Meany story
Avalanche story
Granite (Avalanche)

Gear story

Other Trips 

From June 9 to June 14, 2025 Odette and Jerry rode out of Winthrop and Chelan 

Early in 2025, as we were planning a ride down the Danube and looking further out to the Agean, I told Odette that I wanted to do a ride east of the mountains in the Spring – and she said OK.  What I really had in mind was a ride in the Okanagan or the Selkirks, but I decided to strike while the iron was hot and booked a stay at Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop.  We hadn’t been to Winthrop since 2022 when we discovered that there wasn’t any place to get early breakfast and vowed to stay at Sun Mountain the next time we went there.  Winthrop is familiar territory for us after a bunch of visits for hiking & climbing,  biking, and x-country skiing.  I mapped out a couple of old favorites (Chewuch and Carleton) and then worked out a down-sized version of the ride to Grand Coulee we’d done two or three times a decade ago.  The basic idea was to ride a couple of days in Winthrop, drive over to Chelan via Grand Coulee – stopping for a ride on the way – and then do a couple of rides in Chelan.  I couldn’t figure out how to book Campbell’s on line so I settled for a couple of nights in an AirBNB.

A week before we were scheduled to go to Winthrop we did a ride on the tandem and discovered a broken spoke on the front wheel when we got home.  I rode to Recycled Cycles and got told that it would be $40 in labor but a three-week wait to get the spoke replaced.  (They also pointed out that the rim was pretty beat-up and likely due for replacement pretty soon.)  I went on down to Polkadot Jersey where I’d gotten the wheels and they quoted me $80 and said they could have it done by the weekend.  On Friday, the day the work order said it would be ready, I stopped by the shop to remind them that I was leaving Monday morning.  They hadn’t started yet but promised me it would be done the next day and it was.

I loaded the tandem on the roof of the car and we  (or rather Odette) drove to Marblemount with no complications other than seeing a bear just before Rockport.  The lack of complications was not guaranteed since it was the first time using a rebuilt tandem carrier.  After Odette ran into low overhead pipes, I took off the Yakima bars and attached the carrier directly to the factory rack.  I removed it in February to mount a ski case and when I put it back together, instead of a longitudinal bar to clip the strut to, I mounted a regular bike carrier with a U-bolt through it about midway.  I also drilled a couple of holes in the tandem pivot plate so that I could put bolts through and entirely lock it out.  I was scared the wing nuts I used on the bolts would loosen up and I was scared that the holes I drilled in the channel for the U-bolt would wallow out.  It actually tightened down very nicely and 100 miles later the wing nuts were loose but not in any danger of coming off and the bike was not swaying enough to bother me.

We rode down Rockport-Cascade Rd from Marblemount to Rockport and took SR 20 back.  Here’s the map.  It was only 20 miles but it was fun – the forest was lush, the day wasn’t too hot, the traffic on SR 20 wasn’t too bad.  I saw a wild turkey but no bears.  We had a nice lunch in Marblemount and then Odette drove another 100 miles to Sun Mountain Lodge outside of Winthrop.  The scenery over Washington Pass was as spectacular as ever.  We stopped in Winthrop and walked the main street and visited a bookstore – not much had changed.  At the lodge we loaded our stuff onto a cart and checked into a nice room on the third floor.  (It was a big room with a nice shower.)  We looked out over the pool and up the valley to snow peaks.  The air conditioning made too much noise but worked quite well.  We had dinner there and liked it well enough to eat breakfast and dinner there the next two days as well.  The restaurant never had more than a half-dozen diners and at each meal there was something the kitchen had forgotten or that they were out of.  They also surprised us with a minimum wage surcharge.

The next day breakfast wasn’t available until 7:30 so after a late start we  left the car in town and rode out East Chewuch River Road to the end of the pavement on Forest Service Road 51 and back on West Chewuch River Road.  Here’s the map.   It was almost 50 miles, but I had mapped a 35 mile route in RWGPS.  (I couldn’t find the stream crossing where we’d always turned around and stopped where RWGPS showed an end to the pavement.)  It was hot and the last couple of miles on the way out were brutal.  The side hill traverse that you do on West Chewuch on the way back wasn’t much better. There was a cable team running wires with flaggers stopping traffic and Odette cried out to them in sobs, pleading for them not to stop us on the grade.    We got back to the car at the community barn and collapsed in the shade on the grass.  We stopped at the Thriftway and bought grapes and cold juice.

