An amendment to the National Forest Ski Area Permit Act of 1986 was passed by Congress this week and is headed to the President for signature. The amendment expands use of ski areas on US Forest system lands to include snow-sports other than nordic and alpine skiing and additional seasonal or year-round recreational activities and facilities. The act clears the way for such ski areas to add summertime activities such as mountain bike parks and trails, zip lines, rope courses and frisbee golf courses but expressly prohibits tennis/golf courses, swimming pools, water and amusement parks. 8 WA ski resorts- 49 Degrees North, Crystal, Mission Ridge, Mt. Baker, Ski Bluewood, Snoqualmie Pass, Stevens Pass, White Pass – are on National Forest system lands so this bill could help those resorts expand into 4 season resorts and boost hiring and revenues. We love it! And hope this means our resorts will extend the ski season and keep facilities open to support summer ski touring. Yeah!
Whistler’s Camp of Champions is not only an amazing “park” camp for both the amateur and pro snow riders but a camp to get noticed for your filming and editing skills. The Camp of Champions has $25,000 in schwag to give out for the most liked video submitted to the contest. Here is a link to vote for a sweet edit by our 16 year old friend and local Snoqualmie Pass snow rider, Jasper Wesselman. Check it!
Here’s a look at some new developments you can expect to see at WA, OR, ID, MT and AK resorts when they open this season:
Our bro Robert Jarlenäs out of Borås, Sweden did quite a bit of jet setting last season hitting some epic areas all around the world. This is their season edit so grab your morning coffee, or that evening brew and sit back for this sweet 13min vid.
Early October turns for Andrew Eckels, Jacob Mandell and company up on Chowder Ridge’s Hadley Peak as seen in map below.
Chowder Ridge is located at the end of Cougar and Skyline Divides and links to two ridges. Killer zone w/ some of the most epic ridge walking views to be had along the approach.
Mt. Shuksan as seen from Cougar Divide
Andrew and Jacob accessed Chowder Ridge from Cougar Divide which is located off of SR 542 @ Nooksack Falls (apx. 20 mins beyond Glacier, WA) . Take Wells Creek road all the way to the Cougar Divide trail head where the nice long ridge walk awaits.
Mt. Baker w/ Chowder Ridge front and center
Short vid of the day below… Check it!
Andy Traslin sent this post down from a trip back in May just outside Pemberton, British Columbia. In a huge 10,400′ day Andy completed a hans solo trifecta, hitting Joffre Couloir, Matier, and Slalok. I guess “hans solo” isn’t exactly right because he ran into a heli group for Joffre Couloir. Below are some more notes/pics from Andy about the day along w/ the vid @ the bottom of post.
My late friend Chris Hansen gave me the advice you shouldn’t work on your birthday. I took his advice and took off to Joffre to climb and ski a few peaks. On the skin up Anniversary I saw a heli fly overhead with a basket. I got to the Aussie couloir and started booting up, I looked back and saw tracks on the NW face of Matier.
NW face of Matier
Weird, no one was up here, Half way up a group of four started skiing towards the couloir. I couldn’t believe it, they got a heli drop on Matier. I waited because I didn’t want to break trail for a heli group.The group caught up to me and they mentioned they we’re heading for the Joffre couloir.I was on my own so I decided to join them, No harness or gear but the snow was much better on that side.
Joffre Couloir
No rappel was needed and Andre dropped in first, I was left 5th and not much snow remained, there was a few patches of new snow, but quite a few turns on icy conditions. I had left some gear at the base of the Aussie, so I had to tour back up the baking Anniversary glacier, I got back to my gear and cooked some soup and fell asleep for an hour. I felt refreshed when I woke up and started skinning towards Matier, I wanted to put a 10,000 foot day in.
Apparently one of the heli droppers tomahawked down the NW face of Matier and lost his helmet camera.Conditions we’re setting up with some cloud cover and cooler temperatures. So I climbed Matier and skied some boot top pow on the NW face. With energy to spare and time. I took off towards Slalok, which was my original plan. So I b-lined it for the summit and really put the hammer down. I arrived around 6pm on the summit. I tested the top of the face, the corn was set up and it was a wicked velvet run down the stonecrop face
Stonecrop face
It’s begun: Snow has been falling in the sierras, wasatch and rockies! Mammoth Mtn. reported 18″ new since Tues. They’re scheduled to open on Nov. 10. Keystone’s scheduled to open earlier on Nov. 4. Others scheduled to open before thanksgiving: Alta and Vail on 11/18, Snowbird 11/19, Park City 11/20, Beaver Creek and Steamboat 11/23.
Our friend and Moment Flow Team athlete, Jamie Baril, sent this sweet edit over to share.
The vid was filmed and edited by Abe Krieger who is a high school student in Western Washington w/ excellent edit skills. I guess credit is also needed for his classmates who get out there and huck it all year long.
Here are a few notes from Abe about the vid below…
Family Vacation is a new series that documents what exactly skiers from Washington State do with their time. Episode 1 covers the last couple weeks of summer before school started up again. It included a trip to Timberline, jumping off bridges, trampolines, BBQs, and plenty of astro turf action.
Here is a sweet short vid Andrew Eckels sent over from his new “home base” zone. Andrew and Jacob are now attending Western Washington University which means they will be BAKER bound every chance they get. They had hoped to reach Mt. Baker’s summit but turned around at the Roman Wall due to apx 50 MPH sustained winds that were gusting up to 70 MPH. However, due to the Sept snow that fell up high, they found super sweet “Coleman Glacier” corn.
Below is the short vid of the day.
The NW weather was looking really nice the first week of September so we headed for Glacier Washington to get a couple days of skiing. The first ski day Sting and myself met up w / Andy and Mike Traslin at the Hannegan Pass TH parking lot to start our long beautiful approach in tennies. If you are traveling light as possible using a water filter, take a break at Hannegan camps to fill up one last time. Note: Hannegan Camps are located a 1/2 mile or so below the pass.
After completing the easy 4 mile walk to Hannegan Pass, a steep scramble awaits as you leave the main trail heading toward peak 5963′. A couple hundred feet up the goat trail you will end up on a bench (tennies off ski boots on) heading climbers left around peak 5,963. I would recommend bringing boot crampons and an ice axe ( & ski crampons for Ruth ) for this section which isn’t too steep of a traverse but is exposed.
Once you round the backside of peak 5,963′ we walked a small section of dirt then skins on and smooth sailing to the summit.
Below is a short vid of the day.
