maxwell

We had some glorious pow last Tuesday (12/7) at Bachie! Then the pineapple express came and melted frosty-the-snowcover. Not sure how it is now but probably better than any other lift served in OR.

Bailey will be up and running soon. One of my main ski partners is a guide there (bastard) and he's been keeping me up on the new happenings. They have a new cat and the experienced guides are back. So it should be better than ever. I skied an 18" day there a couple of years ago in March and had an excellent time. Great terrain there. They also have a new website: http://www.catskimtbailey.com/ Edit to add: I also ski with spajr (the starter of this thread) and I know he knows the snow is deep now at Diamond - last week was a different story. What a difference a week makes!

We saw avy evidence on the back side of the cone Tuesday (the cirque sort of thing). Not sure if it was patroller, naturally triggered or otherwise, but it had a 2-3ft crown and definitely would'a killed a man dead.

How's Bachy doing today/lately? Is the "cone" open yet or is it totally unsafe due to early season hazards? Thinking about going Tues...looks like they got about 10" today& last night.

Just got off of an 18-day trip through the Grand Canyon on 11/1 and I was amazed at the beach erosion that had taken place in the 8 years since I'd been there. All that sediment is piling up at Lake Mead and now the old take-out, Pierce Ferry, is full of sediment and one now has to go 30 more miles to the next take out. The place is getting messed up from that damn dam. Rapids like Crystal will be unrunnable soon unless there is a big flush to clean some of that shit out like pre-dam days. And we're talking 70,000+ cfs not the 40k cfs joke of an experiment they did in the late 90's.

I have an extra ticket for Phish at Coventry, Sunday's show....except the viewing location is the Regal cinema in Portland. Will be kinda strange seeing them via satellite in a theater but I feel I need to at least check it out since I was obsessed with them in the mid-90's. Good luck on your search and have fun if you're going!

10 foot diameter boulders! Crazy. I'm pretty sure I know the injured guy from Portland through work. Didn't know he climbs. I hope both injured heal well.

Finally got to ski this one yesterday and thought I'd just add the photo and info to the end of this thread. Pretty good conditions although the snow around tie-in-rock wasn't completely frozen allowing for some post-holing to mid-calf (we didn't break through the layer on the ski decent). As we got higher, steps required a couple of good kicks. Skied from the pink dot at about 10,400. Corn was good, and was ready by 8am. Had to dodge a few tennis ball sized rocks whizzing down at us on the way up. Slog was painful yet very rewarding. We also skied a north off the spur down onto the Elliot at about 430pm Saturday that had good turns too...Although I skied about 2 feet from a crevasse that was showing more by the day.

Thanks for the report and photos. Hope to ski the Cooper Spur on Friday (6/11). Come on high pressure!