avy death toll thus far: 6. Other News

A snowshoer was killed by an avy last week. That takes the death toll up to 6 now (in the pnw). That is quite a few. Heartbreaking.
We're getting a lot of new snow. Think I'll dig a few pits this weekend, for the sake of interest.
Skied sweep Christmas eve with some other instructors and patrol. They had so few people on hand, it was tough. 7 skiers were missing, one an 11 year old boy. The boy was found pretty quickly, barely out of bounds. The other six were in 3 pairs, and had gotten turned around trying to find the Doughnut. Ended up circumnavigating the back side of the mountain and went down the Hell Creek drainage (I think?). They were all very lost. The first pair hosed it up, and the next two pair of skiers followed those hosed up tracks. One kid fell into a creek, over his head, with all of his ski gear on. Amazingly, he was the first to make it out. He reached a payphone and called for help. He was the worst off of all of them and is in the hospital. Everyone else -- while shaken and cold, made it out eventually with the help of patrol and SAR.
That was my first taste of skiing sweep. All i did was ski down the hill and then wait around for a few orders, got none, and went on about my business. Saw Jefe a couple of times but didn't get a chance to talk to him obviously. I would not like to do ski patrol. It was scary. And I was stressed out all night worrying about the patrollers and worrying about the kids. What a crummy Christmas eve for those families. So glad that it turned out okay with everyone alive.

No Hogback This Weekend (12/15 - 16/07)

Instructor clinics still. Avy danger considerable to high. Coverage: windloaded on the leeward aspects and bare on the windward sides. New snow too. And nobody to go with by the time i was ready to get out to the doughnut and stuff.
They've started cutting runs and a lift line. The USFS is being sued for their handling of the expansion.
We're getting snow though, and my time will be freed up soon for clinics and stuff. Plus, I have (yet another) sinister master plan which involves night tours. I can't say anything more.

Hogback Expansion

After some 20 odd years of trying to expand lift-assisted skiing out to Hogback, White Pass is finally on it's way to getting lifts out there. This is good for White Pass, and will open up a lot of area for people. It just makes me sad to think of Hogback being bridled and passive rather than wild and at times unattainable. Of course, there is even more territory beyond Hogback that will be opened up as a result of the expansion... but damn. So, my goal this year is to get as many trips out there as possible. I will write reports about that.
My other fear is that White Pass will lose a lot of its current charm. The R.V. lot will start charging, locals will be crowded out by new blood, prices will increase and drive the "usual suspects" out. Already a bottle of beer is $4.25 in the bar. I will not be drinking in the bar. Yet another place where I fit will become foreign and hostile toward me and people like me. Perhaps this won't happen, but we'll see. Until it does, I'll be enjoying the hell out of my little world as it is now, and as I love it.
So, I'll be posting a number of Hogback trip reports on here. This will be somewhat of a project -- posting conditions, pictures, and details of the trip -- moreso than my usual lah-de-dah trip reports. If you ever want an update on the Hogback Expansion, look for my posts with the "hogback" category label.

So, Hogback this weekend (12/1 - 12/3): unattainable. Base is unstable. Avy just waiting to happen anywhere you look. With some sloughs in-bounds, I didn't even consider trying to get out to hogback. Hopefully warmer temperatures in the next day or two will consolidate the base and firm things up. Next weekend I have avy class, so Hogback will likely not be an option as I'll be in Hood.

Whistler, B.C. Back Country - The Phrase of the Week is "Down"

Double-click the slideshow to expand. Photographers: Teresa Oliver, Jayme Helgeson.
Down, the noun.
We were to leave on Wednesday for Whistler. I knew I'd be camping backcountry. I also knew it would be clear and cold. And, I knew the best I had for a sleeping bag was a 20 degree bag. Wednesday morning I went to REI and purchased a 0-degree down bag, a down jacket, first aid kit, and compression sack. Okay, THEN I could consider backcountry snowcamping.
My pack would contain: down booties, down vest, down jacket, down bag, down sleeping mat. I would not get cold. Period.
Like I can get anything done...
I was so worked up over getting on the road to snow, I couldn't concentrate. Work, obligations, responsibilities -- I just wanted to ditch it all and get on the road as quickly as possible. We left around 2:30. First stop, Seattle, to pick up Jayme -- an acquaintance from my favorite ski forum on the planet. Jayme wanted to ride up with us and spend the holiday camping in the backcountry. I wanted to ski a bit with Kevin and company, but wanted to camp also. So, I planned on getting to know Jayme on the drive up to Whistler, then skiing with my friends, then joining Jayme at Singing Pass.
If I were a baseball player, I'd have great stats
I mean, I've met a number of folks from this ski forum and you wouldn't believe how cool they've all been. I mean, really. So, of course Jayme was just great. He set out Thursday morning for Singing Pass, and I stayed and skied with Kevin. Thursday evening I met some more contacts from the forum at Garibaldi's Lift Co., a bar/grill at Whistler. They planned on skiing out to Singing Pass to meet us. The party was comprised of Kevin, Kathy, Andre, James, and Hiroshi. WHat a laid-back, friendly, organized crew. We enjoyed beers before returning to our respective condos.
Where the Hell is I-5?
Friday morning Kathy and Kevin and the rest of our condo contingent headed up the hill. I stayed behind to pack my gear for backpacking and to load the truck. I planned to skin out to Singing Pass to see Jayme and camp there. My pack weighed over 50 pounds with the tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, clothes, fuel, water, food, etc. etc. The highest I could get via chair lift was the Whistler Gondola, a forty dollar (canadian) ride that still left me over 2 miles from the Whistler boundary, which was 2 miles from my destination at Singing Pass. I struck out from the Gondola at 1:00, heading for what appeared to be a well-trod skin track.
The skier traffic thinned out considerably, and soon I was all but alone, trying to find my way out to Flute and the boundary of Whistler. THe many cat tracks and trails made it difficult for me to judge the easiest route out, so it took me a fair amount of time. I kept looking for "the obvious route" -- a narrow ribbon of ski-tracks punctuated by ski-pole divots on either side. Really, a skin track is the most beautiful snow-sculpture in the world. As I left the more heavily-used area of Whistler, ski tracks began to converge to one skin-track heading south. I was on my way, finally.
I headed toward what I knew had to be Flute, the first summit I needed to make on my way to Singing Pass. After climbing that, it was to be a long gradual down-hill to a saddle between Flute and Oboe, a climb up Oboe, and another long gradual downhill to Singing Pass, and camp. Jayme and i had an appointed meeting time of 3:00. But, I was barely at Flute by then. Fortunately, we had radio contact. Jayme skied over to Flute and met me. We skied our way out to Singing Pass. Thanks to his encouragement, I made my way out there by moonlight, arriving at 6:30 or so. The last bit down Oboe was incredibly tough, my legs were exhausted, the waist-band of my pack dug into my hip-bones, and my feet were sore. Jayme was fortunately very patient, and he was looking forward to having some company out there. We had a nice meal of hot chocolate and freeze-dried dinners, then set about melting snow for our water bottles for the next day. The two stoves glowed in the vestibule of his tent, warming us a bit, and offering some light. The evening was beautiful.
Goose Down
Hoar frost developed down in the pass, creating an effect like a sea of swan-feathers over the snow. It amazes me how nature mimics itself -- the feathery hoar looking exactly like goose down, but crunching and tinkling under our skis like shards of glass. Even in the moonlight, fields of snow sparkled and glimmered. I often stood outside the tent that evening to stretch my back and look out over the pass and the sparkling snow. Trees cast shadows over the snow. There is probably nothing better or more satisfying on earth than arriving in camp of your own volition, being surrounded by trees and snow, and having a belly full of hot food.
We crawled into our bags and settled in for the night. My mummy bag almost couldn't accommodate myself, my boot liners, slippers, jacket, ski pants, and everything else i stuffed in there to keep warm and keep from freezing in the night. Frozen clothes suck. I pulled the hood tight around my face and fell asleep in a cloud of down.
Saturday, we skied
"You know, I think down is a bad idea for you, it's not conducive to skiing. You just stay all wrapped up in that sleeping bag." Jayme had a point. I had no desire to move out of the tent, given I was swaddled in a cushy bag and comfortable warmth. To say I was a slow-riser was an understatement.
We melted snow for oatmeal, tea, and whatnot, and got ready to hike for some turns.
So, as much as I love skin tracks, you can't always trust them. The one we took led straight into a perfect avalanche zone. Jayme had me go first. I concentrated on various escape routes I could take in the event of a slide, and wondered if peeing my pants would make my poly-pro freeze to my legs. I didn't like it there, in spite of the secure-looking skin track.
We reached the top of Cowboy Ridge and took a photo, then made our way down. Jayme is a hot-shit skier who made the run look like some sort of exotic tango. I hacked my way down on wobbly legs, using my face for brakes. Still, it was fun. We heard from Andre, the Saturday group was approaching Flute, and we had enough time to meet them at Oboe. We began the uphill slog to the top of Oboe.
Oboe had much better snow on it, and the Saturday group (James, Andre, and Hiroshi) were just reaching the saddle between oboe and flute. We skied a nice little bowl and then skinned back to the top of Oboe. I was feeling tired by then. We met the group at the top of Oboe. Kevin and Kathy had turned back at the top of Flute.
We skied Oboe, taking turns with the video camera and other filming paraphernalia. the snow turned heavy as we reached the trees and after about 831 face-arrests, I was done for the day. The rest of the crew wanted to do a short run on Cowboy before heading home, hoping to reach the last gondola down to town by 3:00 or 4:00. The hoar frost had developed into quite the layer of shaved ice -- beautiful and eerie all at once. Andre and I stayed in camp and rested.
The crew came back to camp and headed for Whistler around 2:45. Jayme and I watched them depart, a bit sad to see our friends go, but also somewhat enjoying having the place back to ourselves. Some little black and grey birds harrassed the shit out of us for bits of granola, all but stealing food from our hands. Little shits are aggressive. We watched the crew slog up over Oboe and out of view. We set about adding some snow blocks to the walls around the kitchen and fixing some dinner.
The night cleared off quickly and temperatures took a fast drop. We ate dinner and sheerly out of wanting to keep warm, burrowed into our respective bags. It was too cold to even stick your arms out of your bag to read, so we reluctantly went to sleep around 7:00.
Ice formed on the inside of the tent at night, and I had a bit of frost around my bag where my mouth and nose were exposed for breathing. It was very cold that night. We woke up and started packing, and even as we laid stuff out to put in the packs, frost formed on our gear. I did and didn't want to get out of there. I looked forward to a dip in the hot tub and a shower, but I hated the thought of the long slog out with that insanely heavy pack. I also was quite fond of our little camp and the view from there.
Bluebird day
Sunday was the clearest and most beautiful day of the entire time there. Our hike out was uneventful, taking us about 4 hours. We arrived at the groomed cat track, de-skinned, and skied down to the gondola. Skiing with a heavy pack is no more relief that hiking with the damn thing, so I welcomed the gondola and a chance to sit down and rest my legs and feet.
We dropped our bags at my truck and settled in with a pitcher of beer at the Longhorn.
The drive home: uneventful and long.
Kevin tried to get me in trouble at the border crossing. Fortunately I have the "dumb blonde" role mastered and we got out of it without a $500 fine. We did suffer a lengthy ear-bashing, but I think the border agent was smiling some of the time.
All said and done, it was an absolutely magical trip: beautiful, harsh, amazing, and exciting all at once. Thanks Jayme for everything, and for helping me out there!

