Here’s a sweet chute Mike and Andy Traslin hit this past May off of Duffey Lake Road located in the Cayoosh area just outside the town of Lillooet, BC, Candada.

Short vid of the day below

The pics and VIDEO below were from a “sidetrack” on a larger tour w/ Andy Traslin, Sky, Eric and Naomi this past January. Mt. Rethel is in the “Wedge” zone just past Whistler, North on the way to Pemberton along the sea to ski Hwy.

looking towards the North Couloir

Booting up the hanging snowfield that connected the chute to the summit. The Chute had a massive cornice and the guys didn’t know the magical passage up the hanging snowfield was there until nearing the top.

Sky’s “first tracks” – reward for kicking the steep steps.

below is a short vid of the North Couloir on Mt. Rethel.

One of my favorite areas to ski and just chill out w/ amazing views, Skyline Divide. The day started w/ the sweet sounds of the raging Nooksack River and my coffee brewing on the stove at the Douglas Fir campground located just outside Glacier, WA.

Nooksack Falls located upriver from the Douglas Fir campground

Jumped in the van and headed for Glacier Creek Road just like the day prior but this time instead of heading straight up the road to the Heliotrope TH. This time we took the first left (fs rd 37) just after turning on to Glacier Creek Rd. and headed for the Skyline Divide TH which we were told by the rangers at the Glacier station the snow would stop us a mile or so prior. The rangers thought we would be solid snow from where we parked to the ridge but we had to carry skis a quarter mile or so along the road and once we hit the actual TH we had to pack the skis again for at least half of the trek towards the ridge. Great July skiing!

first nice tasty line once on the Skyline Divide

hittin’ it w/ Trooper dog (photo by Travis Simpson)

looks like I just missed a glissade class w/ a few thousand people

short vid below of the day

I was stoked to be back in the Cascades to start out July w/ a tour on Mt. Baker the 1st, the zombie walk in Fremont, WA w/ “The Staxx Brothers” live the 2nd, and Silver Peak the 3rd (just before heading back to Baker on the 4th).

The day on July 3rd started out w/ low clouds and some light rain, so I decided to stay put right at Hyak until it cleared up a little more right around noon. Wanted to get the boot pack in for a change of pace so I parked at the Pacific Crest Trail head. Walked up the PCT to the first creek crossing and was surprised to see so many trees blown over and up rooted. The second creek crossing was just the same making the normal quick get to the snow at the 3rd creek crossing a bit longer. Once at the snow line just above the 3rd creek crossing I was able to boot the entire way to the Silver Peak Cirque climbing under the Silver Peak Ridge to the NE Bowl, up Miller Time to the lower dome ( where I ran into the Starfish Magazine crew doing snowskate sled laps w/ a couple brauts still hot on the grill). After a braut and some yakking we all made our way to the Cirque for some STEEP snowskating (not me). Note: All of these snowskaters in the video below are world class “level” snow boarders that make advanced terrain expert only by basically riding a skateboard down the steep pitches (with a short ski mounted below it).

Snowskate sled laps

This awesome day started w/ the wakeup along side the mighty Nooksack River (just beyond Glacier, WA) w/ super high water volumes flowing and the occasional big BAM BAM BAM… Of boulders tumbling under the water by our campsite down the river. After breakfast it was off to the Heliotrope TH just across the road and up Glacier Creek road to start day one of two. We were told by the rangers in Glacier that a large slide had covered the bride just beyond the TH earlier this year with deep snow still remaining. Skins on 200 yards or so from the car with one spot along Grouse Creek just below the basin we had to click out and scramble up through some young alder trees. Not much to say after that except great weather along w/ superb snowpack, small sun cups, EPIC views and super stoked to ski w/in 200 yards of the car. Oh yeah, I do want to mention that I backed this edit to The Staxx Brothers’ live performance of “Westsound Union” at the July 3rd, 2011 zombie walk held in Fremont, WA. A couple of great days a couple of dayz apart.

Nooksack River as seen from campsite just outside Glacier, WA.

We chose not to go for Heliotrope due to the broken up fall line and large traverses loosing a lot of vert. We headed for Grouse Ridge then over to the Shark’s Fin. Great skiing!

