North Cascades Plan

Highway 20 is open and we're planning to tour at Washington Pass this weekend. The weather has been unseasonably cold and they received some snow this past week. It's supposed to get warmer, into the 60s this weekend and I'll post a full report.

View from the top of Cabin Run

Cabin Run - Cle Elum

End of March delivers the goods! On Sat the 27th Nick, Aaron and I snowmobiled in to the end of the Salmon la Sac trail (lots of dirt at the start of the road, it's melting out fast) and started skinning up to the right. The bottom was warm and very crusty, but it cooled as we climbed up and the snow improved. 3000' from the valley floor we reached the top and the powder turns you see here. We took another run on a more sun-exposed slope which had good corn at the top before turning a bit slushy. The last run was down the backside, and by this point in the day the sun was behind some clouds and it cooled quickly. There was a crust on top, but as we descended it turned to more corn before we had to pick our way through the trees back to the sleds.

Whistler BC - Feb 24-27

We got lucky with an invite to stay at a friend's condo during the Olympics and headed up with 5 of us crammed into a 4-door sedan. Whistler really did a nice job for the games - the Sea to Sky highway has been improved to the point where it takes 15-30 minutes less to get up there from Vancouver. In the village they had live music, big screen TVs, ski jumping demos every night (called the Fire and Ice show) and lots of exhibits. Fire and Ice was the highlight, with 8 skiers and boarders throwing flips through rings of fire at night - a perfect cap to the evening (or start of the evening for the childless crowd). Another big attraction was a set of giant Olympic rings you could climb on and have your picture taken.

We did manage to see one event, the women's slalom. We made it up to the standing-room-only area at the finish line and were able to watch the skiers come down and make the final 15 turns before the finish. It was foggy and snowing so visibility wasn't that great, but it was fun to see. The 8-year-olds we had with us only lasted about an hour, so needless to say we didn't see the whole thing.

Not a problem though, as the skiing was the highlight. It snowed every day, and because all the day parking lots were closed and you couldn't drive up without a pass - the hill was empty. No lift lines to speak of. This includes the Peak2Peak gondola, which whisks you from the Roundhouse at Whistler to the top of Jersey Cream at Blackcomb in 11 minutes. I was skeptical of the value of this investment until I arrived at the top of Whistler on Thursday to find all the top chairs closed for avalanche control and because of wind. 11 minutes later I was skiing Blackcomb and getting the freshies.

My favorite run is Ruby bowl, and it delivered two days straight. 6-8 inches of fresh snow each day and only a handful of other skiers made for some of the best skiing I've had there. It was a bit warm, but the snow at the top of the hill held up nicely and was dry enough to be enjoyable.

Big White Ski Resort

Rated the "Best Family Resort in Canada", Big White doesn't have the steeps you'll find at Revelstoke or Kicking Horse, but it excels as an all-around resort. We stayed right in the village at the Inn at Big White (all info here: http://www.bigwhite.com/index.php?fuseaction=home.showSection&ID=360). From most of the centrally-located hotels you can ski to the lifts, and they have a beginner run that starts in the main village and goes to the lower village where most of the children's activites are located. They have a giant tubing hill ($4 per ride), kids snowmobile rentals ($10 for 10 minutes) and reduced rates for a "Village Ticket" which allows access only to the beginner run. They have a gondola running from the lower lodge to the main village all day (free) so it's easy to access the different lodges and restaurants.
For the adults, there is great tree skiing and lots of intermediate runs. The 5500' base elevation means the snow is dry and it's a bit colder than we usually experience in Washington. Horizon Air offers one-hour flights from Seattle to Kelowna for about $250, then the resort is a 60-minute shuttle ride ($40 adults one way) from the airport. A friend drove from Seattle and it took 9 hours, so I definitely recommend the flight.

Finally some weather!

Forecast looks good for the next few days, if you can get about 5000'.
http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?site=sew&textField1=47.330&textField2=-121.486&zone=1

Teanaway Dec 19

It started out so promising! We had a pineapple earlier in the week with lots of rain and high snow levels. It was supposed to get colder on Saturday so we were hoping to find some good touring up high; we were optimistic that the higher elevations would receive some snow at the end of the storm. Ian, Aaron and I took the snowmobiles out to Teanaway and headed up the trail in a drizzle. Now I'm a novice on the sled, so I worked way to hard and was just exhaused after a short 10-mile run up the trail. Then I got the sled stuck twice (luckily not too bad), much to the chagrin of my partners. The rain kept coming down, even at 6,000'. We saw a massive wet slide come off of Esmerelda and decided there would be no touring on any slope that day. Near the end of the valley we parked the sleds and put on the touring skis and decided to just skin the rest of the way up the valley.
I've never heard as much whumping as I did that day. The rain was percolating through the snow and the whole snowpack would settle every 1/2 hour or so. We stayed on flat terrain and made the best of it. We were wet, but it was warm so not too miserable. We blasted out on the sleds and were back at the cars by 3:30.