December 30, 2019, 10am
Mt. Ashland Ski and Snowboard Resort
The snow this year has been pretty intermittent. It rained a bunch in August, keeping fire season at bay, and then has been pretty dry with the exception of the Thanksgiving Bomb Cyclone. That dropped some snow - but not much.
Willamette is under "limited operations" on weekends. The way to read that is that there's not enough snow to open. They've opened the lower mountain, but there's nothing of interest for me. So, we decided to skip the $119 tickets at Bachelor and go ski Mt. Ashland for $52. Another positive - I've been wanting to ski there for three decades and never made it. Dylan was game - which was good because it's more than three hours each way.
We left at 6:52 and arrived just after 10. The Rogue Valley was foggy, but we broke out of the fog and into pristine sunlight. The view from the parking lot. That big lump is 14,179' Mt. Shasta - the second highest mountain in California.
The lodge.
The retro sign.
It was an interesting summer. I'll retire next June and so we're getting the house ready to sell. It's been a big project. My summer project was rebuilding decks and deck railing. That turned out great, but on July 3rd I was playing ball with Zoey and she slipped a disc and was paralyzed for several days. She has recovered enough to walk on all fours but has permanent nerve damage in her left hind leg. That took a lot of emotional energy and a fair amount of money. She seems to have adjusted pretty well to her new limitations.
In August, nephew Parker got married so I went to Colorado with Dylan. Diane had an abscessed tooth so she ended up staying home. The wedding was at Ten Mile Station at Breckenridge and was quite lovely. Dylan came out before and we drove back together stopping at Strawberry Lakes and City of Rocks on the way. Both were very cool.
Since then we've been getting rid of stuff - many garage sales - and painting. We spent a good part of the week working on the basement and having all of us work on it helped move things forward substantially. We didn't quite get to a finish point on any of the projects so Kayla and Dylan didn't get the satisfaction of seeing it all put back together, but we should get there by the end of the week. We'll get somewhere!
Back to skiing...
One unusual thing about Mt. Ashland is that the parking lot and lodge are at mid-mountain. You ski down to get to the lifts which take you above the mountain. The view from the ticket booth into the foggy valley.
The view from the top of Ariel lift and the top of Mt. Ashland. That's Mt. McLoughlin in the background. Mt. McLoughlin is a mere 9,499'.
Ashland is a pretty cool little mountain. It's small by most standards - 1,150 vert, five lifts, and 240 acres. What it lacks in size it makes up for with heart and soul. It's a nonprofit - which means it's purpose in life is skiing not a platform to sell real estate. It's got a sweet new lodge, and friendly employees who keep the lift line bumpin' with great tunes. More than half the runs are expert. And, the bowls. The bowls are pretty awesome. Technically they are out of the ski area boundary, but patrol allows access as safety permits. There a little short, but there's some spicy terrain in there. I counted five chutes--three of which we skied. The other two didn't have enough snow and had more sun exposure which meant they were boilerplate hardpack. Neither were places you would want to fall. In fact, falling on any of the chutes is probably not a great idea.
The bowls from the top.
The bowls from the bottom. There's some pretty spicy terrain up there. Chute 1 is to the left and mostly out of the picture, Chute 2 is the narrow slot to the left of the big rocks, and Chute three is in the middle. They are much steeper than this photo suggests. We started with Chute three because it looked the funnest. It was pretty good until about halfway down where it became boilerplate hard pack. Not terrible, but not terribly fun either.
Riding up the Ariel lift. It was pretty quaint riding slow doubles with the pole in the middle. Reminded me of the old Eskimo Chair at Winter Park.
Dylan.
Dylan at the top of the second chute. That's about a 10' vertical drop off the cornice.
Dylan throwing a method off the cornice at the top of the second chute.
Three-quarters of the way down.
The money shot of the day. Dylan takes a 10' plus leap off the cornice.
A little closer.
Mt. Ashland is not that big. We hit all of the runs and rode all three lifts that weren't the bunny hill.
Dr. Evil's lair at the top. There's a bunch of microwave relays on top of the mountain that give it the appearance of some mad science experiment.
Ariel lift looking out over the Rogue Valley.
Mt. Shasta.
Dylan on Aha!
It was a lot of driving, but we were both glad we went. I got in trouble for not waking Kayla up - she wanted to go explore the City of Ashland. I misunderstood a comment she made last night as that she didn't want to go. She got some painting done instead, which I was thankful for.
I would go back to Mt. Ashland and recommend it to anyone that wants to experience skiing the way it should be. It's a great little mountain and has to be amazing on a powder day. The bonus for people in Ashland is that it's only 15 miles from town. I could get on board with that pretty quick.
So, check another resort off the list of places I've skied in Oregon. I've hit eight of the 13 resorts. My plan to hit the rest of them this year was foiled when Travel Oregon did not fund my grant application to do another economic impact of skiing in Oregon study. That was pretty disappointing, but maybe for the better as the season has been slow to start and I have a lot of work to do on the house. I may re-apply next year when I'm semi-retired and living on the beach. Who says you can't run ski studies from Florida?
The forecast for the rest of this week looks somewhat encouraging - it's calling for modest amounts of snow at the pass. I hope they get enough to get going. It's going to take a couple of big cycles before I start getting excited. I hope it happens - the clock is running down on my Oregon ski days and I'd like to get at least five powder days in this season. Ten would be better. I've tried to keep my schedule as clear as possible so I can go up during the week. Fingers crossed.
