The Snow Troopers

Tim Souquet, in radio contact with Jeff Rich, prior to Carl Simpson dropping the summit.

Last weekend, a nice sized group met out in the Teanaway Valley for an early Cascade corn harvest. After putting their eyes on Mt. Stuart during Saturday’s ski day, Jeff Rich, Carl Simpson and Tim Souquet all decided to go for Ulrichs Couloir. I was quite impressed, first with the backcountry party/light show that kept these three up to midnight+, then the fact they managed to summit and ski before 1PM (starting apx a mile before the TH).
 

Below are a few words from Jeff in regards to the super long, sweet ski…
 

Skied off of the summit at 1:00. There was a little concern of some hidden slab potential, as there were a few natural releases that had occurred on the summit face, most likely the day prior. Booting up to the summit, pole probes indicated that the snow was good to go, on the skier left of the face.
Fast running sluff, but easy to manage.
 

There is a pretty good runnel at the dogleg, but can easily be navigated around. We skied down to the waterfall terminus, for desperately needed water, and boot packed back up a few hundred VF to the skiers right exit. where a fun, short gully drops you out on to the fan.
Was able to ski all the way to Ingalls Creek.
Snow was pretty much good top to bottom.
Go get it!
 

This past Saturday (5/13/17), Woods, Michelle and Andrew spent a BIG day up on Goat mountain, located in the North Cascades, off of HWY 542. If you’ve ever skied the Mt. Baker ski area on a clear day, you most likely have seen Goat Mountain, amongst the many peaks to the North.

Jeff Rich dropping the steeps of Mt. Pilchuck, a “Lost Ski Area” of WA State.

Jeff Rich and Carl Simpson recently returned from a road trip, where every main course featured CORN! Looking forward for the edits to come, but in the mean time, here’s a fresh one from a trip Jeff took up to Mt. Pilchuck this past Wednesday (5/10/17).Thinking the random snowboarder he captured rocking the steeps, was Greg Phillips. 🙂

Andrew Eckels in the slot for lap #1.

Hot lap with John Adams, who is the co-owner of the Glacier Ski Shop, located in Glacier, WA. If you’ve ever made the journey to the one of a kind, Mt. Baker ski area, you would have passed through Glacier, which is the Gateway to the ski area.
 

I met John years ago during a trip to ski on the actual Volcano (circa 2004- Feb), Mt. Baker, and my bro Dale had been shooting the breeze with John (in his ski shop) as I made my way North from Snoqualmie Pass. Dale Boehm, who’d grown up exploring the BC in that area for years, let me know John had a lot of knowledge, as they compared notes of past trips. Well, a bunch of years later Adam Roberts (RIP) came into my life. As Adam and I shared many adventures in the short time he showed me how to live, he often spoke of John Adams, helping him (Adam) as an athlete and always speaking of his incredible skill climbing and descending BIG mountains. I happen to know this first hand, because the trip years ago in Feb, I captured John climbing and skiing Grouse Ridge (outside Glacier, WA) like a BEAST! The dude is really a monster, but a kind one as you’ll find out when you stop into the “Glaicer Ski Shop”. 🙂 As you can see, he happens to like groomers too!

Andrew Eckels in the slot for lap #1.

On Friday April 21st Andrew Eckels, Stefan Knorr, and Rob Bolton met at Snoqualmie Pass for a tour we all had fairly low expectations for. We’re in the thick of the transition period between winter and spring and the snowpack has been pretty isothermal. Telemetry indicated there might be some good snow in high north facing chutes so we ventured up towards the Slot to see what we might find.

Topping out at 8:30 AM we were delighted to discover the slot was filled with 8 inches of untracked stable powder!! The snow was creamy and skied bottomless and smooth! After digging around and ski cutting the slope we dropped in and were blown away that we were skiing steep powder in late April at Snoqualmie Pass!

Stefan sniffin’ out the good on Snoqualmie Mtn.

Initially we had only planned to go for one run but our lap was so good and it was still so early we decided to head back up and check out the Snot, a couloir to the lookers right of the slot. We got on top of it and found many cornices baking in the sun and overhanging the run so we decided to bail and go for another lap on the Slot instead. Our second lap skied just as well as our first and we hooted and hollered the whole way down. The exit ski back to the car was a slow sticky leg burner but we were too stoked on our day of epic steep skiing to care much. We capped off the day with beers at the Dru Bru with TNT!

Check the video for great stoke on April pow skiing! There may still be some more days like this before May!

Scott Sumner taking the pups for a walk. 🙂

Took a walk in the backyard with Scott Sumner and his two pups, Sophie and Olive. The weather experts were a little off today, to our enjoyment at high noon. Some earth is starting to show itself, so it won’t be long at 2,600′.

Here’s another recent edit, Andy Traslin has just kicked out from this past December. He and his brother, Mike, were skiing the SW Trees, outside of Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Andy Traslin has been doing a little editing lately of some of his early season adventures. This trip was just outside of Vancouver, BC, skiing into the sunset with his brother, Mike.

Jeff Rich was recently on a road trip with his daughter, where they manage to catch some great resort skiing, along with cool looking “late season” BC. The video opens up with a crew of local Jackson Hole destroyers getting rowdy! Looked like an awesome trip, they had and I am looking forward to our “post season” ski gatherings.

Last Chair @ 5420′, in the heart of the Central Cascades.

A couple of days ago (Sunday-4/9/17), we saw a mix of weather from 5420′ to 3140′ above sea level, in the heart of the Central Cascades. It truly was a “Spring Conditions” (aka variable) day at Alpental, spending most of the day riding the corn, lapping chair 2. However, in between the sun breaks, that kept the snow soft in it’s variable way, we did see cold snow falling, off and on all day. It was a quiet day for locs, and the “last chair” group of Alpentalics (seen above) got to take it all in, as the clouds finally lifted. Deanna and Randy Aadland (an awesome true blue Alpental couple, had their daughter, Vanessa, return from an Epic LONG trip to Guatemala. So, I was stoked to actually meet her and ski with all three of them (maybe someday her two brothers as well). Our last lap in the bc, proved to be very testy but super fun! Another fantastic day in the home zone.
Live to Ski Another Day!