Jayme made a fun video of the trip too, watch it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfqZk-NRsWc

SPAM

I tried Spam last night. I'm getting in the mood for the White Trash Party. I never knew what the hell the stuff was. Now I do. This has not enriched my life in the least, but has given me noxious gas and bloating. Can you get Irritable Bowel Syndrome from Spam? Seriously. I had to take two tagamets.
I cut it up into patties and pan-fried it. Holy hell it stunk. It's almost convinced me to go vegetarian.
The Mud Wrestling pit is coming along very nicely. Got it all dug out yesterday. Today i'm laying the tarp and filling it back in. I'm thinking i'll add clumping cat litter -- it has a high clay content and will make it a bit more slippery... Rather expensive additive... but our entertainment depends on this.
No other news to share.
Oh, Ron is coming over this morning so we can practice our bad-ass Meatloaf karaoke. It'll be da shit. Or just shit. ~WE~ will have fun.
I'm caring less about how the house looks and focusing my energy on how much fun I want everyone to have.
No, i gotta go fry up some balogne for the party. ;)

September and October Turns

I'm just going to roll this into one trip-report. All zero of you who read this better not complain!!!
Went to Mt. Hood on Sunday the 30th of September. How's that for cutting it close? Saturday was a great day of paddling on the Middle White Salmon and going out to listen to Tony Furtado. I did not kayak but rafted. Just not ready to kayak on the MWS. I'm a better paddler than i was when I broke my neck there, but I haven't dedicated the time to it that I should... and I still have some mental issues about whitewater. ~sigh~ well, that's a different story. Anyhoo, it was a beautiful day with some great folks.
The next day I met CornDog up at Mt. Hood. It was pissing down rain. Warm. Sticky snow. In sum, it sucked. Well, in as much as skiing could ever suck, that's how much it sucked. It was better than a day on the couch. CornDog's a good-natured guy, and brought his dog, Annie. Oh man is she a cute dog. She's got this crazy wire hair like a terrier, and a whiskery face.
Anyway, so he seemed pretty knowledgeable and he led us up the hill and we skied back down a ditch. The snow was sticky and stiff and bleah. Rocks were visible and it was actually a bit scary, especially since i didnt' have a helmet or kneepads. duh.
We then went to the lodge and had a hot cuppa cocoa. Decadent. It really was a great day.
Then this last weekend (the 6th?) I went up and did it again. This time i met Jamie and we had our dogs. We met CornDog and another guy (justin) in the parking lot and did the same run that CD and I did the week before. No rain. Decent snow. Much better coverage than the prior week. It was really a lot of fun with a great group and the dogs had an absolute blast. Of course we had hot cocoa and beers in the lodge afterwards.
September and October turns are in the bank.
Oh, and i got some good news -- i think my ski buddy is coming back to town. That'll be good for me, i might learn to ski! :)

August turns

Ah, I've been remiss. Time to catch up!!
The Wedding Singer
I went to my friends' wedding reception. Oh man, it was just beautiful. It was totally a party all about their friends. These two are so generous, so thoughtful. They had a beautiful outdoor reception in their amazing backyard, had it catered, and had a really fun playlist of songs. They also bottled and labeled a bunch of wine with their own personal label. Very cool.
I spent the evening dancing and drinking wine. uh oh.
I went to my car at some point and got my sleeping bag and stuff -- i had a sense i might need it. I decided to move my car to a parking spot closer to the house. A nice guy walked me to my car. That comes into play later.
Anyway, so i sacked out on the floor and awoke a few hours later in desperate need of coffee and some muscle relaxant for my neck. Uh oh. hungover. I slung my sleeping bag over my shoulder and headed for my car. "The Nice Guy" was sitting on the porch, waiting for someone to pick him up to go for a bike ride. He whistles at me, "hey, where are you going?" I say, "my car". He points to the driveway.... oh... oops...
Failure to Thrive
I got my ski stuff and headed for Biggs to meet Brian. I was late, shakey, and feeling ill. My eyeballs hurt. For the love of god i'm a 37 year old woman partying like a 19 year old frat-boy. This is embarrassing! I got to the truck stop and didn't see Brian so I headed to the ladies room. I don't even know what i was wearing, just some ratty old p.j.s i think. I came out of the bathroom and Brian was standing there. "Oh my god you look awful, put your glasses on and do NOT take them off!"
Brian's a great friend, the best a girl could ask for. He piled my crap in the jeep, swaddled me back into my sleeping bag, shut my door for me (nice and quiet like) and drove up to Hood. Didn't wake me until we were on Hiway 35 and there was Mt. Hood, advertising, "for a good time...." Oh man it was beautiful. I went back to sleep.
We skied. Mostly Brian kept trying to make me throw up in hopes of getting it out of my system....
"Think of a nice, thick, greasy pork sandwich on soggy bread, served in an ashtray..."
Finally, he wailed, "what have you done with Teresa????!!!"
Sorry dude.
We called it "Failure to Thrive" and I failed to Thrive pretty much all day.
Skiing consisted of ~turn, turn, turn... head to the side of the run and try to throw up.... turn, turn, turn~
We stopped at a mini-mart on the way to Hood River after skiing. Brian came out with about 6 jugs of gatorade, some advil, and a pack of gum. Dude knows how to treat a hangover.
By Hood River I was about 80% myself so we had dinner at a pub there and came home.
Truly, it was fun. But damn, i'm too old for drinking that much red wine.
Emily: "Oh my god you skied the next day???"

