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!