Alisse

Cassidy, @aaronohn, and I spent Saturday night at the Mountaineers Lodge. We skiied Saturday in very windy, low vis conditions, looking for the best snow and vis -- Swift Creek delivered OK but was somehow even more uninspiring than usual, TONS of people. Our last lap was a little farther down the ridge and no one else was there or had been there - way better! Wish we'd gone there first... We also enjoyed stomping all the wind lips and baby cornices we could find along the way around Austin Pass! Sorry for weird and inconsistent white balance/colors in these. I still haven't figured out how to best deal with low light and snow colors within the Google Photos editing options... (open to all advice there): Played the GAME OF EARTH Saturday night -- HIGHLY recommend. Created by an earth sciences teacher in the late 90s! Sunday, I sat in the lodge feeling a bit sorry for myself with a swollen foot thing while Aaron and Cassidy skiied the Stoneman couloir!

That's kind of a wide propagation - what did it slide on? And why hadn't you been to Snoqualmonix in so long?

"...named because it looks like a penis..." delivered in monotone. ha!

A couple friends and I rode from my house to the Vesper/Sunrise Mine TH. Happy to answer any specific questions! The worst parts were the FS road (we were kinda underbiked) and some sections through Snohomish with no shoulder. I remember some hooligans honked at us while passing fast on the Mtn Loop Rd but otherwise I enjoyed that section. It was very satisfying to get to the top of and then ski Vesper, all without using a car!

Wow! What a photo. Where was/is Barron? Those boys look ROUGH. When I saw just the text of your post, I first thought: Hotel?! Is that Jason's house?!

It just started absolutely pouring in N. Seattle so maybe that's a drier choice...

There will at least be two of us!

