Category: Lift Served

May 5, 2012 – Mt Bachelor

Free lift ticket, check. Free ride, check. Bluebird day, check. Fresh snow, check. All the signs pointed to a rare day of excellent lift served turns at Mt Bachelor. I left my house at 5:30 am and drove south where I met Andy at his house in Eugene and loaded my gear into his Jeep for the drive east to central Oregon. Andy had won a pair of lift tickets from a local promotion a few months back, and since I’d driven to the mountains the last couple of trips, he’d offered me a ticket and a ride as an exchange. After a brief stop at the Mickey D’s in Oakridge for some breakfast, we arrived in the Bachelor parking lot just after 9:00 in full sunshine. The temperature was around 25 degrees in the base area. We met Todd, who’d driven over the night prior for some camping, loaded the Pine Marten Express, and headed up. Our intentions were to head to the summit to check out the snow, which is what we did. Our first run off the Summit Express was on Cow’s Face, and there were pockets of wind sifted powder that were really nice. The snow was a bit variable however, so we decided to check out the Cirque Bowl from the summit proper on the next run. After a few minutes of hiking, we found what we were looking for…..

Andy ripping it on the shorty's
Andy ripping it on the shorty’s

The snow directly off the summit was prime – nice wind packed powder. The steep slopes of the top yielded face shots for me on each turn, and I’d mistakenly worn my sunglasses instead of goggles, so several times throughout the day I’d have to stop and clear the pow off the insides of my lenses.

Cruising in the upper Cirque Bowl
Cruising in the upper Cirque Bowl

For the next several runs, we repeated the hike to the summit and dropped off just to the riders left of the center pinnacle. Each run was as good as the last, and the snow stayed perfect on the northerly aspect all day long.

Todd getting after it
Todd getting after it
May pow turns

After several runs, Todd decided to call it a day. Andy and I continued to make turns, enjoying a few runs on the groomers of Skyliner on the lower mountain. The park was in good shape, with huge tables and rail features. It didn’t take long though until we found ourselves back on the Summit lift heading for the good snow on the upper mountain. The entire area around the summit was covered in the usual cascade volcano sastrugi, which always looks really cool and makes for a decent photo. Here’s a shot Andy took looking back at the top of the Summit Express lift…..

Bachelor's summit lift shack
Bachelor’s summit lift shack

More powder turns followed, and Andy continued to rip up the wind packed snow with his snow blades with the precision of a surgeon….

Slashing powder in the Cirque Bowl
Slashing powder in the Cirque Bowl

We skied until the lifts closed at 2:00, and made one of the last runs off the top. I was pretty tired at the end of the day from all the laps (when I checked Bachelor’s website the following day with my ticket number I saw we’d made over 23,000 vertical feet of turns – not too shabby considering we spent quite a bit of time hiking to the true summit for most of our runs). Down at the car, it felt nice to get out of our winter clothing and change into flip flops and shorts. Three hours later we were back in Eugene, and enjoying a cold beer after an awesome day of May powder! Days like these remind me I do enjoy riding at the resort and that it’s nice to find a balance between backcountry and lift accessed turns! Here’s a parting shot of Andy on the last run of the day….

Powder slash in the sun
Powder slash in the sun

 

January 20-23, 2009 – Whistler Blackcomb, BC

For the second time in as many years, a few friends and I, along with our families, made the trip north to Whistler Blackcomb for some winter time skiing and riding. We stayed in a ski in, ski out condo on Blackcomb, in close proximity to Whistler Village. The upper lifts on Whistler weren’t running due to the extreme avalanche conditions and depth hoar snowpack in the alpine. Not to worry, we found excellent riding on both mountains over the next several days, and the weather was gorgeous. Here’s a shot looking across the Blackcomb Glacier from the top of the t-bar…

Looking across the Blackcomb Glacier
Looking across the Blackcomb Glacier

We tested out the new Peak to Peak gondola, which had only been open for a month or so, and it sure makes getting from Blackcomb to Whistler a whole lot easier. What used to take an hour now only takes a few minutes. Here’s a shot of Andy, Todd, Kim and I heading from Blackcomb to Whistler…

The crew on the Peak to Peak Gondola
The crew on the Peak to Peak Gondola

The first couple of days were spent riding the groomers since the majority of the alpine was closed, but the sun and beautiful weather more than made up for it. Looking into the mountains surrounding Whistler, it appears the backcountry opportunities are endless. I imagine you could live up there for a few winters, ride the backcountry every day, and still not have explored it all….