Happy Birthday! Snowdome, Mt. Hood. 7/27-7/29

Emily and I have the same birthday, along with Milton Friedman. Unlike Milton Friedman (RIP), Emily and I like to ski, so we planned a little b-day skiing shindig on Mt. Hood. We invited a handful of friends to join us for a weekend of skiing and "other".

My mom, brother, self, and friend Jamie all arrived at Tilly Jane campground around 9:00 Friday night. Adam, Jamie, and I planned to ski first thing in the morning.

We Seem to be Missing Something
We drove over to Cloud Cap and threw on our packs, hitting the trail by 7 a.m. Not bad, considering we'd actually planned to hit the trail at 7 a.m. The first part was a pretty easy hike along a ridge. Then we dropped down into "the war zone". Tough going down there, lots of piles of rock, all unstable. Took us forever to reach the snow. Sometimes you'd step over a rock and then there'd be a giant hole full of water and ice. You couldn't tell where it ended. Adam stuck his ski pole in and never did touch bottom. Made me wonder just how stable the rocks were.
When we got to a bit of snow, our original plan was to traverse it. It appeared to be the best place to do any kind of crossing. However, when we got there, we also noted that there were lots of unfriendly noises, cracks, and generally unwelcoming vibes coming off the glacier. We also noted a distinct shortage of three critical things for glacier crossing: knowledge, rope, and guts. We turned back. Technically, i did get one turn on snow. We hiked back down, noting the tumbling rocks now bouncing down around us. We wore our helmets most of the way back. Two kinda creepy things: you could always always hear water flowing beneath and around you, and there were some rocks tumbling and bouncing down from above. eeek.
When we got back to the parking lot a couple drove past and stopped. They'd been watching us from the ridge above and were worried, they'd been able to hear a lot of ice falls. we didn't hear that, all we heard was rushing water.
We went back to Tilly Jane, where mom fed us some blueberry pancakes, then we all took a nap. Man, that's a nice little area, sooooooo chill.
Hey Ladies, it's your birthday!!
The rest of the crew arrived a bit later, probably around 2... Kathy, Emily, Davin, and Stephanie. What a fun group, could not have asked for better. Adam and mom and I went to Hood River for some cake and misc groceries. The rest of the gang went hiking. We all arrived back to camp around 6:00 for a spaghetti feed, cake, candles, campfire. Davin busted out his guitar and entertained around the campfire. I liked his choice of music. I've never had a burning desire to buy anything by pink floyd, but Davin sang "wish you were here" and now I must own whatever album that's on. It was a real highlight to stand around the campfire with Davin playing/singing.
We decided that, since it was a full moon, we needed to hike. Us lady-folk took off around 11:00 to head to Cloud Cap and hike up on a ridge. It was an easy trot over there, it didn't take us long at all. The view was overwhelming. I literally got a lump in my throat. Hood loomed above us, ethereal, glowing in varying shades of blue. The moon rose over the east flank of the mountain. We heard small slides of rock in the glacial valley below us. To the west, clouds were rolling in, slow and thick. Looking north, the valley to the gorge was dotted with a few clusters of lights, and beyond that you could see Mt. Adams. Yes, all this was visible at midnight. We took up various perches on the ridge -- some sitting on giant boulders, or leaning up against a rock, others standing -- and absorbed it all, utterly speechless. Finally, after 45 minutes, we started to get cold and decided, reluctantly, to go back to camp. I'll never be able to describe the view, but at the same time, I'll always remember every single detail of it and be able to see it in my mind's eye. My god.
Nature Girls!
We were going to get up early and head over to Timberline to hike up and ski down. Unfortunately, the camp didn't see any life until about 9 a.m., and we all seriously lacked motivation to do anything beyond drink coffee. I'm a bit embarrassed about that, but at the same time -- we were having fun with our friends, and that's where it's at. Adam and I rode our bikes over to Cloud Cap Inn, and back. Em, Kathy, and Jamie hiked over. Very cool place. It was getting on in the day, so we packed up and headed home.
We did manage to get a "Core Four" scarpa girls picture to add to our collection. If you check the slideshow, you'll see we got a BUNCH of them, (Thanks Adam!), that was pretty fun. Those pics are becoming a tradition, a pretty fun one. :)
While we didn't get any skiing in, the view and the company were more than worthwhile. It will go down as one of the (if not THE) most memorable birthdays of my life.

