It snowed again Thursday and Friday after a week of warm weather and rain. It was time to head up and punch day two of my five day pass. The resort hyped up the ski report:
It's going to be a great day. We've had 20" of new snow in the past 24 hours! Join us today for the best skiing and snowboarding around.It was partially accurate - it was a great day, and in my view, was the best skiing around. The 20" of new snow was a tall tale. It was more like 8" with most of that coming early Friday. According to the DOT, it snowed 3" Friday night. The DOT report was credible.
Since it was likely a powder day I got up at 6:45 am and packed my stuff up and was on the road by 7:20. The benefit of leaving a little earlier is that traffic is lighter. The drive was uneventful and unmarred by slow drivers even though the road surface turned to packed snow at about 3,500'. I arrived at 8:45 got ready and went up to the lodge to collect my punch card and get a pass. I didn't quite make first chair, but the line at guest services went remarkably fast. I've mentioned the lack of customer service in previous posts so I'll skip it here.
I didn't take many photos today--not much new to shoot. Like last time, I spent most of the day in the deep woods seeking out fresh lines.
Did I mention that Willamette has the best tree skiing I've had the opportunity to experience? Not yet in this posting, but I've spoke of it pretty extensively in the past. I'll stand by the statement. Dylan and I spent years exploring the the woods at Willamette Pass and found many excellent lines. I'm expanding that knowledge this year through a systematic exploration of the fringes of places that we skied many times in the past. In my two visits this year I've worked through new lines on Cherokee Ridge and off West Peak.
Cherokee Ridge is located on the area of the map below that says "North Face Backside Trails." It's outside the ski area boundary and goes further north off the map. Dylan and I explored this area on breakeven day in 2012 (see post Breakeven Day 2012). That day we went up to the top of the ridge on the Pacific Crest Trail and explored. There was a lot we didn't find, but I'm working on it now. There's a couple of clearings way out on the fringe that dump you into the clearing at the bottom of the lift (see the map below) that hold a lot of snow relative to everywhere else. I've been getting boot deep uncut powder out there when there's only a few inches other places. Moreover, going down to the clearing adds another couple hundred feet of vertical. The only downside, if there is such a thing, is the short walk back to the lift. They run the cat through there so it's packed and it's totally worth it.
The other place I've been exploring is the area that says "proposed trails" on the map. I propose they never cut the trees since I've already mapped out dozens of great lines in there. I broadly call it the Bullseye trail since there's a bunch of red bullseyes painted on the trees at the bottom that guide you down to Duck Soup (the green trail on the lower left of the map). There's some excellent terrain in there--in one spot you literally bomb down a ridge to a 20' rise that takes you to a 200' vertical foot clearing that's probably about 35 or 40 degrees in slope. It's 10 of the best turns you'll get anywhere on the planet.
I'll be systematically exploring the "proposed trails" all season. Dylan and I hit some of the best terrain on our initial journey over to West Peak in March 2013 (see West Peak). It was amazing and we'd just scratched the surface when the season ended.
Here's the view from the "proposed trails."
I'm hoping it snows some more so I can continue my explorations. Dylan should move back here and give up the bumpy powder of Colorado that's always tracked up by 11am.
Nothing beats a Willamette Pass Powder Day!