For the third day of the trip we left the car in town for another late start  and rode out East Twisp-Winthrop Road to Methow Valley Highway and down to Carleton.  We rode back on the other side of the river on Twisp-Carleton Rd to SR 20.  We left the highway at the river bend after Twisp and rode the river road to Twin Lakes Rd. and back to the car.  Here’s the map.  The way out was pretty much all down hill and we got out before the heat of the day so it was a good ride and we did well.  On the Twisp Carleton road segment we slowed down (I’d forgotten that there always seems to be a headwind there) and stopped in the shade a couple of times because of the heat.  After we left SR 20 we took a long break in the shade and Odette decided that she would walk the rest of the way.  Eventually she got back on the bike but by this time she had decided that she had heat exhaustion and would likely not survive.  The climb away from the highway on Twin Lakes Rd. wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined but it offers very little shade – we finally pulled over to avail ourselves of a patch on the left and we must have looked like we were on our last legs because a driver pulled over when he saw us and asked if we were ok and if we needed a ride back to our car…  We made it back in due time (but without seeing any deer in the fields near the lake where we’ve seen lots of deer in previous years.)  We missed the sign to Sun Mountain and ended up driving all the way to Twisp looking for our turn.  Odette declared that she wasn’t going to ride Grand Coulee the next day and I realized that whether it was physical or psychological the chances of her enjoying that route were pretty slender, so I didn’t argue.  The shower that afternoon was great, the restaurant was fine (although the server didn’t know from Porter) and we slept well.

After a final late breakfast at Sun Mountain we checked out (where they surprised us with a resort charge) and drove to Twisp.  We parked at the city park where we had parked the last time we opted for an easier ride.  We did an out and back on the Twisp River Rd., turning around at the 15 mile point .   Here’s the map.  The forest was dense (but an east-side pine forest instead of the rainforest we usually ride in.)  We saw several deer.  There was a Cascade Bike Club gravel bike event that we encountered on the way out.  It was much cooler than the two previous days and I wondered if we couldn’t have ridden Grand Coulee successfully – and felt some regret in that I’m unlikely to ever ride that agin now.

Odette drove about 50 miles to Chelan and we checked into an AirBNB pretty close to the center of town.  The room didn’t compare to Sun Mountain but It was just about right for what we were doing.  We had dinner at Campbell’s and the NY Strip was frankly much better than anything I’d eaten at Sun Mountain.  The next morning we got an early breakfast at the Artisanal Bakery (which we carried back to our AirBNB.)  We rode out US 97 A to Navarre Coulee Rd to S. Lakeshore Rd and back on US 97 A again.  Here’s the map.  It was another 30 mile day but with enough climbing to make it interesting.  It started out cool but warmed up as we climbed up the coulee. On the highway descent (after the tunnel) I swerved to miss rocks on the shoulder and got honked at by an SUV.  Odette kept looking for the steep part but didn’t seem too disappointed when it never materialized.  After our ride we walked around downtown visiting another bookstore and the riverfront park and then had dinner at Campbell’s again.  Impressively, the waitress from the previous night recognized us.

For our final day we got an even earlier breakfast at Starbucks and Odette drove  60 miles to Leavenworth.  We parked at the ranger station and rode out Chumstick Valley Highway to Plain.  From Plain we took Beaver Valley Rd to SR 207 to Coles Corner  and then rode back to Leavenworth on US 2.  Here’s the map.  It had been a decade since we had ridden this loop but it was still about 40 miles and is marred only by the traffic and deteriorated pavement on the shoulder of US 2.  It was cool at the start and below the crest we met a group of sports cars that wanted to play chicken with us.  We stopped at the crest for a clothing adjustment and after Plain we encountered another bike event (Tour de AlpenFlüsse) going the other direction.  I wore my Cascadia jersey with the idea of joining the No Kings demonstration in Leavenworth, but in the end we decided it felt too much like carpet bagging and we opted not to.  Odettte drove about 120 miles back home taking US 2 over Stevens (noting about a five-degree difference in temperature as we went over the crest) and taking SR 522 and 405 North to Lynnwood as suggested by Google.

