Pandemic Pow!

Saturday, March 14, 2020
Willamette Pass

What to do when the country is in a national emergency and it snows 12"? Go skiing!  There's no better means of social distancing. We had four weeks of spring in February. Flowers are blooming, trees budding, I had to mow the lawn, and my allergies are kicking in.  I was pretty much ready to give up on any more powder days.

Besides, anyone with half a brain has been watching the unfolding global disaster and our inept President's response to it (note that this is the G-rated version). The administration finally did something about it last week and declared a national emergency yesterday. Gee, why didn't they think of that six weeks ago when the first case was recorded in Washington? Maybe because they disbanded the pandemic position on the National Security Council.

The whole thing will probably get pretty ugly, and has a chance of being catastrophic. Even today there are reports of people hitting the bars to party.  American exceptional alright...exceptionally dumb.

The upshot is the snow was an excellent way to distract myself for a day and practice social distancing. There were maybe 25 cars in the lot when I arrived at 8:30. There probably weren't more than 300 people total at the mountain. A huge crowd relative to the reported 8 on Thursday. Willy delivers when it wants to - great snow, great mountain, small crowds. Gotta love it.

Snowing hard when I arrived.

 I think this was the third ride up the chair.

 Nobody on the hill.

 A few remnant skier tracks.

 Wait, there's someone.  There was 12" at the base and probably close to 15" or more in some places.

 Backside chair.

Wait a second, who's that hucking the cliff?

The snow was 12+" on top of hard pack or ice. Skiing the 45 degree Northern Exposure trees was an adventure in avoiding sluff--the mini avalanches I was setting off on every turn.  Keeps things interesting.

 Social distancing in the trees on Cherokee Ridge.

 The sun peeking through a bit on Cherokee.

The Camp Robbers didn't seem to get the memo that there was a global pandemic.  They were aggressively panhandling.  Kind of like hanging out in downtown Eugene.

 Clearing skies.

What a great skiing day. No crowd, no risk, full on pow.  Catherine texted later that Vail resorts was closing as of Sunday.  No doubt Willy will continue to operate. There's not enough people up there to create much risk - at least no more so that, say going to the grocery store which I'm going to get to do tomorrow.

Stay safe and healthy out there everyone.  And vote for someone who is not Orange nor insane in November.

Oregon Bluebird

February 16, 2020
Willamette Pass

Finally.  It finally snowed enough to get me up at 6:30 on a Sunday and head for the mountain.  Eight inches doesn't exactly qualify as an epic dump, but given that it was 50 degrees two days ago, it's enough to check out.  I misplaced my phone during prep and ended up leaving 15 minutes later than I wanted.  I arrived at 8:30 and the parking lot was already 1/3 full.  As always, straight to guest services to get my pass before the line gets outrageous.

In the liftline at 8:50 and watching patrol go up.  Operations were unusually prompt today.

The restless masses await the ceremonial rope drop.

Eight inches was just enough to cover the icy rime underneath from all the warm weather.  As always, the first few runs we're pretty fun.

Went over to the backside as soon as it opened. The Einstein lifty wasn't paying attention when we loaded and the random guy next to me sat down just as I tried to flip the chair down.  I bailed into the pit since riding up with the seatback up wasn't super attractive.  The other guy did it.

Backside I

Backside II

I pretty quickly got off in the steep deep.  This particular line was very steep and pretty deep.  Much steeper than the photo suggests.

First run through the woods was great - I was the first person in so it was all virgin pow.

The Dragon's Back.

In the "I'm insane and wanna die" department, someone straighlined down the side of Dragon's Back. I unfortunately missed this event, but note the line terminates in some very large trees on a pretty steep angle.  I've seen people ride this before, but never straight down.  Props to whoever the mad person was.

As if straightlining were not enough, the second line on lookers right over the spicy basalt was even more insane.  Again, I didn't get to witness this stroke of madness.  Looking at the line it terminates in the deep woods. Much respect for whoever tracked that.  Hopefully they'll posted POV footage on youtube.

The sun does shine in Oregon in February.

Lots of cool misty clouds started rolling in by afternoon.
 

















Diamond Peak and Odell Lake.

Odell Lake.

Overall, a great day.  I left around 2 - it got warm and the snow started consolidating.  More annoying was the number of people making tracks through my private stash.  The ski team shredded part of it (good for them, bad for me).  The word apparently is getting around.  I blame social media and bro culture. Modern equipment doesn't help--it allows people to do things beyond their ability.

I was home by 4:30.  Since it was still light and the lawn was exceeding 8", I mowed the lawn and raked some leaves.  Then I went and put a coat of paint on the downstairs bedroom I've been working on.  All the repairs are starting to come together.  They need to - my guess is we'll put the house up in about two months.

Hopefully I won't have to wait another month for the next powder day.  The season is passing right before my eyes and I want to get as much skiing in as possible.  Right now it looks like the next pow is at least 7-10 days out.  Ugh.