Snowdome, Mt. Hood, 7/1/07

Double-click the slide show to open it.
The Tour: Snowdome on Mt. Hood. Departure time from the Cloud Cap parking lot -- probably 930 a.m. Return time: about 3:00. Max elevation: 9700 feet (somebody correct me if that's wrong). Skiers: Self and jamie, then camilo, then fritz. Gear: started out in Chacos, then switched to Scarpa T-1s. No skins. Skied the ol' K2 Big Kahunas, of course. Weather: mild.
Sensory Overload
Khao San Road in Bangkok is an orgy of neon lights, thumping music, drunk and drugged tourists, and exhaust-spewing tuktuks. My first two days there left me disoriented and questioning my reasoning for a 4-month tour of Asia. After repeat visits to Khao San Road (between forays to Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and various islands), I guess I must've become desensitized to it. One night on my way to grab some Pad Thai, an Indian family passed me. In the father's arms wiggled a fat, doe-eyed baby, maybe 6 months old. His eyes blinked and darted, trying to take in everything that happened around him. Lights flashed (his little feet kicked), a vendor squalked (the baby's head whipped around, bobbing precariously on his straining neck). He blinked and squirmed and jolted every time his eyes or ears beheld a new sensation. On Khao San Road, reacting to every stimulus is an overwhelming ordeal. I'll never forget just watching him shudder and squint, frown, grin, or recoil. In seconds his facial expressions ran the gamut from utter glee to complete terror. I feel a lot like that baby, I'd imagine, right now in my backcountry ski career. Everything, absolutely every little thing, is awe-inspiring.
Yesterday I heard an ice-fall. It almost sounded industrial, like metal crushing metal. Camilo (our adopted tour guide) told me what it was. I'd have thought it was thunder or something.
We saw lenticular clouds spotting the sky, miles and miles out into the horizon. We hiked past ice-crystal things the size of houses, jutting out of the glacier and just sticking out like giant blue shipwrecks. We saw where Elliot Glacier had blown out a perfectly u-shaped valley, just like they told you glaciers do in your geology class. We smelled sulfur. Really. Sulfur? And we saw clouds blow over the ridge, swirling toward us like phantoms, obliterating our view of Hood, then disappear. What a sad day it'll be if those things lose their affect on me. Yup, this is my "Indian Baby on Khao San Road" summer.
"Let's Avoid those big ol' cracks"
Jamie sent me a text message on Saturday. "Let's ski Hood!" The weather took a turn for the better, and quite frankly I'd taken a turn for the worse. If I didn't ski, I'd be one cranky girl. She emailed me some beta on the area she wanted to ski -- Cooper Spur. She thought we should avoid Elliot Glacier because of the cracks forming on it. I entrusted our mission entirely to her hands, since I didn't have the vaguest clue where we were going. Her main concern was "let's avoid those big ol' cracks". I've heard crack kills, and was in agreement with her. 5:00 am Sunday I hit the road for Hood River.
Just your friendly parking-lot stalkers
That's us. We got to the Cloud Cap parking lot, where we packed, repacked, unpacked, and repacked again. Meanwhile, a red car pulled up and a young guy climbed out and started packing his pack. We noted fat skis with tele bindings. Hmmmmmm. He looked like he knew stuff. Plus, he had a giant hole in the crotch of his ski pants. I don't know, there's something quite harmless about a guy in tattered gear, we thought he was probably approachable in a non-ted-bundy way. Jamie asked him a bit about Cooper Spur, and he advised against it noting that conditions on it weren't that great. Still, we weren't too sure about striking out to Snowdome on Elliot Glacier all by ourselves. I can't even pronounce crevasse correctly, certainly I don't belong where there are any.
We got our stuff ready and by the time we were ready to go, Parking Lot Telemarker was also ready to go. I whispered to Jamie, "Let's just follow him, he looks like he knows stuff." She nodded, so we hollered out to him and he graciously accepted our self-invitation.
Lucky, I feel Lucky, so Lucky indeed!
What a great find. Parking Lot Telemarker (Camilo) was a super guy! Quite knowledgeable, really mellow to hike with, and just an all around cool guy. You never know what you'll get when you stalk people in the parking lot. So far, I've been just amazingly fortunate what with the tele-gods, Brian, Ron and the Sourdough Chutes folks. Damn! Camilo led us up to the very base of the glacier where a camp had been set up by some climbers. I felt pretty sure that one of them was a telemark skier that I've been in contact with via various forums, but hadn't met yet. Sure enough, there he was -- Roger! AND, he knew Camilo! So, Roger could vouch for Camilo, and Camilo could vouch for Roger, and Jamie and I knew we were in great hands for the Snowdome. Plus I got to meet Roger and another skier -- Dan. More rabbits for me to follow!
Somewhere along the way we met Fritz. Fritz had his skinny madshus over his back, some leather boots, and he was hauling ass to the top of snowdome. Fritz had a snowdome of his own -- a mop of white hair -- and he had all the signature moves of a cat whose earned his fair share of turns. I want to hike like Fritz when I'm his age. Hell, I'd like to hike like him NOW. His skis, well, his skis were not much wider than my radio antenna on my car. I really figured he'd stop before he got too far up. I mean, clearly the guy knew stuff, but he was skiing those skinny little sticks, with leather boots! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! Our band of skiers, when we left Roger and Dan's camp, amassed to a whopping 4 people, and we started up toward the Snowdome.
Is this the stairway IN heaven?
Fritz and Camilo kicked steps. Jamie and I walked them. They made it pretty easy for us.
Clouds swirled around the top of Mt. Hood, sometimes threatening to make us turn back due to low visibility. Mostly it stayed clear though, offering views of St. Helens, Rainier, and Adams. We really had a great day of hiking. Only occasionally did the wind blow, once it even knocked me over, but not hard. I didn't even lose my footing. It's so weird that climbing up Snowdome, I was really scared. I thought I'd fall and slide down the snowfield. However, I was planning to slide down the snowfield when I got to the top of it. Explain that, can you ??? Jamie and I decided it must be a control thing.
Anyway, Jamie opted for the "rock pile" rest stop, but Fritz and Camilo continued to the top of the Snowdome. The travelling was easy, but breathing was not. Turns out that if you just look down and plod along, it's not so bad climbing. Seems like a bad idea, like a person could easily hike off a cliff or something. At the top, Camilo post-holed into a baby crevasse. He just stepped into it and fell, about waist-deep. Then he scrambled out and was fine. The crevasse was all covered in snow, so you couldn't really tell that's what it was. He showed me where it was, and I tried to step over it, but I fell too. My built-in crevasse-rescue device (the super-fall-arrest-ghetto-booty) is about where I stopped. It felt a bit creepy, like quicksand, like if i squirmed too much I'd probably get in even further. But, with a bit of wiggling, i managed to get out. And so now i have one for the books, i fell in a crevasse. ;)
The view from up there, my god. We were actually above some clouds! It was like flying but better! I'm adding Alpine Climbing to my list of things I must learn. Nothing yesterday appealed to me more than getting to the top of Snowdome.
Everybody thinks we're nuts
Because you do all that hiking for one run back down. But you do all that hiking for lots of other reasons too. The scenery, the feeling, the sense of accomplishment, the elitest feeling that you're pretty much cooler than anbody on the planet because you're doing something so cool... you know.... It's just a very liberating and empowering thing to do. Me likey.
Jamie is the perfect little ski-fairy. She manages to always look (yeah, I'll say it), cute, like she should have little butterfly wings or something. We joined her at the rocks (she was the lady at the rocks, that day) and we all skied down, taking turns taking pictures of each other. Fun stuff.
And, maybe Fritz IS nuts!
Because the dude ripped all the way down on those little trim-strips called skis, and he just kicked ass. He smiled the whole way down (we all did), just loving the creamed corn snow. Camilo is a rock star AT skier. I'm not sure if he learned his moves from his downhill-racer girlfriend or what, but he looked good and skied great.
We left Fritz at his lunch spot on the glacier (there were a lot of other folks around, and he was quite competent), and we picked our way down to our cars.
My god
What an excellent day. Jamie and I had an absolute blast, got to meet some really cool people, and the snow and scenery was just awesome. I have my turns in for July (but I plan on getting more) and they were amazing.
Thank you to Camilo and Fritz for being great guides and for all the encouragement getting up SnowDome.
Happy Birthday!!
I am thinking that Em and I will do the "Birthday Volcano Extravaganza" up there. Wanna come ski with us? :)

Happy Father's Day, I'm going skiing!