Below is a short vid of the day and a tiny bit of the zombie walk.

Below is the entire live performance of “Westsound Union” by The Staxx Brothers. This song is from the album “We Are The Blaxstonz” and can be purchased on itunes.

I get tired of watching ski movie trailers or teasers on weird players and finding them in all different places. So, just in case any readers do as well, I decided to put all of 2011’s trailers in one place and try to use vimeo solely. This is what I’ve got so far. In my book All.I.Can and MSP are winning the battle of trailers, but they are all pretty sick. What do you think?

8/6 – Added Sweetgrass Productions latest.

7/22 – Added Field Productions’ latest.

The Sherpas

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So, thanks to UnofficialNetworks, this is the first forecast I’ve seen of next winter, and it looks great for us! I don’t really take these as supremely accurate, but I can still hope it all comes to be! I’d really enjoy another year of great snow, minus getting served up with that craptastic month of January.  To read more about the forecast check out their page.

I have been on the road since this trip into the Selkirks a couple weeks ago, so I am now just getting to the backed up edits. This was my last ski in Idaho on June 29th w/ Obadiah and Cassidy. We met up at the Samuel Conoco (US-95 and Upper Pack River Rd.) and started our 30 minute drive up the Upper Pack River for the Beehive Lakes TH (trail head). One good sized snow patch kept us from reaching the parking lot by 1/16 of a mile. Walked down to the TH, crossed the foot bridge and skinned for 15 minutes before we had to boot pack for the next mile or so. The walk wasn’t bad on the well maintained trail, and soon we hit Beehive Creek (which was crankin’!!!) and it was skins on from there. Pretty sweet zone, so take a peek at the video and put it on your Idaho hit list for next year. Note: This entire area from apx a mile before TH is a NO SNOWMOBILE area, so plan on skinning in the extra distance.

North Beehive Lake

The Snow Troopers have been hitting the Summer sun cups pretty hard the last couple weeks from the Sierras to the Selkirks, a quick stop at Silver Peak (Snoqualmie Pass, Wa), and now just returning from 3 days skiing around Mt. Baker (Squak, The Shark’s Fin, and Skyline Divide- video trip reports coming very soon).

The last day in Glacier, WA was yesterday and we thought of hitting Artist Point for some BIG sun cup skiing, but the clouds that rolled in were super thick and low. We decided to stay below the cloud cover and play the sight seeing game knowing how much water volume was flowing down the mighty Nooksack River from the last two days of blazing sun. We missed out on a first hand conditions report from the Baker ski area BC. What I do know is the WA State DOT has begun plowing the road up from the Heather Meadow parking lot, but will be a while yet before they complete the tremendous task. Below is a video from the DOT and their recon trip up to Artist Point June 29th.

Just wish the sun cups would get the late season memo too… You need to get above 6,000′ now for the sweet smooth ride.

Below is some of Heather Meadows’ melted snow seen flowing over Nooksack Falls 7/7/11.

Mt. Shuksan as seen from Skyline Divide 7/6/11

The last two pics were taken yesterday at the Taylor Shellfish Farm located off the epic Chuckanut Drive that starts in Bellingham and dumps you back out on I-5 just North of Hwy. 20. A fantastic way to break up the short drive back to Snoqualmie Pass.

The oysters don’t get much fresher than this!

Just a quick video of my long “rest stop” at Sherman Pass, WA that broke up my drive from the Cascades to the Selkirks. Sherman Pass is located between Republic and Kettle Falls, WA and offers a sweet quick steep ski off of Sherman Peak right from the car (Winter & Spring). Being the middle of June and on the tail end of a big snow year I had to walk up the trail for apx 15 mins before it was “skins on”. Note: If you are heading up for a quick one and are pressed for time park in the pull out just East of the actual parking lot which will save you ten minutes and 100 vert’ feet. The elevation of Sherman Pass is 5,575′ w/ the TH a little lower just on the East side of Pass gaining over 1,600′ to the Summit. The other nice note about this zone is the massive fire back in 1988 which now gives a sweet burnt tree ski w/ a sustained slope of apx 35 degrees.

Below is a short vid of the windy, cloudy shot up Sherman Peak.