Warmer temps and sun arrived in time for the weekend for a change. Anxious to enjoy it while I could, I headed up Alpental on Fri. The air temp was 63 when I got there but surface temp was 81 per WSDOT. There was about 3-4″ new on top which sloughed easily but otherwise, the snow was in great shape and skiing was fantastic. Here’re a couple of pix.

Memorial Day 2011 I met up w/ Obadiah and Cass around 10AM to get a nice sunny walk in at Schweitzer Mountain along w/ a little “safe” skiing. I say safe because this Spring the NW we has received so much late snow making the BIG lines outside ski areas quite dangerous for wet slides, so a sunny worry free day inbounds was welcomed.
We started our day thinking we might sneak a car assisted lap in off of the South Ridge, but decided to head up the Great Divide and play on the backside. First lap was down Australia’s trees which was a little pasty so we headed for a better aspect “Revenge”.

below: looking back at the Lake Side Chutes sweet 30 to 35 degrees pitch after our first lap down Australia’s glades. Please note: I just checked out Schweitzer’s new trail map to get the correct name of this zone and noticed they say this area contains “mandatory drops” however this is incorrect by our standards of “mandatory” where you are boot packing back up and out for 30 mins or so… All cliffs in this zone can be traversed out of if you ski down on them w/ out climbing back up.

Bingo… Great corn found on Revenge and was the first true spring corn I have skied this season. It was manditory to climb up and hit it again. Revenge is a really nice roller that reaches apx 40 degrees at its apex. (didn’t scale this one w/ my slope meter but skinned up it). After 3 laps on the backside we made our final lap down JR(which is mostly melted out now) right after PBR and thoughts of those that gave their lives so we could be free to “freeski”. God bless America!

Below is a short vid of the day.

Packed up the gear and headed East across the Columbia Basin for Northern Idaho’s forecasted poctket of Memorial goodness. First ski day out of Sandpoint Idaho was a trip up Bald Mountain w/ my boy Trooper. I have wanted to hit this 6,000+ peak for a few years now, seeing it in the backdrop from most spots in Sandpoint. The ski is super mellow w/ the average slope angles in the neighborhood of 30 degrees( false summit seen on left of pic).

The trail head is pretty hard to find w/ a lot of no trespassing signs the entire way out Baldy Mountain road. Take Baldy Mountain road from Sandpoint all the way out to a 3,600 ft. pass just to lookers’ left of Bald Mnt, at the pass a road will turn to the right and split off to 3 roads a few hundred yards later. At the junction the trail head starts just to the left of far left road( see pic below).

The trail is kind of hard to follow in places but it is pretty straight forward and easy traveling up the ridge to the snowline for a late season walk w/ the pup.
Great views of Lake Pend Oreille (ponderay) and the surrounding mountains.

Decided to head over to Crystal Mtn. today after they reported 3″ new overnight at the summit, 2″ at the base and temps in the low 20s and 30s respectively. Day started out nice with great viz, sun breaks and great snow conditions but it was cold (snow level was at 3600′).

Then around 2, the clouds moved back in bringing more snow. By 3, it was full on winter again for Memorial Day weekend — if it snows like this all night, it’s going to be epic tomorrow. Btw, Cayuse Pass is now open.

Here we go! Episode two of the Alpy team edits, with myself, Shaun Maurer, and TNT. More storm riding footage and some sun breaks shralpin the BC. Maurer and I exploited much of what Wall Street had to offer and found a rad new roller to boost just left of the Cleaver. Maurer and I have been working harder at finding new lines in zones that we always ride, sunshine, hummux, Wall Street, and the like. We found a couple new routes down the sunshine area and I think somewhere I have it on cam, if I do I’ll throw it in episode 3 Holy smokes the snow was deep and light during a couple of these dumps, gets me all excited just thinking about it. I’m continuing with the Love + Light music here, I like their beats.

About all I can do is day dream about fresh, go golfing, and hope that we can get some decent weather so the homies and I can get back out into the mountains via steel steads.

TNT is on his way over to Sandpoint to enjoy some pizza and shred with the Idaho bros. I think he might be getting tired of the mash potatoes and rain around here

Ski day #2 on the Olympic Peninsula was intended for Mt. Washington but after the extended mileage due to snow still on the lower road, we all opted for Hurricane Ridge. So packed up the car camping gear and made our way North along the beautiful Hood Canal to Port Angeles, WA and the short drive up to the Hurricane Ridge ski area (which is closed for the season). This was our first time here on snow so we were excited to check out this two rope tow mountain. I figured out right away that the “bunny hill” rope tow that is front and center is about the only beginner terrain in this area (at least as far as the eye can see). This place is an epic spot for the randonnee folks wanting to get a little more downhill in that uphill (& we’re talking: as little as 10min, easy uphills). The ski descents off the backside of the rope tow start at about 500′ on average (if you stop at the road) but they are steep and FUN and the farther out you go, the longer the descents get. The snow conditions were a little more consolidated so skiing was more typical for this time of the year, FINALLY!!! Photo below shows our skin tracks in red & our laps down to the car in blue. Can’t wait to get back to this tiny little gem w/in a gigantic crown of jeweled peaks (Olympic National Park).