You can double-click the slide-show above to view the gallery
Is that weird feeling I'm feeling what they call "guilt"?
Saturday I spent the entire day doing the chores I've been neglecting for the last... uh... while. You know -- laundry, dishes, vacuuming, making the place liveable. It felt horrible to be trapped indoors all day. Surely there were chutes of snow to be explored, fields of white to be carved, acres of corn ripe for harvest. Right? Did I shun my patriotic duty as a consumer of gasoline just to stay home and wash underwear? Worse, I had to ask the "bottom line" question -- would I lay on my deathbed one day and say a) I wish I'd worn clean underwear more often or b) I wish I'd skied more days? YOU might reply that my answer should be a. Especially if you're my officemate (sorry Wendy). Alas, at 8 pm on Saturday night I caved to that sweet seduction whose name is "snow" and did the equivalent of going to a bar to find a man -- I got on the internet and started looking for Sunday skiing outings I could join.
"Pick me, pick me!"
Unlike the meat market, my odds are good in the ski market. By 9:30 my skis were packed, my soles re-glued on my boots, and my alarm was set. Destination: Rainier. Found a willing soul headed for Sourdough Chutes up at Mt. Rainier and (obviously because he's not met me and doesn't know about the underwear situation) he was willing to let me tag along! Love it when spontaneity pans out!
One little, two little, three little telemarkers
The drive up Chinook Pass was absolutely incredible. The American River is full of friendly-looking play waves and splashy little rapids. What a beautiful area. As the road climbs, the river becomes more and more creek-like -- banked by evergreens and ferns, choked with moss-covered logs and boulders. The forest becomes more dense, and the next thing you know you are driving past 12' banks of snow. YAY!
The weather, however, became less and less enticing. As I approached the turnoff for White River, well, visibility was horrid, it was raining hard, and cold. Yuck. But, since i was just going to be out for the day, I figured I'd just suck it up and ski it. Getting wet is not the end of the world.
For my persistence, I was rewarded at the Sunshine Point parking lot with mostly decent and dry weather. The clouds I'd just driven through floated in the valley below, but in the parking lot, things were, at worst, overcast.
I waited for my leader, Ron. He showed up right on time. On his tail and totally unexpectedly, came Darryl. About 45 minutes into our trek, Chris appeared... then Mike and Brenda... and Joe... and who am i forgetting? There was a whole flock of us by the end of the day.
"I always scream when I ski"
Good grief, did I really say that? Ron and Darryl looked at me skeptically. We were hiking up Dege peak. We had an easy hike one firm snow. We got to the peak, and then scrambled back down a little bit to some snow for Round 1 of Chutefest.
"You know, the first rule of backcountry is that the chick skis first" I announced. And this is what always gets me in trouble -- i keep forgetting that you are not supposed to be a smart-ass with strangers in the wilderness. There is really nothing keeping them from chopping you up in tiny pieces and scattering your remains in a creek-bed somewhere. Fortunately, neither Ron nor Darryl had any chopping implements and let me survive another day. Ron skied first and then took pictures. I screamed (literally) down, and Darryl followed. Nice snow, a bit heavy, but delicious, and we weren't even out of view of the parking lot.
Ron rewarded our efforts by offering a flask of some sort of decadence he calls "party in your mouth" of which I have no comments. That's all i can say about THAT.
Fear Factor
By the time we booted up another chute to the ridgeline, the rest of the crew started arriving on the scene. Our little tele-tribe expanded to 7 and we trudged past Dege peak and Antler toward "Fear Factor". Joe and Chris were the obvious trailblazers in the group -- the types to ski anything, and then kick your ass on the uphill. Ron and Darryl are content to cruise along at more humanly paces, and Mike and Brenda were on the same humanly/conservative agenda. I wanted to follow Joe and Chris, which ranks right up there with that time I stupidly told my ski instructor that I wanted to be a more aggressive skier. Joe and Chris wanted to ski this one little chute and then hike back out and catch up to Ron and Darryl, who were going to Fear Factor. I didn't think i could keep up with Joe and Chris. But, i did think I could ski the chute, follow their tracks back up, and find Ron and Darryl perhaps at the bottom of Fear Factor. My Fear Factor was that my lungs would implode.
Remember how I've been working on that "TWA Flight 800" move of mine?
You know the one, where I explode mid-air? Yes well, i'd hate to miss an opportunity to perfect THAT bit of acrobatics... I followed after Joe and Chris. We had a nice chute, it was quite wide and easy. The snow was getting heavier and sticky. I got about half-way down, doing my little crazy-legged salsa dance, and launched (quite unexpectedly) into TWA Flight 800. If there's anything worse than having your lungs implode in front of a couple of hardcore backcountry skiers, it'd have to be augering into the slopes while they wait at the bottom. And then trying to get up and your legs are literally tangled. And your hat and glasses are uphill from you... quite a bit... and you think you pulled some ligaments you didn't know you had... and you don't think they have the good sense to politely look away... So, I'm doing really well on all airborne aspects of the TWA Flight 800 move, but the landings still need work. I collected my stuff and skied down.
Mike and Brenda then came down, laying some beautiful tracks behind them. <random tangent> Mike is originally from Roseburg, and he and Brenda spend some time down there every year with his folks and go skiing! Small world? yup! Mike's parents even live out toward my brother's and my little farm out there. </random tangent>
Chris and I skinned back up the hill, and Joe didn't have skins so he booted straight up. I don't think either of them stopped once. We hiked onward.
Rainier Rewards Us
As we hiked along the ridge, the sun shone on Rainier as low clouds swirled around it, sometimes hiding it from the sun, other times breaking away so you could see every crevasse on it. My god Rainier is beautiful all covered in snow. Who couldn't love a mountain? Is there anything more dramatic in the world than glaciers clinging to the jagged slopes of a volcano? I think at times that the spires of cathedrals and towering skyscrapers are man's feeble attempt at making mountains where there are none. The New York skyline, when viewed from the Staten Island Ferry on a full-moon night, is breathtaking... but it has nothing on a diamond-studded peak on a plain ol' day in June.
Dude
As a side-note, during all hiking, especially the hiking that required breathing, Joe and Chris talked the entire time. No kidding. These guys were probably born at high altitude. They are just chatting away like a couple of 7th grade girls (except not all giggly and stuff) as I was wheezing along. I want to follow guys like that more often. If the exertion and lack of oxygen doesn't kill me, imagine the shape I'd be in!
And now back to skiing
So, we get to another chute. There's a reason they call it chute-fest, okay? so, this one starts with a scree field. I mean, you have to shimmy down this scree field. And then the snow starts, but it's a kinda tight chute from what you can see, and then it opens up. Joe and Chris are, of course, going to ski this. Not the scree, but everything else. Oh man i wanted to really bad. But the hike out looked long, and i didn't know where Darryl and Ron were, and I kinda needed to get going as I was running late to go see a friend of mine who I'd told I'd stop in and visit. Oh, and I mighta been a teensy bit scared of getting down it in one piece. Steeps don't scare me, but rocks sure do. Off they went. Mike arrived as they were going down the scree field, and he opted to ski with them. I decided to ski down the other side to the car and wait, since I was the shuttle vehicle, thinking Ron and Darryl would probably be on their way down soon. Brenda waited at the top.
Wait a minute? What's this?
I followed the ridge, trudging along at my non-Joe or Chris pace. (I'm making this worse than it sounds, really.) to my right, down in the valley, I counted... one.... two... three... four??? five?? five skiers? Hey!! Darryl and Ron were down there!! Well, shoot, i might as well ski down there and hike back out with them! So, off I went down a nice mellow snow field and down to the group. Shortly after, Brenda followed. Reunited, we all began the trudge back uphill.
"Just follow me!"
Customarily, I don't follow the advice of any man from Roseburg, Oregon except for Grampa Steve. So, when Mike said, 'just follow me down to the parking lot', i was more than a bit skeptical. Everyone else followed him down.... I waited for the "oh shit" moment or the "uh oh" from someone, but heard nothing. Joe opted for a different line (perhaps based on his own experience with Roseburg folk)... and shortly after we heard, "yeah, don't follow me" from him. So against my better judgement, I followed Mike and the rest of the crew. Of course, he picked a great line that had good snow coverage all the way down to the car! Yay Mike! And then we were greeted by a ranger with a megaphone who yelled at us for skiing there. Well, he was a nice guy, just told us the rules, and I have to say I did feel bad for being a bad steward of the environment (or would that be stewardess?).
Good Bye
What a super group of people. So friendly. Ron was especially nice to take me along on such short notice and questionable skills. Everyone was really just a blast to be with. And of course Rainier was absolutely beautiful. It was a special trip, being able to hike so easily from the car and bomb around in some great stuff with such easy access. Thanks, everybody.

Memorial Day Weekend, 2007 -- Goat Rocks ROCKS!

It started out innocently enough...

While hanging out with the tele gods in the White Pass bar a while back, the dad said, "yeah, we're going out to the Goat Rocks for Memorial Day, you should come along." It was merely a polite gesture, and he offered some details like, "just follow our trail" to describe how to get there. I was not put off. Ever since the Super Bowl Sunday tour to Hogback, I've been fantasizing about the Goat Rocks. And the opportunity to go with the tele gods was too good to pass up. They know stuff, and by hanging with them, I'm gonna learn stuff. That's the goal. Plus, I was going to learn stuff in the world's most beautiful classroom. After some hemming and hawing (and recent personal events) I finally decided that I was definitely going.

I started buying maps, and checking out resources -- asking friends who were familiar with the area what they knew. Tried to rope in some participants, but received not so much as a nibble... until Tuesday or so when Emily dropped me a line and said, "it's ON!"

