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Oh well, that's winter sometimes, when you stay in one place. It was partly cloudy with warming air temps and an annoying wind on the ridge. All the good snow has been wrecked by the wind. It's time for inbounds skiing appreciation...
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Hooked up with Roy later and enjoyed a Square Top Loft. Nice. We were all pretty tired and beat up from yesterday's storm mayhem and inbounds shredding.
]]>I grabbed all my gear, as if it was going to be a backcountry hiking day, but soon found I needed only the chairlifts to get the nice deep powder. Skied inbounds until 3:30 then headed into the backcountry for a couple of DEEP runs, one on Loft and the second on lower Corn Bowl. Trail breaking was tough and sloughs were moving fast and scary on steeper terrain so Micah and I headed down (near darkness) and barely got on the gondola for the download. Super wet, but really nice day. Tomorrow should be premium!
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Snow was two things, soft and hard, depending on whether it was groomed or not, shady or not. Even the UVs were getting through the gloom to the south and east facing slopes.
One guy on the lift, joked, "It doesn't get much worse than this." I stared at this newby of the mountains and said, "Yeah, it does."
When I was a boy I sat on a lift on Mt. Bachelor, Oregon that was broken for an hour in 40 mph wind, with rain and sleet coming in sideways. I cried until I had no more tears. My Mom told me, "this is where they send bad boys in Hell." That made us all laugh...
Bring on the pow!
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This is how I felt skiing today...
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I did not expect much as this was the ski conditions report from the Utah Avalanche Center, "It's all-you-can eat crust skiing and riding out there, folks. Wind crust, rime crust, melt freeze crust - supportable, breakable, trap-door and rail-road."
I went all the way to the summit of 9990 Peak. It was very nice and calm. Food for the senses kind of stuff. I stood up there for a while, checking everything out (for the 4000th time), then dropped into the GNAR, north face, super steep Charlie Brown/Red Pine Chutes. I always forget how long and steep these lines are. They are great in the powder, but it's so far to the bottom, to go back up to 9990 (requires long traverse, multiple runs and two chairlift rides to get back up top). When it's really hard, conditions are slide-for-life. But on this day, it was surprisingly soft and carvy. And, it teaches you how to ski again. Steep, rocky, and hard is skiing...
]]>I am writing this blog post, so as you can see, I made it out alive... but it wasn't pretty for the other folks and who knows, the ski patrol probably had their hands full on their final sweeps.
]]>Side note: Most skiers and snowboarders who call the Central and Northern Rockies their home have a dramatically over-inflated sense of their actual skiing and riding abilities because of the normal SOFT conditions. Hardpack variable conditions make you a real skier... like these guys
]]>To add insult to injury it felt downright dangerous in the afternoon in the backcountry with rollerballs, pinwheels and wet slides.
Time to head to the high elevation, hard packed, north facing inbounds terrain.
Didn't I say yesterday it was time to go do work...
]]>The rule of the day was beware of the roof-alanches at home (keep the dogs inside!) and the warming slopes in the mountains. The only (sort-of) good thing was the end to the constant wind of the past 4-5 days.
This is about this time in the winter when you go home and get work done, rest, and prepare for the inevitable return of the powder!
]]>Back to our dirty high. Late start, short finish in the gloom. Snow is still soft, but too many tracks everywhere.
]]>So I went up on the lonely ridge to perform my daily ski glove testing. Most days I wear different gloves or mittens on each hand. And sometimes even different sizes to test breathability, warmth and a whole bunch of other nuanced variables. I am partial to the long cuffs because they are just so practical and functional. Short cuffs go on and off super easy if they have a knit wrist, but alas, the knit wrist compromises many vital performance variables like warmth, dexterity, and grip (knit wrist does not grab the wrist and hold the palm in place), but the market sure does demand it.
I love the Velcro cuff for glove performance, but it does require break-in time to have a looser wrist. Next year perhaps we'll have both.
Back to the conditions: snow is still pretty good, but there are lots of old tracks and wind damage to the snow. I sense some inbounds appreciation days coming...
]]>I had a rather new and clueless person ask me, "Do you have backcountry gear?" It was a rather pointed question with attitude. I just laughed, because when I go skiing I look like the poster child /definition of backcountry skier with gear. Under "backcountry skier" in the dictionary there is a picture of what I look like on an average day. Old-school beanie hat, I-shred sunglasses, shell jacket with half my gear stuffed in my jacket so I look like I'm 9-months pregnant, stuffed backpack, alpine touring boots, alpine touring bindings, alpine touring skis, extenda-poles, and a fairly hippy attitude. If it's not totally obvious to you that I have gear, then you are totally out of your element in the backcountry and you'd probably better head back to the security of the resort...
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What amazed me the most is that I saw none of the crew. Not sure what in the World they were thinking. Skied Owen's Trees several times, then a hit a homerun hugging the LOFT trees on Square Top. Great day!
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Powder can also be your enemy.
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Did I say it was super wet, as in wettest day ever. When we got back to ski area, the whole place was shutting down at 2 pm due to wind. It was very windy and raining hard. Brutal fun stuff only Oregon boys, like me, could love!
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