The Snow Troopers

April 28th & 29th at our home mountain, Alpental, we broke a Western Washington record by not receiving any precipitation on any of the four April weekends. The weekends prior had blazing hot sun blasting down on the freshly fallen snow making for a sticky situation on the “untraveled” terrain. We did receive 8 inches of new snow 48 hours prior to this past weekend’s reopening, however we had cloud cover keeping the wet snow fast and fun! The best terrain was anything super steep that had slid during patrol or during daily play, leaving a somewhat firm bed surface. Just like most skiers, I love the powder skiing more than anything, but I have to say there is something special about our Alpental May Dayz (even if they are grey). Alpental will be open this upcoming weekend for Cinco de Mayo (& the 6th too) with the weather experts calling for a great stretch of sun starting just in time. Below is a video skiing with a bunch of friends this past weekend. They included a bunch of junior rippers, good friends, and Nate Fears (the Scot Schmidt look a like) rocking 215s for Long Board Day.

Top of Edelweiss gathering for last bc lap.

The May Day storm yesterday dropped several inches at Washington’s passes. Snoqualmie Pass at just over 3000′ was no exception. It was just enough snow to make today super soft and fun as we climbed and skied Hyak under the sun – check out the video below. Alpental, which re-opens on Sat. for Cinco de Mayo, is going to be off the hook with snow this good. Nearby Granite, Lundin and Silver all look tempting too- in fact, last photo below shows that many have been getting sled served turns in at Silver already.

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Chris Davenport on Mt. Rainier

Chris Davenport, Daron Rahlves and Jess McMillan have announced that they’re on their way to the Pacific NW to ski our volcanoes during their “Ring of Fire” tour from May 4-21. They plan to summit and ski 16 or more Cascade Volcanoes in WA, OR and Northern CA that define the Pacific NW section of the “Ring Of Fire” including: Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington, Three Sisters, Mount Bachelor, Mount Thielson, Mount McLoughlin, Mount Shasta, and Lassen Peak. In an earlier post, we reported that Chris Davenport, a World Extreme Skiing and Freeskiing Champion, who has already skied all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000’ peaks in less than a year (and wrote a book about it), named Mt. Rainier as his choice for a “must do” ski mountaineering destination in National Geographic. So, we knew he was a big fan of our volcanoes. Daron, a former U.S. Ski team star, super G World Champion and Hahnenkamm champion with 12 World Cup victories and X Games ski cross gold, was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame last year together with fellow Tahoe legends, Glen Plake and Shane McConkey. Jess McMillan, a 2x Freeskiing and 3x Freeride World Tour Champion and more, will be joining the team from her home base at Jackson Hole.  Jess, who had set goals to ascend 20,000′+ weekly in prep for the trip, reported that she ascended 27,798 vertical feet in and around JH the week before last. Sounds like they’re ready to conquer our volcanoes! Chris, Daron and Jess: Good luck on your tour -we hope to see you in WA soon.

Mt. Baker

With April coming to a close, we have an update to our previous post “Where to ski and ride in May”. Much has changed and all open resorts have scaled down ops, so please check for lift status before heading out. Washington continues to lead the nation in snow pack. With Mt. Baker now closed -but better than ever for backcountry skiing & riding as evidenced by video below of fellow Snow Troopers, Andrew Eckels’ climb/ski of Mt. Shuksan earlier this month, ALPENTAL takes the #1 top spot for deepest snow in the U.S.: 203″ @ its top elevation of 5,420′. With a winter weather advisory calling for heavy snow of up to 12″ today and tonight for the WA Cascade Mountains, our skiing is going to be unrivaled this May. So there’s no doubt that we’ve yet to see some of the best spring skiing and riding days this year. If you like riding lifts, then this latest list of U.S. resorts will keep you going well into May and even beyond (conditions permitting). Reach out if we missed any. And for those who love venturing into the backcountry, look no further than the WA Cascade mountains and volcanoes which you can ski and ride every month of the year (no heli needed -for more info, check this post). Here’s Mt. Shuksan (accessed from Mt. Baker’s White Salmon lodge area – more details to follow in separate post):

Alaska
Alyeska (current snow depth: 33″ bottom/162″ top) – open Fri-Sun + last day Memorial Day

California
Alpine Meadows (current snow depth: 76″ bottom/142″ top) – open Fri-Sun last day 5/13
Donner Ski Ranch (current snow depth ??) – open Sat-Sun. until snow is gone
Kirkwood (110-115″ top) – open Fri-Sun Last day 5/6
Mammoth (3-6′) – open daily, last day 5/28

Colorado
A-Basin (33″ mid) – open daily, last day 6/3

Idaho
Silver Mtn. (68″ mid/90″) – open “Silver Saturdays” all through May (if not June)

Oregon
Mt. Bachelor (122″ bottom/153″ mid) – open Thurs-Sun, last day 5/27
Mt. Hood Meadows (129″ mid) – open Sat-Sun, last day 5/6
Timberline (162″) – open daily all spring until 5/28, then daily all summer until last day 9/3

Utah
Snowbird (80″ mid) – open daily until 5/13, then Fri-Sun, last day 5/28 (OR 6/3?)

