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!