Hurricane Ridge, WA 2011.05.20 Sweet Car assisted Laps

Video of the day below-

WSDOT has just announced: SR 20 North Cascades Highway reopens Wednesday at noon!! This marks the second latest since the highway opened 39 years ago. The latest ever was June 14, 1974, and the next latest, surpassed by this year, was in 1976 when it reopened on May 21. WSDOT maintenance crews will open the east and west winter closure gates on SR 20 to traffic at noon on Wednesday, May 25. The clearing effort took more than 6 weeks, compared to just 3.5 weeks last spring. Nine feet of snowfall in March and a record 7.5 feet in April on the western slopes of the Cascades kept avalanche control technicians and snow clearing equipment on Stevens Pass until the avalanche threat eased and allowed the team to move up to the North Cascades. There, they found SR 20 buried in snow as deep as 75 feet. “The crews are really pleased that the highway will be open for Memorial Day,” said Don Becker, WSDOT Twisp Maintenance Supervisor. The noon reopening allows crews time to “sweep” the entire 37 mile winter closure zone for sand, rocks and debris between milepost 134, seven miles east of Diablo Dam on the west side of Rainy Pass 4,855 feet above sea level and nine miles west of Mazama at Milepost 171 below Washington Pass, elevation 5,477 feet. When the gates swing open, drivers should find the road conditions bare and dry or bare and wet across the entire route. The forecasts for the next few days calls for high temperatures in the 60’s with a 30 to 50% chance of rain and a freezing level of 5,000 to 6,000 feet.

Weather was looking good for a two night car camp on the Olympic Peninsula and try for Mt. Ellinor (5.952′) the first day and Mt. Washington the second. Jerad, Sting and myself met Patrick just before Lake Cushman Thursday morning and started our journey up the fs road toward the Mt. Ellinor lower trail head (knowing we would hit snow apx a mile or so before). Parked @ 1.880′, walked over the first 100 yard snow patch then carried the skis for another 1/2 mile before it was skins on til the upper TH. At the TH we had to boot once again for a bit then hit the snow in the timber and we were good to skin again.

Skinned up the “climbers route just below the ridge and boot packed the remaining 100 feet. Once on the ridge it was an easy 10 minute walk to summit. (view of Mt. Rainier below)

About 20 vertical feet from the summit off the North side of Mt. Ellinor is an epic 45 degree chute that dumps into a HUGE bowl. Looks like a circumnavigation of Ellinor/Washington is a must for next year. The pic below is looking over the entrance.

The last pic is beer-thirty at the Lake Cushman viewpoint w/ Mt. Ellinor out of picture to right. This is also where we talked about the sweet car/small skin laps to be had at Hurricane Ridge the next day (which we did and were stoked) and bagged the Mt. Washington summit for this year.

The Traslin Bros sent a sweet video to share of their Cheakamus Mtn. Descent. Cheakamus was a bonus ski descent on their April 23rd Spearhead Traverse day which followed the Summit of Mt. Baker the day prior(which just made my legs cramp thinking about that). Below are some of Mike’s notes about the two BIG days.

Day 1 Mt Baker Summit and ski…

Up at 4:30 and by 7:15 we were at our start point..(2500ft)Which added about an extra hour and a half.(Beautiful powder on the up) track was set, I found out later by Louie Dawson and Gregg Cronn.(Thank You).A good steady pace on a classic route to summit 14 and maybe 20 or 21 for Andy.Andy decided we should do some extra laps after skiing from the summit. 28km travelled 10,500ft ascended…

Day 2 Spearhead Traverse and bonus Summit and Ski of Cheakamus Mountain…

With a great weather window,good avalanche stabilty,the stage was set for a challenging (fun?) day. 10000ft ascended…37km in a 10 hour push….

Amazing to ski Cheakamus Mountain in powder conditions.(note we left at 11:30 from the Blackcomb side) great skin track set by it seemed the 100 or so people were doing the Spearhead traverse).Unknown to us there was actually a group of three doing Mt Cheakamus from the Whistler side.Thank you Matty Richard..Dominic Melanson…Tim Grey for setting the track…and my brother Andy with his Chris Pronger like anger getting us all motivated to go to the true summit…

May 14th, 2011 was a long day us starting w/ an eight AM start up the Kendall Clearcut to hit the El Dorado Chute. El Dorado is a nice steep chute on the backside of the Clearcut draining into the Commonwealth. The total vert gained is only 1,800 feet which was perfect for the big day or should I say night ahead.

Once we finished the ski and skinned along the freeway in the trees back to the TH by Yellowstone road it was time to start heading down to Ballard Washington for one of our favorite bands, The Staxx Brothers, new CD release at the Tractor Tavern.

Epic long day/night w/ the highlights of the day backed w/ a nice LOOONG live jam from last Sat night.