I got back last night from a four-day trip to the yurts (Wallowa Alpine Huts, WAH) in McCully Basin in the Wallowa Mountains in northeast Oregon. There wasn't a TON of information online about the area so I thought I could contribute a tiny bit to what's out there. Here's one useful report from Wildsnow that includes a link to a GPX with some ski runs. Apologies in advance for the weird photo sizing/formatting below. Best I could do without taking hours on it... You might be wondering where this area is. Wikipedia article here for your reading pleasure. I was lucky enough to be invited on the trip with nine other people, knowing only one of them going in. Thank you, @Hoo!!! We were so lucky with snow conditions and weather for this trip. I won't share my entire journal entry about the trip, but here are some highlights: The drive from Seattle to Joseph, Oregon included listening to a very interesting New Yorker podcast about "smoking toad" and then (seriously) almost running out of gas going over the Blue Mountains due to my misjudgment of the distance between towns with gas stations. WHEW. Finally in Joseph, we had dinner at this odd tiny cafe + pet store concept (The Dog Spot) but the food was EXCELLENT. Rotating menu every two weeks; we enjoyed some black mushroom dumplings and dandan noodles... 🤤 Joseph: We got to the house where we were all staying the night before heading into the yurts. After hanging out for awhile, I was poking around the house and I found that there was a door with stairs leading to a garage or basement? I walked down the stairs and... oh, hello, there's a human down here! It was Silas, a young guy working on guide certs, who would be with us for the trip in the next day. Meeting him there was the first surprise of many on this trip. The WAH owner, AKA the yurtmeister, is not known for his communication skills....but I hear he's a fun guy to be around! The next morning, we met the other two guides at a cafe down the street. The lead guide repeated: "It's a FOUR mile skin in! Make sure you bring enough water!" FOUR MILES!?!?!?! 1800' gain! We felt there was a 50/50 chance of us making it to the yurts. My giant backpack weighed 40-45 pounds, including a fifth of whiskey, almost an entire six-pack, about 2.5 pounds of peanut M&Ms, half of a quiche, a couple dozen cookies, a loaf of bread I made, lots of fresh vegetables, my touring pack ...etc etc.. Micah's pack job was beautiful and the bag of Juanita's survived the journey in quite well: We'd learned the day before that we would be getting a snowmobile tow in for about a mile! Packs in a tub behind the snowmachine, in ski mode, it was kind of like waterskiing. I won't name any names, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the two times we had to stop were because someone on split skis fell over... (couldn't help myself). For real, though, @Hooreally showed off his split skiing game this trip; I think his board spent significantly more time in split mode than together on the descents. And so, rising out of the crusty snow up to the consistent soft stuff, we arrived at the yurts (7540'). There were three: a kitchen yurt and two sleeping yurts. The advertised sauna yurt hadn't been constructed in years, it seemed. We were in Eagle Cap Wilderness and the yurts are taken down and put up each year. Yurts had cots, sleeping pads, stocked wood/stoves, the usual ski hut cooking supplies, propane lanterns and stoves, no bleach 🤨. Open creek hole nearby supplied the water; haven't come down with giardia yet. Kitchen/hangout yurt and really awesome lichen that I will try to identify soon: Due to the deep persistent slab problem and high winds everywhere, we kept the skiing pretty darn mellow. We went on two short tours the afternoon of our arrival, finding variable conditions and then better soft stuff; the next day we skied in somewhat stormy conditions all day with great fast snow and refills all day; and days three and four we lucked out with beautiful weather and poked around a little higher. Sunday, day three, we toured over a sandblasted saddle (8590') on the east side of the basin and down into Little Sheep Basin and skied a couple really fun, longer laps on a NW aspect before heading back over to McCully Basin: Monday, everyone else packed up and left right away, but Micah and I decided to check out things to the west: we toured low-angle slopes up to Bear Mountain (9170'), a very broad and wind-scoured rocky summit, and then after a bit of doubt on my part (we had no pons, axes, whippet) and a couple carries through rocks, we were able to pretty easily take the ridge up to the top of Aneroid Mountain (9700'). The views were STUNNING! I hadn't heard the word aneroid before, so I looked it up: adjective - 1. using no liquid 2. relating to or denoting a barometer that measures air pressure by the action of the air in deforming the elastic lid of an evacuated box or chamber. TMYK! We took a short bonus lap on the way down to the yurts and finally Micah said he was feeling a little worked! On the exit back down into civilization, we had a sometimes-exciting downhill skin out and then a fast ski down and out the snowmobile/ski track and icy road. The six hours back to Seattle went without incident. What a fantastic trip! So lucky. Although I don't describe the other yurt-mates here, it was a great time all around, even after the sun went down. Thank you, Micah!

I voted for MV because I want to support Jason supporting CC 🙃

My number one goal is not getting avalanched. The others are secret

@OlympicMtnBoy what's the best spot in Lake City?

By the definition given above... I qualify as an urban elite! One who wants to earn her turns! 🥳 (I don't think I qualify as cosmopolitan, though...)

Urban elites 😂 every time I tour out of Paradise, I meet people who are locals.

It's an Oveja Negra butt rocket I scored off a nice guy on Craiglist!

Looks like weather will be good enough to ride! @kmfoerster ride bikes with me? 😁

I don't want to do any group rides, but I would love to ride these routes!

It was fun watching some of the race video! Thanks for posting. May I? I'd really like to do this ride/HAB/ride next year, if any of y'all are interested: https://bellinghamgrindcorps.com/rambod/ I would ride my lighter road bike with 32mm tires for it, not the bike pictured above.

Did those axes come out, @JasonG?

Please add your pow pics!

This week, the gods smile upon us. Let us continue to appease the gods!

Sweet, a solid 26-mile round trip bike ride! I hope it isn't raining. Rad, I also vote for the Roanoke Tavern, next time!

I just didn't want to install the app 🙃 We'll see about pub club...thanks for the special invite 🥰 (even if it is basically 100% because of my gender) 😝

I'm on my phone (Android). When I use Google Lens on this code, it prompts me to install the PayPal app. Weird. Not sure if this is true for all mobile users, but the DONATE button is at the very bottom of the general forum list page and at the bottom of each individual forum. Long live CC and all the beta contained herein! Thank you Oly!