Norse Peak

My fleece top was starting to get wet from all the snow, and my back was starting to show signs of real fatigue as we skinned up for the fourth and last run of the day. Just Aaron and I remained, and it was still snowing hard. The first three runs were at least knee deep and it was piling up an inch an hour. This is what we live for - working yourself to utter exhaustion with 6000 feet of climbing in a storm, with the reward of 4 of the best powder runs anyone's every experienced.

A strong storm came in Friday night, starting with high freezing levels then cooling as it dumped 8" at the top of Crystal overnight. It was forecasted to snow all day Saturday, when Aaron, Pablo, Bart and I headed up. There were at least 6" of fresh in the parking lot and as we broke trail to the top, it deepened to 8-10". We took the first run down skiers right, then did one down the middle, then bullion basin before Pablo and Bart took off.

The last run did not disappoint. As tired as I was I had a grin on my face as I pointed the S7s downhill and felt the snow fly up into my legs and chest. 10 minutes later we were back at the car enjoying a beer and changing into dry clothes.

Van Epps

It was 50 degrees in Seattle on Saturday but it stayed cold east of the Cascade crest. We were hoping some of the snow from the storm the previous week would remain in tact and give us some good powder. We headed out to Van Epps and because of the low avy danger (thick rain crust under about 8" of unconsolidated powder) we skinned right up the gut.


The skiing was pretty good, light powder over the crust, which you could just barely feel underneath. A little avy debris in the path made it interesting, but all in all good skiing. After three skins up (1400' each) - I was ready to call it a day.



Aaron, never one to pass up an epic workout, convinced us to do another run. That last lap pushed me pretty good and as always I was happy to get back to the sleds at 5:30.