Looking out into the Whistler backcountry
Looking out into the Whistler backcountry

On the third morning of our stay, the Harmony Express lift opened on Whistler Mountain, and we were able to find lots of untracked powder off of Harmony Ridge.  The ridge has lots of nice lines, including one area called KC Roll, where we spent quite a bit of time farming turns…

Matt dropping a small rock on Whistler Mountain
Matt dropping a small rock on Whistler Mountain

Andy was on his ski blades, and slashing quick turns this way and that. The funny thing about blades though, is that they’re a bit harder to control when the snow is deeper. I snapped the below photo just at the right time to catch him pre-wipeout…

Andy biffing it on Whistler Mountain
Andy biffing it on Whistler Mountain

On the last night of our stay, we all went out and had a few beers in the village prior to eating dinner at a nice restaurant (of which the name escapes me). The nightlife in the village is always happening, with plenty of things to do. My wife and I had a few beers at a couple of different pubs before taking the bus back to the condo, capping off another great year at Whistler. I’m already looking forward to a time when we make a return trip to the land of big mountains and good riding!  Here’s a parting shot of Todd and Kim on a stellar day from the top of the 7th Heaven Chairlift…

Todd and Kim at the top of 7th Heaven
Todd and Kim at the top of 7th Heaven

 

February 17, 2011 – Willamette Pass (epic pow)

Andy, Todd and I had watched the weather forecast all week with the intention of taking Thursday off to ride at Willamette Pass. Things were shaping up to be awesome by Thursday morning when I met Andy and we headed up to the pass. After a stop in Oakridge for some breakfast, we arrived at the Pass and it was deep. The pass doesn’t operate on Monday-Wednesday, so the 35 inches or so of new snow that had fallen over the past three days was untracked and unconsolidated. There was already a line of powder hounds forming at the bottom of the EPA lift, and we strapped in to join them. We ended up being seven or eight chairs back from first chair, and made our first run down High Lead. It was DEEP! I couldn’t find the bottom on my K2 Gryator and the snow was very unconsolidated. I ended up having to wait down at the flats for some others to break a trail so I wouldn’t get stuck. After a few more runs of epic pow, we joined up with Todd who drove up separately. Several patrollers were up playing hooky as well, and we spent the morning making runs with Dan on the frontside. After a very quick hasty lunch, we headed back out for some more pow. It took Patrol 4 awhile, and it was a lot of work, but they finally got the backside open around 12:30, just as things on the front were getting tracked out, which worked out perfectly.

Andy getting face shots on the backside!

As soon as the backside opened, the three of us hiked to the top of Peak 2 and dropped into Northern, which yielded excellent deep powder and more face shots. After suffering through a long dry January, this was the kind of relief we were in need of. On the next run, we headed over to June’s, and snapped a few pictures of the action.

Andy on June’s w/Todd in the background

We ended up making several thousand vertical for the day, all in over your head powder! As the backside started to get a bit tracked, we made three or four laps on Destiny, which for some reason, wasn’t getting pounded too hard. Destiny yielded nice turns and face shots on the steeper pitch, but I had to straight line it at the bottom to not get stuck.

Matt riding on Destiny

After a few more runs, Todd headed back to the front to get ready to leave. Andy and I made some more runs on the back, finding some nice untracked powder near the cliff. For our final run, we headed back through SDS directly off the top of the Peak 2 chair. By the time we made it down Swoosh on the front side and were back to the car, my legs were feeling pretty worked. The drive back was uneventful, and we made it home around the same time as people were getting off work. It was an excellent way to spend a day, and when the powder’s fresh and deep, you do what it takes to get to the slopes! here’s a parting shot of Todd riding on the backside…..

Todd tele-ing in the deep stuff

 

 

August 8, 2009, Palmer Glacier

I was looking forward to August turns as I headed up to Mt Hood’s Palmer Glacier, where I met Todd to make some lift-served riding. I had been up the week before practicing glacier travel and crevasse rescue on the White River Glacier and wished I’d had my board for the ride down. The weather was sunny and nice and the snow on the Palmer looked good as we loaded the Mile lift. We spun several laps on the snowfield and conditions were good. As usual, there were a few race courses set up with Olympic caliber skiers practicing their skills, and lots of campers down below at the ski and snowboard camps. There weren’t too many people just out enjoying the riding on the snowfield though.

For lunch, we headed all the way down riding deep into the Mile canyon, having to hike the last bit to the parking lot. The afternoon consisted of more turns, and after several thousand vertical, we called it a day and headed down to Govy for our usual standard of a beer and burger at the Ratskellar. Summer turns on Mt Hood are always lots of fun! Here’s a shot from the day…

August 2009 – Palmer Snowfield

August 2, 2008 – Palmer Glacier

To get turns in for month 33, I met up with Todd early in the morning at the parking lot of Mt Hood’s Timberline ski area. The weather was sunny and nice, and we elected to spin laps on the Palmer snowfield. The snow was somewhat hard as usual in the early morning, but few people were around.

Todd riding the Palmer, August 2008

As the snow softened up, more folks ventured up the lifts, and the snowboard campers started up the mountain as well. We spent most of our time on the upper Palmer, riding down to the mid-station without going all the way down.

Summer snowboard turns

Around 11:00, we headed over to the eastern boundary of the ski area and ventured out onto the White River Glacier to eat some lunch. Looking up at the White River Snowfield, it actually looked to be in pretty good shape. The usual large crevasses on the glacier itself were completely open in the mid-summer sun….

The upper White River glacier

After lunch, we made several more laps on the snowfield, with each one getting better and better. We thought about hiking above the ski area since the White River snowfield looked so good, but decide against that since most people were off the hill by noon and we had the place to ourselves.

Todd lounging at the top of the Palmer between runs

Around 1:00, being pretty spent, we made the long run down to the parking lot, having skied over 20,000 vertical feet for the day. Down at Govy, we stopped in at the Ratskellar for an IPA and some grub, rounding out a near perfect day. Here’s a shot of the mountain from the parking lot…..

Looking up at Hood at the end of the day