33" = All Time!

Wednesday, January 15
Willamette Pass

Weather update: the storm track I discussed Sunday delivered.  In fact, it exceeded expectations and dropped 33" between Sunday night and Wednesday morning.  I was pretty happy when I got up at 6:30 and looked at the snow report that I had cleared the meeting schedule Wednesday in the event that might happen.

We hit the road at 7am and arrived about 8:30.  The snow report was no fluke - there was at least 33".  What a day to play hooky!

Nick came with the shred the gnarr today. 

Ace.  Good call.

Bet the lifties didn't envision this level of manual labor would come with bumping chairs.

The doors in the race room are blocked for the season.

The parking lot was a little fuller than I hoped. Pow...it's catching on.

When I bought my pass I made a comment that I thought it would be a miracle if the EPA lift spun at 9am. 

We stood in line for about 10 minutes and it quickly became clear that it was going to be a while.  So, we went over to Twilight and did a couple of runs there.  The runs on the bottom just didn't have enough angle for that much snow.

Nick shreds the gnarr at the bottom of By George.



















EPA finally spins and there's some blue sky!

I.

II.

The trees were where it was at today.  Nick plays slalom with the Doug Firs.

At least 33".  It skied pretty well--not exactly Champagne Powder, but fluffy enough.

Nick went in for a while and I billy goated into SDN.  It was pretty cool.

Nick explores the winter wonderland.

I found a zone in the afternoon that was untouched by the am crowd. Willy sells skiing by the hour and at least half the crowd disappeared at noon.  It was fresh tracks all afternoon. Unfortunately, they never opened the back side.  Nonetheless, pow reigned supreme today.

The forecast was for 25 mph gusts in the afternoon. Those materialized and it was a little bitter on the top.  That said, a little wind didn't slow us down.

Overall Evaluation: top 10 of all Willy days - maybe even top 5.  Stoke levels were maxed out all day. 

We left around 3:15.  I had a call with a consultant in Hawai'i that invited ECO to team on some elements of the South Maui area plan.  I took it in the car on the way home.  Sounds like interesting work--but it probably won't require field work.  Too bad - I'm fully prepped for a trip to Hawai'i.

At the end of the day, I figured I would be completely beat.  The gnarr stoke carried me through our recording session in the evening.

Let it snow!

Willy's Back!

Sunday, January 12, 2020

It's finally happening--the storms started last week and dumped 3' of snow in the last five days.  Willy opened for full operations Friday.  It snowed 13" Friday night but I couldn't go because we are experimenting with extended curriculum at the beginning of the term for Workshop this year. It was killing be to be in class right when I should have been jumping on the lift.  I tried to convince myself it wasn't going to be that great since there's only a 40" base.  People I rode up with didn't really support that hypothesis.

As always, I try to be out of the house by 7:15 on a powder day.  I left a few minutes after 7 and got there about 8:35.  I barely beat the rush at the ticket counter - it started backing up a little while after I got in the queue.  Word was that it was 40 minutes long at one point.  Sounds like a Willy move.

9:04am Waiting for rope drop.  In typical Willy fashion, they were warming up the chair when we should have been loading.  At one point someone said it was going to be an hour.  I didn't believe that, but I figured it would be a while.

Then this happened.
I.

II.

Having two chairs stacked that close to each other is something new.  Fifty-two years of skiing and I've never seen that one before.  At that point I bailed the line with Nick and Rebecca and we went over and took a ride on Twilight.  EPA was open by the time we got to the bottom.

Conditions were pretty darn good when I finally got to the top.  I got a couple of rippers on High Lead and Timburr and then headed for the trees.  I caught up with Nick and Rebecca in line after a while and Nick and hit Eagle's trees.  They were pretty much untouched and really nice. Then the rope dropped on the backside and we headed over there.  The Northern Exposure trees were the run of the day for me--knee deep floating through the trees on a 45 degree hill.  Can't beat it.  What I could beat was the line that had piled up at the Peak II lift.  They were loading every second or third chair and had some story about weight.  Willy's giving me lots of confidence about the safety of the lifts this year.

I underdressed and was pretty cold by the time we got back.  Nick was supposed to meet Rebecca in the bar so I went to the car and revived my dead phone and got some new hand warmers. 

The Willy slogan.

The afternoon was all trees.  Great stuff.

The author.

An unspecified location in the woods.  It's much steeper than it looks.

The snow be piling up.

It was a full on blizzard when I got back to the car.  There was 3" of new snow that I had to clear off and lots of snow was getting in while I took my boots off and got ready to leave.

The forecast calls for more snow all week and a winter storm warning through Wednesday morning.  Feet of snow are called for.  I plan on playing hooky from work Wednesday.  Looks like it might be amazing--and better than today. 

Willy's back!