Overall it was a lot of time in the car and not enough time on the bike.  The tandem carrier held up to all of the driving and bouncing around.  After a couple hours, though, I need to check the wing nuts.  The bike performed very well.  We have some squeaks in the brakes but I was pleased.  I’m disappointed about the Grand Coulee route but I’m glad we made it back over to the Methow and Chelan is always fun.

 

April 10, 2010

Jerry, Alex and Carrie attempt Granite Mountain

 

 

A spur of the moment ski tour.  Weather was supposed to be warm with “filtered sunlight.” There’d been a couple feet of snow at pass level during the last week.  The avalanche center was saying considerable danger over 5,000 ft. on Friday going to moderate by Saturday – with a comment about having seen the layer of new accumulation slide in the ski areas and a warning about that top layer on slopes exposed to the sun.

 

We talked about avalanche stuff on the way to the Granite Mountain trailhead.  All of us had climbed the peak in the summer, Jerry had led it as a backcountry snowboard trip for the Mountaineers many years ago.  Bergdorfers book got passed around.  The concensus was that if we stuck to the north ridge and kept out of the main bowl we would be safe enough.

 

At the trailhead we put on our beacons and tested them.  We had trouble getting one of shovels out of its makeshift scabbard but ultimately we each had a beacon and shovel.  Jerry had a snowboard and was wearing snowboard boots.  Alex and Carrie had alpine ski gear (with ski boots in their packs) and were wearing climbing boots.  We left the car at 9:30 and hiked the trail to the Pratt Lake junction before it was consistently snow-covered.  (Although we did see snowshoe tracks in the mud!)  There were no tracks heading up the mountain.  Shortly after the wilderness area boundry we attempted to head uphill but the snow was so unconsolidated that we returned to the trail.  We made that same effort when we came to the first gully but realizing that the summer trail switchbacked up on our side of the gully we continued up the trail.  We tried to take to the trees when we got to the first gully crossing but were immediately postholing to our crotches. We decided to cross the gully and walk the switchbacks on the other side reasoning that when you’ve got a trail you should use it.  When the trail headed for the second gully we could see the bowl through open trees just above us so with great effort we began climbing.  Alex led but soon resorted to an almost crawling motion.  Jerry and Carrie stayed vertical but had a lot of work to pack out steps that wouldn’t blow out.

 

The idea was to cut back across the first gully just below the bowl and climb up to the ridge sticking just next to the trees. Alex was faster and drifted more southward on the path of least reistance.  We regrouped at a point higher than we wanted to be at and realized that we weren’t going to the summit.  We decided to climb for another hour so that we could at least get some turns for our effort.  Jerry steered the group up toward the crest of a smaller ridge on the south side of the first gully in the belief that there was some protection to being on top of the terrain feature.  The snow was noticeably firmer as we climbed up this ridge and we remarked on having some slab action going on and discussed stresses on snow layers as they bent over that kind of a roll.  The sun was bright and hot at this point. The goal became a cluster of trees below the point where the ridge blended into the bowl.  From that point it appeared that we could ski back to the North ridge with only a short exposed crossing of the bowl/gully.  About halfway to the trees we were overtaken by a hiker with an ice axe but no skis.  He had a british or australian accent and Jerry at least didn’t really understand his comments.  We waited for him to get into the front of the line so that he could kick steps for us.  He obliged for a few feet of vertical and then turned around and glissaded down the way he had come.

