1/2 to 3/4 inches of rain. You've got to draw the line someplace. My is at rain.

Today the snow report said an additional 4" and it was 27 degrees when we left the house at 7:15. This might be our last chance to get some decent snow in, so it's worth the try even if conditions end up being less than ideal.

Today is the annual "Totally 80s Bash." The pulled out all the stops and had the REI demo crews there. I wasn't interested--I bought a new pair of powder skis this year that I've only used twice so far, and one of those days was in Steamboat. So much for shredding lots of pow.

 Looks wintery enough at the top of High Lead. The snow was a little heavy, but my new skis were up to the conditions. Super fat and floaty.


















Dylan more or less straight lined it through the obstacles. He's the tree-ish looking thing in the middle left.

Woo-hoo, pow, how novel!

The bash included snow rafting, which looks a lot more fun than it probably was. The snow was really slow and the course really short. That's Dylan's friend Courtney in the front left.

While conditions have basically been crap all year, there's almost 7' of snow at the top.

We got around the mountain quite a bit. Dylan went off to ride with Courtney so I took the liberty of checking out the trees. They ranged from not so great to really great depending on the size of the openings. The openings had a good 15" of nice rideable show. Areas under the tree canopy were a little thin and gloppy from snow blobs falling off.

The forecast calls for more snow and colder conditions again overnight, so hopefully we'll get one last crack at it.

Nothing to write home about

Saturday, March 23rd, 2014

Today is officially the first day of spring break here in Oregon. We'll put the emphasis on Spring since the weather has been either sunny or consistently rainy at lower elevations. Today is a true spring day at The Pass.

 Maybe a little too spring-y. The base at the bottom is a little thin now.























Good thing that By George is not the only run. Good thing By George gets the most sun exposure--otherwise all hope would be lost. It's kind of remarkable that they are even able to operate. Given the numbers in the parking lot, there's little probability that they are breaking even on operations. To the south, Mt. Ashland called it quits this week and will not operate at all this year. The higher elevation Oregon resorts (Mt. Bachelor and the Mt. Hood areas) are doing ok. Washington has had pretty good conditions after a slow start.

We ran into The Kid again today. He rode with us a little last year. He was showing Dylan all the jumps.

Dylan liked it. There was not much else to do today.

 Except for tap the stumps.

That all aside, conditions were remarkably ok today. Perfect corn on the less exposed runs and temperatures in the 50s.

All this lack of winter has broken the ski area. We had a discussion with Tim the owner, who said next weekend was going to be it for this year. It's not very surprising, people gave up before it even started. They operate Friday through Sunday next week, so we're hoping something happens to make it a good closing weekend.

Winter passed us by...

Saturday, March 15, 2014

It's been a few weeks since our last ski adventure. This is mostly due to persistent rain which seems to be the pattern every weekend now. It hasn't snowed much since the last post. Between that and the rain, it's hard to get motivated to make the trip.

While the sun is out, the parking lot is a little barren today.


















The runs are a little less so...






















The snow is only slightly crusty.























A few obstacles make the runs more interesting, right?























Leaping over little trees.


















Despite the lack of snow it was good to get out and slide around a bit today. The weather was pristine--no jacket required.

Only a few weeks left for winter to make an appearance. Let's hope for more snow!

Winter might be here!

Saturday, February 21, 2014

Well, it finally snowed a bunch last week. A foot Tuesday night, and more Wednesday and Thursday. I had my schedule set up so I could go up on Thursday, but alas, they were not open until Friday. It looked like the lucky folks that went up Friday got a pretty good day in.

By Friday afternoon it cleared up and got warm. Saturday came nice and sunny so we all piled in and went up to the mountain.
Diane preps for her first day out and it's gonna be sunny.

Diane and Dylan stop on By George. Note they only groomed half the run. The other half was heavy powder with a nice layer of icy crust on the top. Not really skiable.

On our way to the lodge.

Diane swooshes down Swoosh.

Conditions on the groomers were very good. Elsewhere, not so good. In the morning the ungroomed runs were frozen death chunks. They started to soften up in the afternoon and were nearly skiable by the time we left. I spent most of the day skiing with Diane, which was loads of fun.

The good news is that the entire mountain is now open. The bad news is that more rain is in the forecast.

What a season!

Now, for something completely different...

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Well, we got a change in the weather. It started as a couple of inches of snow in town on Thursday evening, which quickly got covered by a layer of ice. Andre closed the UO from 4pm Thursday to 10am Friday. Friday brought another six inches and I mostly got a snow day, which I spent at the studio recording with the Bosworth Brothers since the UO closed again. Lots of fun...but more on that later.

What a difference a week makes. Last week the stick was at 34", this week it's close to 60".  Not enough to be amazing yet, but a whole lot better than we've had all season. Even stranger, we have 10" of snow on the deck at our house but 10 miles east of here, there's no snow. Not so strange, but very annoying is the fact that the City of Eugene doesn't bother to run plows when it snows. So cars a stranded all over and there's basically ruts that you have to drive in.

 Dylan flips out over the new snow.


















II.

 Yea, there's two feet of it and it's really wet and heavy.

Testing out the JJ's in the trees. Conditions were less than ideal--two feet of unconsolidated wet snow. The upside is that skis that are 150 cm at the tip and 100 cm in the middle float really well. Really well. The JJ's are going to be a real kick when we get some good conditions.

I ran into the crew of graduate research assistants that work for me. By this time, I was about ready to leave because I was getting soaked.

They wanted to check out some new terrain so I took them over to Cherokee Ridge.

Erik wasn't quite prepared for the conditions. He'll probably reconsider following me around in the future.

Northern Exposure was in pretty good shape today. I got a couple of shots down it that were really fun. Dylan enjoyed it too. He missed the first two runs down because he his boot broke and he had to to rent some. I left a little for him...


















Driving wasn't a big deal until we got back to town. It's a huge slushy mess out there and from what I can tell the City road crews are perpetually on break.  We missed the full-fledged ice storm today, but it was still here when we got back. Lots of downed trees and ice falling. Pretty spooky. I hope our trees make it through.

We had one of these last year and lost a major limb off of one of the Japanese Maples out front. 

The forecast calls for more rain this week, so hopefully we're into full swing for the season.

Handstands and other such shenanagins

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Dylan busts a move.

















It's February now and the cumulative snowfall for the year is a paltry 63".  Tim the owner had a steely attitude when I chatted with him yesterday. He was looking at the upside--no hat, no coat. I'm still a little amazed they they've able to operate at all.

We got a little snow last week (~4") but Dylan and I didn't have any great expectations that it would be significantly better. So, we were surprised when it was. The new snow covered the ice layer which is providing a solid base, and conditions were packed powder on the back.

Nice and sunny in the parking lot.

The conditions on the backside don't look too horrible.

Except for a few trees and rocks and other hazards.

This explains a lot.

 It's not all bad.






















 One upside is the ability to leap small trees and large rocks.

The forecast is calling for a little more snow between now and Wednesday. A little will keep things running, but what is really needed is a couple of good Cascade dumps in the 24" to 36" range. I remain optimistic that it will happen eventually.

Maybe even before next weekend.