You probably won't even find them all weekend
I asked a buddy of mine who'd been out there not too long ago how to get to Warm Lake. He offered some advice like, "if you don't know where they'll be, you probably won't even find them all weekend", and "take hiking shoes", and "there's a lot of windfall", and "take an avy beacon", and etc. He wasn't discouraging in the least, but none of his warnings were comprehended. I've only hiked once before and that was in the Wallowas. I thought "a trail's a trail". Ok, so we needed to do some route-finding; ok, we needed hiking shoes; ok, some windfall; ok, we'll borrow avy beacons. Nothing sounded like a deal-breaker to me.
I do believe i forgot to pass on some of the beta to Emily, i blame that on my tunnel-vision. We WERE going to the Goat Rocks, we WERE hiking out to Warm Lake, and by god we WERE skiing.
She arrived at my house at 3:30, we loaded the dogs and her stuff and headed for the Trailhead. It's TACO TIME!
There were, no shit, a LOT of rednecks out. I use the term losely to describe people who have big-ass trailers pulled by big-ass diesel trucks carrying big-ass people who ride big-ass ATVs. And they were thicker than the mosquitos. We stopped in at a campground on the South Fork of the Tieton river to empty our garbage (veggie wrap bag, green tea bottle, gum wrappers). We also stopped to use the toilet and this is where we remembered that we forgot to pack toilet paper. Fortunately, my glove box contained some three hundred Taco Time napkins from previous road trips. From that point on, any bathroom action became known by the code word, "Taco Time!" We stuffed the napkins into a pack and ticked "toilet paper" off our packing list.

Do you think this is stable?
Emily and I figured we'd start hiking that night, go as far as we wanted, and then camp. We were equipped. We had everything we needed. We could do it.
We loaded our packs, parked the car, and began marching from the trailhead by around 7:00 pm. We pretty much hit windfall within the first 1/4 mile of the trailhead. This involved doing one of the following things: finding a route around the massive obstacle, doing our best to shimmy over the obstacle, or crawling under the obstacle. Note: the packs with skis and boots on them were, basically, friggin' huge. No option appealed to us as "easy". Even so, we forged ahead.

We lost the trail several times, instead bushwacking in the general direction of our destination. Of course, it was dark, so that added to the difficulty of finding the trail. Finally, at a river crossing, we lost the trail. I mean, we really lost it. No clue where it went, it had all been flooded out. We poked around the piles of debris left by flooding, looking for a clue where the trail might be. I turned and saw some logs that looked suspiciously parallel...

"Hey, Em, I think I found a bridge!" The "bridge" had recently been buried under several logs, many of them as much as 18" in diameter. During flooding the logs had washed onto the bridge and got trapped there, looking like a drunken beaver had tried to build a dam. It was not clear whether the bridge even spanned the entire river, or if it was resting in it's original location or had been washed down. I climbed up onto it, as it was a good 4' above the ground.

"Do you think it looks stable?" asked Em. I was thinking exactly the same thing, waiting for it all to collapse around me. I poked around with my ski poles and stomped on a few boards and logs... nothing moved.

"Yeah, actually, it looks good." and so we crossed the bridge, crawling over logs, easing back down onto the bridge, trying not to roll our ankles or fall into the river. The bridge stopped a good couple of feet from the shore, but it did appear to be a trail on the other side. So, we hopped onto shore and plodded onward.

What the hell is this, the Elk I-5?

We finally lost the trail. It was probably 10 at night, very dark, and we couldn't continue due to massive windfall, and couldn't work out where the trail picked up again. We had enough, and decided to set up camp and continue in the morning.
Murphy and Cricket decided that, in fact, their fun was not over yet, and took off into the night. Great. I hate when they do that. I was relieved when Murphy came back fairly soon... but not impressed with the 23 porcupine quills poking out of his muzzle. As his punishment, I sat and drank a beer while he pondered the meaning of life and porcupines. Em had a pocket knife. After downing the beer, I pinned murphy down and began pulling the quills out. ugh. poor guy. He had them in his lips. All I could keep telling him was, "dude, i've had a bikini wax before, i know how you feel." He took it reasonably well, he only really fought when I had to yank the deep ones. Sheesh.

We all went to bed.

And then woke up to the sound of clattering hooves, breaking branches and the thunder of elk running through our camp. No kidding, i thought they were jumping our damn tent. I was scared to death. Em pretty much slept through the whole thing. I seriously reconsidered the merit of our plan. Should we really be out there? i mean, we were essentially clueless as to where we were, we had no idea where we were going, and there were friggin' mutant human-eating elk stampeding our camp! I lay in bed and said a prayer that went something like, "Jesus Christ what the Hell are we thinking???"
When the sun came up, i got some sleep. Somehow wild animals are smaller, cuter, fuzzier, and tamer in the light of day. We decided to continue.

The Goat Rocks Plan is IN PLAY

Steve and Jesse arrived at our camp just as we were about to throw our packs on. By "throw" our packs on, I mean, one of us helps the other heft it up as high as we can, the other wriggles under the pack, and then there is the "stabilization" dance of standing with your legs increasingly further apart whilst wobbling back and forth and trying to cinch the waist-band of your pack. Not wanting to allow virtual strangers to witness this less-than-graceful procedure, we stood coolly by our packs and made small talk. Steve offered some helpful advice, "go right at Surprise Lake". Cool, ok. They went on ahead. We made sure they were out of viewing range, and then began to "throw our packs on".

The trail was easy to pick up again in broad daylight, as one would expect. Steve and Jesse waited for us at the fork, and pointed the way (right), then blasted on ahead of us. Apparently the rest of the group was behind us.

The Arrival of Robert

The windfall became thicker and heavier, until we found ourselves on game trails more often than regular trails. We crawled up steep banks, trudged through mud, squirmed under fallen trees, and finally stopped for lunch. It was 10:30 am.


The best lunch in the whole wide world is a peanut butter and goo and gummi bear wrap. mmmmmmmm!!! I had two, and they were decadent. We hydrated, snacked, and rested before putting our packs back on to continue the slog. As we began to move out, someone approached along the trail. We didn't recognize him, but after some introductions (and the observation that no one else in the state would be out there with skis on their back unless they were with our group) we proceeded together in search of steve and jesse's tracks.

We did not find them, but at least had another person in our party.

Then we hooked up with the rest of the group

And that took all the guesswork out, but left us with some interesting hiking to still do. We gained elevation quickly and were hiking through mixed snow and mud. The trail was still intermittent and choked with windfall. Em and I changed in to our tele boots. My Chacos had had enough and I seriously doubted their ability to make the trip back. Besides, my toes were cold from the snow.

While we changed, the group got a little ahead of us, no worries.

"I said, come UP the waterfall!"

As we trudged along, looking for our group's tracks, we heard a voice from on high. It was not god, but Johnny. We couldn't see him, but could only hear him say, "Come up the waterfall!" Emily turned to me, "What did he just say?" I said, "I think he said to come up the waterfall." To our right was about a 20' waterfall of snowmelt on rock. We were in stiff telemark boots. With large packs on. With cumbersome skis tied to them.

"What?" Emily yelled back to him.

"I said, COME UP THE WATERFALL." Johnny yelled back down to us. Let it be known, Johnny's voice carries well, and we really did hear him the first time. However, before ascending a waterfall wearing tele boots and giant packs with skis tied to them, a person typically wants to verify that, yes, "come up the waterfall" is what they were directed to do. It was, and we did. The holds were all good, so it wasn't quite as bad as you might expect. However, I didn't expect, ever, to be hiking up a waterfall with a pack on. EVER. This hiking thing is bullshit, let me just say...

At the top we found our group, sitting down, resting.

Rock! OH FUCK ROCK!!!


Those were the words I heard as I looked up the avy chute to see a large, about 20 lb boulder trundling toward my head. We'd just post-holed some 100 yards up a steep, steep chute, literally kicking our boots into the snow and crawling on our hands, just so we could get to a rock-scramble up about a 20' cliff. I decided to wait at the bottom of the cliff with the dogs so they wouldn't knock loose rock onto people, or knock people over. My legs shook in anticipation of the crawl up that cliff with no protection. I didn't dare look down at what my landing might be if I lost my balance. I already knew. It'd be a long, tumbling, icy, fast fall down an avy chute, bouncing off the rock walls on each side, then sliding down a snow-field and into the trees far below. And, if I survived that, my only choice would be to probably try it again. So, imagine as I began my ascent, perched with barely the toe of my boot on a questionable lip of rock and one hand clutching another boulder, when above me I heard the unflappable Kurt sounding very flapped, yelling, "Rock! OH FUCK, ROCK!!!" The boulder bounded toward me, pinballing from left to right, gaining more and more air with every bounce. Shit. If it hit any part of me, even my skis, I was going down. I braced and tried to time my duck if it came at me. It bounced about 8 feet above me and then flew past my head, probably 3 feet away, but it felt like it barely missed me. I felt nauseous. But, then it was time to start the climb.
Turns out, wearing a pack with skis on it, and telemark boots to climb an avy chute is basically a bitch. No two ways about it. It was a total gut-wrenching, terrifying struggle. I hated every second of it. The only thing that kept me from having a total breakdown was the fact that I was with people I barely knew. Em and I still can't believe we did it.

