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!

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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.
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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!