Washington
Crystal (86″ bottom/128″ top) – open Sat-Sun all May + Memorial Day, TBD: Sat-Sun all June AND July.
Stevens Pass (108″ bottom/138″ top) – open Fri-Sun last day 5/6
Summit At Snoqualmie: Alpental (115″ bottom/203″ top – NOW #1 DEEPEST SNOW PACK IN THE NATION!!!) - open Sat-Sun, last day 5/6 OR LATER?
White Pass (77″ bottom/167″ top) – open Sat-Sun, last day 5/6

Speaking of Mt. Rainier and “many great days to come” (in below post). NOAA has issued a Winter Weather Advisory for heavy snow @ higher elevations near our WA volcanoes, namely Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier: THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT WILL BRING FAIRLY SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL TO THE CASCADES. THE SNOW LEVEL WILL FALL TO AROUND 4000′ LATE TODAY AND THEN 3000′ LATE TONIGHT. THE HEAVIEST SNOW WILL OCCUR OVER HIGHER ELEVATIONS NEAR THE VOLCANOES WHERE 6-12″ OF SNOW IS LIKELY. THE MAJOR HIGHWAY PASSES SHOULD ONLY GET 1-3 INCHES OF SNOW MAINLY TONIGHT but NOAA has forecast up to 8″ of snow for top of Alpental by Wed. Let us know where you’ll be skiing and riding this week. If you need help deciding or just need to sharpen up on backcountry and ski touring skills, be sure to check out the classes and trips offered by Pro Guiding Service. We posted a video of what their classes and trips are like so check it out here.

The attached video is a trip to Mt. Rainier National Park this past April 23rd, to hit the classic Nisqually Chutes. The skiers included Silas Wild, Zack Jessel, Jeff Rich, Tara and Carl Simpson. This killer ski is located about half way down your descent from Camp Muir (if you go that far) on the skiers right. When conditions are good, you can squeeze a 6,000′ ski from Camp Muir all the way down the the Nisqually bridge. However, if you happen to be the real hearty ski mountaineer, then ski from the top of Rainier which will give you a 10,500′ descent!?! Deep Snowpack baby, with many great days to come!

Nice lunch spot before the sweet ski.

Nisqually Chutes

Another great day at Alpental. Not blue bird but it was warm, in the 50s and there was 6″ new on top. We ran into 2 folks who competed in Crystal Mountain’s freeride competitions this past month. One was Anna Thompson, a 10yr old who placed 1st in the Triple Crown Junior Freeride competition for her age group last week. We’re going to call her airess Anna because she has the ability to catch air on just about every other turn. She’s definitely one to watch.

We also ran into Nick Caruso who’s the 1st competitor in the King of the Hill freeride competition video we posted here. He finished 11th in that Crystal Mtn. competition skiing on Moment’s Bibby Pros -Right on. TNT met him a couple of years ago when he was employed by the summit learning center. He now is an instructor at Deer Valley and also spends time ski touring the Wasatch mountains.

We’ll have some video from today later on so be sure to check back for that. In the meantime, we hope to see you at Alpental on Sunday 4/29 – 9-4pm — it’s Long Board Day: so get out those old, straight 210cm+/- skis and meet in lot 4.

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Brad on the cover of Steeper and Deeper

Black Diamond Rush cover shot

Vertical Reality cover shot

This past weekend was one for the record books in a bunch of categories. One of those categories being the hottest AND the deepest snowpack day ever. The other was catching two pros on film at two different Summit at Snoqualmie ski areas. We caught up with our friend and 10 time Warren Miller athlete, Brad Vancour for some old school bump skiing. For the “record book”, I filmed Brad right after what we Alpentalics love to do under the spring sun: sharing some drinks with good friends in lot 3 with the rays blasting down. I guess it wasn’t very cool to ask if I could film him after a 3 hour “lot 3″ tour, but I did anyway because he’s “Rad” Brad Vancour. Check him out DESTROYING International’s HUGE bumps. The other pro athlete we caught up with was Moment skier Sandy Boville out of Ontario, Canada. As I was saying in a post a few days ago, Sandy is road trippin’ and found himself returning to Central Park for a 2nd time after having such a good time a few days prior. I wish I could have caught a few more clips of Sandy but at least I caught his laid out back flip towards the end of the video. Summit Central is now closed for the season along with all of the Summit’s base ares EXCEPT Alpental. We received 8″ of snow at 3,600′ in the last 24 hours that has now settled to 6″, keeping Alpental’s base over 200″ going into this upcoming weekend – YES, WE’VE STILL GOT THE 2ND DEEPEST SNOW PACK IN THE U.S. INCLUDING AK (only WA’s Mt. Baker beats us). Also, just had a small Hyak lot bbq w/ some friends just coming down from 6,000′ where they say 8 to 10 inches of fresh N. face pow! See you on Chair 2 tomorrow at Alpental!

WSDOT reported today that due to heavy rain and snow that produced unstable avalanche conditions (yup, snow in late April – it’s even snowing @ 3000′ up at Snoqualmie Pass right now), clearing work was suspended and will resume on Monday. Hence, the North Cascades Highway SR20 won’t open 1st week of May. However, our heroic DOT teams are now about 7 miles apart and hope to clear the way to open in time for Winthrop’s 49’er Days on May 12 & 13. The Eastside team is now at Liberty Bell Avalanche Chute #3 where the snow is about 60’ deep and their western counterparts are just below Rainy Pass.  The Eastside team is near Washington Pass where TNT, Andrew Eckels and Jacob Mandell backcountry skied on both sides of Blue Lake Col last June. You can read that report here and also see the video of that ski trip below.

I was stoked to have met and filmed with Sandy Boville, the first Moment Pro Athlete to ski Summit Central’s Park (as far as I know). Sandy is road trippin’ from his home base in Ontario, Canada and had hit Central last week. Having such a good time last week, he came back for some more this past weekend. Sandy was recently over in Big Sky, MT, where he ran into the Toy Soldier Productions guys and kicked out an edit of some park laps. Check it & check back tomorrow for our “Summit at Snoqualmie” weekend edit which will have some nice shots of Sandy.