Not too far after the chute, we switched to skis with skins and skinned up to the knoll which was camp.

The Rocky Knoll

We camped on a wind-scoured knoll at the base of Gilbert. It was a lovely location, a pinnacle from which you could look up the valley at Gilbert, or turn and look down the valley at Surprise Lake, and more mountains. Just wonderful.
We pitched our tent in the snow, next to a snag... it was awesome.

Did I mention that we skied?
Yes, really! We slept in Sunday morning, had a lazy breakfast, and headed up the glacier. By then the rest of the crew was returning from Gilbert Peak. Em and I were positive that the Peak was not where we belonged, so we were happy to cruise along at our leisurely pace. The dogs had a total blast, the sun was shining and the trek to the saddle (in the pictures, the saddle is to the viewer's right of Gilbert Peak) was very enjoyable. We got to the saddle after several kick turns and traverses, and rewarded ourselves with a peanut butter and gummi bear wrap. MMMM!!! The north side of the saddle had total boilerplate, and the south side (our side) was beautiful mush. Just lovely. a bit heavy, but SO fun!
We skied back down to camp, enjoying the wind in our faces, the sun, the sweet snow, and the satisfaction of being there.
Em, the dogs, and I all decided to take a nap. Why not? We were on vacation! :)
We awoke at around 6 pm to gale-force winds and snow. And cold, ohmygod, so cold! At night murphy would shiver, so I'd drape my down vest over the poor little dude. Cricket did fine but murphy got cold. So, the wind and snow did not appeal to him in the least.
After dinner, afraid our tent would blow away, I returned to our tent and hung out with the dogs -- listening to my iPod and writing in my journal. it was peaceful and cathartic. very nice.
em came to bed and we nodded off, completely satisfied with our day.
Sleeping in the tent was like being trapped in an accordian. the sides of the tent continually collapsed in on us, then heaved back up against the wind. It didn't stop until about 6 in the morning. My god it was unreal. Everything held up fine though.
Monday, time to head down
Em needed to be home by 7:00. Given the trek to get into the place, we thought it prudent to leave first thing in the morning. Fortunately, Jason and Jesse led us out. We totally ditched any possiblity of trying to follow the trail and just made a beeline for the parking lot. The trip down was a breeze. We skied a fair amount of it, then hiked the rest of the way out. We had virtually no windfall to deal with. We just cruised. It was great!

In Sum
Well, holy shit. I can't believe we got in there. it was a chore. We were so stoked though, and had such a great time, i think I'd do it again! :)

Aneroid Basin, Wallowas. 3/17/2007 - 3/21/2007

Irrigon, Oregon
Nobody goes there on purpose. The town is a backwater, bypassed completely by the east-west running Interstate 84 and the North-South running Interstate 395. Irrigon's close to the Columbia River, just below McNary Dam which employed most of the town's inhabitants during construction. It has a Shell station, a restaurant, and a meandering ribbon of two-lane that connects it to the Interstates. Irrigon has nothing that appeals to three women heading out on a backcountry ski trip.
Well, I take that back, it did have one thing, and that's how we ended up there at 5:30 on Friday night, drinking beer in the back of Kathy's car. We were riding ghetto -- our backpacks, daypacks, duffel bags, ski boots, and grocery sacks filled the back of her SUV and threatened to tumble over the back seat and onto my head whenever she slowed down. We parked outside a "restaurant" but opted for the comfortable accommodations of her RAV to imbibe and people-watch. We waited there for Jamie. Jamie called from Portland earlier in the afternoon, hoping to meet us in Irrigon, if her car could make it that far. She stopped in The Dalles, about a hundred miles away, and had a mechanic look at her car. According to his assessment, it had another 200 miles left before it would shit the bed. We didn't know if she'd even make it to Irrigon, but we chose that as a meeting place and so we waited. And watched people... and sipped Fat Tire beer. It was a typical spring desert evening... warm enough to make you want to take your fleece jacket off, but cool enough to give you gooseflesh when you do shed your outer layers. We looked quite out of place with our car full of ski gear and us still having all our original teeth. Jamie arrived around 5:30 in her rumbling little Subaru Loyale (91). Her long brown hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and she was still wearing clay-covered carhartts that she'd had on to plant trees earlier in the day. She looked every bit the free-spirited hippy/forester that she is. We managed to cram even more bits and bobs of ski gear into Kathy's car AND clear a spot for Jamie to sit. Finally, the "Core Four" as we called ourselves, were on the road to Joseph.



Joseph, Oregon... An Evening of Attrition


We paired up in suites at Chandler's in Joseph. Chandlers is a lovely bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town. From the outside, the house looks like Dr. Seuss acted as the chief architect in a still-ongoing expansion project. Rooms and decks were added to rooms and decks. Ramps led to balconies which led to gates which led to a hot tub almost three storeys in the air, with amazing views of the surrounding mountains. The owners (presumably they are the Chandlers themselves) were unfailingly hospitable and wonderful. And the price -- $60 per suite -- included private baths and a huge breakfast spread. Emily, Kathy, Jamie, and I loved Chandlers, no question.

We used the late night hours to make the final preparations to our packs, and I will now share with you the boring details of those preparations in case you, too, want to take such a trip. What I packed:

• Two pairs of panties (note: 5 day trip)
• One bra
• 3 pairs of ski socks
• Two pairs of long underwear
• Two polypro shirts (both long-sleeved, one turtleneck, one zip-neck)
• One hat
• One bandana
• Sunglasses
• journal and pen and paper
• camera
• some beef jerky
• one snickers bar per day
• gummi bears (one package)
• headlamp
• spare batteries
• Zicam
• Cough drops
• ibuprofen
• toothpaste
• toothbrush
• 20-degree down sleeping bag
• GPS
• soft-shell jacket
• rain jacket and pants
• "hardshell" jacket to go over softshell
• gloves
• glove liners
• helmet
• knee pads
• spare footbeds for boots
• skis
• ski boots
• ski pants
• skins cut to fit my skis
• warm wax
• wash cloth
• wet ones
• matches
• tiger balm (very small tin)
• sunscreen
• lip balm
• 1 nalgene each Hot Damn 100 and Rumplemyntz

I don't remember what else I packed, but I'll tell you that the packing in that list had thinned down considerably from what I originally packed. I ended up leaving probably 10 pounds of extra stuff that I'd originally planned to bring. Thank god, because the next day we had to do a fair amount of bootpacking. UGH!!

Morning has broken... like the first morning

... and it was beautiful. The rest of our party met us at Chandlers for breakfast. Roger, the owner of Wing Ridge Tours, had us all introduce ourselves. We hailed from San Francisco, the Portland area, Sun River, Enterprise, and (ahem) the Tri-Cities. We had a physician, a psychologist, musicians, you name it. Our guides -- Jerry and Paul -- read the weather forecast and Roger explained the avalanche situation, giving us the full run-down of every single storm cycle that had passed through the area since October. I didn't understand what any of it meant, and only wanted to get on the trail and start hiking. To anyone with a modicum of avalanche training or savvy, that portion of the introductions would've been titillating. I will ashamedly admit, it meant nothing to me. Yeah, I was one of those dumb, big-eyed, dorky tourists.

We drove to the trailhead and strapped our skis to our backpacks for the ascent up the trail. We gathered at the trailhead and strapped avalanche beacons on, flipped our ski boots into the 'hike' position (incidentally the 'hike' position is no more comfortable than the 'ski' position, and could easily be nicknamed the 'blister' position), and began the trudge up the 7 mile trail to Aneroid Basin. Jerry led, as he did for much of the trip, and Paul hiked last -- always just a few steps behind me. I was trying to recover from a nasty chest cold, and I blame that for my dismal performance for the hike in.

Our group of 12 (including Jerry and Paul) made the 7 mile ascent in about 8 hours. We started at 4500 feet and arrived at Aneroid Lake at about 7500. My pack probably weighed 50 pounds (we had to carry food in as well). The first two miles we hiked a rocky trail in our ski boots. That was the hardest part of the entire trip. We reached the snow level at lunch time. After that we glued "skins" to the bottoms of our skis, which allowed us to walk on snow with our skis on, and still climb. When we rounded a bend in the trail and looked out over Aneroid Lake late that afternoon, we were dripping with sweat, tired, and sore from our packs digging into our shoulders and backs.

Jerry and Paul, being seasoned guides, immediately started dinner and got us settled into our cabins. We sat around on the deck and drank beer.

Welcome to the Silver Tip

Silver Tip Lodge. My home for the next 5 days. The two-storey cabin accommodated Kathy, Emily, Jamie, and I upstairs, and Bill and Aaron downstairs. They took care of keeping the wood stove going all night, and helping us light our lanterns. Bill and Aaron were the best roommates -- kind family men who quietly ignored our babbling and girl-talk, and silently tended to our various needs for wood heat and white-gas lighting. It could best be said that they 'endured' us. Bill, by the way, was an amazing skier. No one in the group sucked, that's for sure.

The Silver Tip appeared to've been built in the 30s. The entire structure had somewhat of a lean to it, but seemed mostly stable. Our beds were "leveled" on the sloping floor with bits of firewood and old scraps of metal. Every log and chink on the inside of the cabin was inscribed with visitors' names, the dates they visited, and the highlights of their trips.

Your hands are in my hair, but my heart is in your teeth

... and it makes me want to make you near me, always. That would be my song to the Wallowas. My heart is in the toothy spires of Aneroid Peak, Dollar Ridge, Pete's Peak. Be gentle with me.

My first evening at Aneroid Basin I walked down to the lake and stood, looking out at the lake and the surrounding cliffs that formed the basin. I was filled with the same sensation that I got when i did the Rogue River for the first time -- that everything in my life HAS to feed my desire to be outdoors. It reminded me of the last dying gasps of my marriage, when I didn't want a divorce so i could be with someone else -- I wanted a divorce so I could have what I referred to as 'an affair with the planet'. hmmm... MUST find those diaries and remind myself. It is so easy for us to forget ourselves and serve the desires that the rest of society tells us we have, and that the rest of society tells us are important.

climb/ski/eat/climb/ski/eat

So it went. We all gathered each morning in the "main lodge" for breakfast. Jerry and Paul advised us of the weather and the plan for the day. Jerry provided exceptional nursing care for our feet as most of us had developed hotspots and blisters. We practiced locating each others' avalanche beacons, and then struck out on a tour of the surrounding area.

Day 1 we covered about 8 miles, climbing as high as 9000 feet. The sun baked our faces and any bit of skin left exposed and unprotected was burned. My lungs were still searing from the cold I was fighting. But the views.... my god the views.... Endless ranges of snow-cloaked peaks, blue skies, Hell's Canyon in the distance...

We dipped down into two different drainages -- first the Imnaha drainage, and then the Big Sheep Creek drainage. The skiing was pretty alright, but got mushy fast, so we traversed to some north-facing slopes in search of harder snow. By 5:30 we returned to our cabins, exhausted.

I rested on the next day while the rest of the gang went on a short tour nearby.

The following day we awoke to 6 inches of fresh powder and cold temperatures. My lungs were still quite bitter about the amount of work they were doing, but there was no way I could miss skiing in these conditions. We explored some local runs and ended up doing about a 5 mile loop. My favorite run of the day was on the north side of Dollar Ridge where I accidentally kicked off a slab of snow that freight-trained past me but quickly settled. The noise of it scared me, but it stopped as quick as it started and the slab was shallow and appeared mostly harmless... For the more experienced person, it was more a little slough than an avalanche, but my perception was tainted by inexperience and adrenaline. I opted for a straight-ish line that would be hopefully less likely to start any more slides and had the added benefit of making me feel like I went super fast. Weeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

Hot Damn and Farfuknugen!

We busted out the Hot Damn and an impromptu party started at our cabin. The rules were simple -- drink a swig of Hot Damn and then yell "Hot Damn" in your best James Brown impersonation. I thought everybody did that. We burned through the hot damn pretty fast, and then came the Rumplemyntz and hot chocolate, to which we began yelling "Farfuknugen", for lack of anything better to say.

Speaking of funny things to say...
I have a list of the funniest quotes. Emily started writing down everything we said that was funny... admittedly, it was only funny to us... but who else is this blog for anyway?

• "I'm Sweep." Teresa (pretty much all I said the whole time).
• CHICK STARTER! (a sign outside of La Grande -- we wanted to try it)
• "We need to move in unison" -- me to Jamie during an impromptu yoga session.
• "Hot Balls!!" Emily, after a drink of Hot Damn. I think she forgot the words...
• "Emily is turning Japanese!" me to everyone when Emily drank Hot Damn and squinted so hard I thought she'd go blind...
• "How did that get out of the hole?" Jamie and Em
• "I was in my bed blowin' o's" Emily's description of smoke rings had everyone curious
• "Aaron, you know, he had the big magical rod." Aaron explaining the origin of his name
• "It's Biblical, goddammit!" Me, defending those who mocked Aaron's explanation of the origin of his name.
• ... yeah, I'm enjoying myself... Sam
• "I'm just going to let gravity work its magic." Me, setting up my backpack using the same gravity-rig method that i use for rafting...
• "i'm just bracing up against you" me. no clue when or why that made it on the list.
• "Sam's going to take fat out of my ass and put it on my heels." (Me, having hotspot issues on my heels) "But then when you're old your heels will droop." (Jerry) .... "We call that a pinch graph" Sam
• "We can each shake turns stirring" Emily
• "I'm no fucking balletist!" Emily.

I'm supposed to say good-bye... but all I can say is good...

The time came to say good-bye to Aneroid basin, the Silver Tip lodge, and acres of turns still unharvested. Our last day broke sunny and warm. The new snow we'd received made our ski back down to Wallowa Lake easy and fast, we made it down in just 3 hours. I can't really speak for anyone else, but personally I dreaded the return to civilization. Life in a cabin in the mountains, where the only work is to trudge to the top of (yet another) breathtakingly beautiful ridge, where the only marks you make on the world are giant S turns on a white canvas, and the major annoyance in your day is futzing with those ill-tempered and gas-barking coleman lanterns, is a life of absolute bliss. Of course there is more involved... like the need for food and such... and my carnal lust for gear (an addiction which requires a full-time job to support). Oh but if this girl could find a way to make it work...

And so we headed back, back to the bowels of reality, down to the mire of "getting by" and "getting on". I plodded along, as always, at the back of the line, letting the Wallowas etch themselves into my memory. You can't really say "good-bye" so I just said, "good".

And that, my friend, is life.

It's been over a week now since we left. Everything is pear-shaped. I can't stand to interact with people. I'm just clumsy and confused. Doesn't ANYONE want to talk about skiing or mountains or trees or anything? Conversations swirl around me, conversations about people's favorite coffee, movies, cookbooks, dishes, neighbors, work, pet peeves, annoying co-workers, you name it. I understand that these things are of some significance -- it is clear by the blood-pressure of those who speak of these things. But I have nothing to offer. It's like they speak a language that just can't be translated to elevation, trails, turns, under-foot measurements of a ski, telemark bindings, pack weight, or waterproof soft-shells. Soon, I'll get back into the swing of things and be able to speak to topics such as Starbucks vs. Stumptown, I'll know what the latest movie offerings are, and who our weirdest neighbor is (probably me!). For now I'm just clinging to the virginal subject of pure white powder, and pining for more. This was my first backcountry trip, and it has changed everything. Everything.