 

As we neared the cluster of trees we turned north a little lower than we should have.  The north-facing slope of the ridge seemed to have a very thin soft layer over something hard.  Jerry retreated and continued on the ridge crest before cutting over to the lowest of the trees, intending to dig a snow-pit before attempting to cross the bowl.  A strong wind developed as we neared the trees and it became very cold and difficult to see because of blowing snow.  There was barely room for two above the tree – Alex put on his skiis while Jerry added a layer of clothing and Carrie waited for them to make space for her.  Alex dropped down below the trees so that Jerry and Carrie could gear up and Jerry got into his snowboard bindings.  When he looked up Jerry saw an avalanche crown that he didn’t remember and cried out “shit – did that just slide?”  Carrie didn’t know but they were relieved to see Alex standing just below the crown.  There had been no accompanying the slide – or at least nothing that could be heard over the wind.  Jerry dropped down below the tree to make room for Carrie and saw Alex ski under the crown heading for the ridge as previously planned.  Jerry called out to him to come back as he was concerned about a slide involving the upper part of the bowl.

 

We regrouped a few hundred feet below the trees – with no wind – and agreed to ski out the way way we had hiked up. Alex reported that he skiied a little way away from the trees and stopped and then the snow just dropped out from under his feet.  He was at the top of the slide and was able to do a ski pole arrest.  He reported that the crown was less than a foot high where he was.  He said that his phone rang as he was getting up after arresting and from the record of the missed call he could tell that the slide happened at 2:30.

 

The first few turns were good on windslab but we were soon into soft heavy snow and after skiing perhaps 500 feet of vertical we were back to the trail with skiis on our backs.  We quickly noticed the boot track of the guy who had glissaded down and at a switchback next to the first gully we saw where avalanche debris had covered his track but it clearly continued below.  We crossed the first gully without being able to see the trail on the far side.  We slid down a few feet to pick up the trail at the switchback below and were relieved to see boot tracks heading out.  We scanned the debris as we switchbacked down next to the gully but didn’t see any gear of other indication that anyone else was involved.

 

When we returned to the trailhead there were several emergency vehicles and a bunch of first responders from the Snoqualmie fire department and Eastside search and rescue.  The firemen indicated that they had received a cellphone call from someone who was lost and who might have been caught in an avalanche.  They asked if we had seen any avalanches and we replied that we had been right next to one.  The firemen suggested that there was more than one avalanche and wanted to know if we had seen “the north one or the south one.” They reported that the guy they were looking for was clothed in a t-shirt and shorts – which didn’t sound like the hiker we had encountered.  As we waited for permission to leave, a steady stream of mountain rescue volunteers arrived and began the process of booting up.

 

After debriefing and leaving contact information, we left and drove across I-90 to a vantage point where we could see that we had been dead center in the bowl we had intended to avoid.  The slide was visible from the highway and dropped perhaps 1,000 feet.  On the drive home more emergency vehicles were encountered heading up toward the pass and helicopters were visible overhead.

 

By the next morning the news was reporting  a rescue and on Monday television had the interview.

Here is an excerpt from the snowpack analysis the next day.

Here are some photos (mainly by Alex and Carrie.)

January 23, 2001
 
Mr. Kurt Miller
Warren Miller Entertainment
2540 Frontier Avenue
Suite 104
Boulder, CO 80301
 
Dear Kurt:
 
With your father living in the San Juans and you being around Seattle off and on for a long time, you must have heard about The Mountaineers – those guys with the long lines of climbers going up Mt. Rainier in the early days. Have you ever heard about Meany Lodge, the Mountaineers’ ski hut at Stampede Pass?  Meany is a remarkable place in a lot of ways and if you haven’t seen it you should check it out.
 
A couple of years ago in your movie you featured a guy who ran a rope tow for his own kids. Meany has sort of that kind of feel about it – only with a lot more people and sort of a time warp aspect to it.  In the issue of Ski magazine where your dad’s column first appeared this year, there was an article about a guy skiing one of Colorado’s lost ski areas. The folks he interviewed reminisced about dads running the rope tow and kids learning to ski in a non-commercial environment.  Then he found the old runs and realized that they were pretty sweet.  Meany is real close to that.
 
Meany is about three miles in from the road.  You ride in to the lodge on a 1950s vintage snow cat (a Bombardier "muskeg ox" that has been stretched and had its tracks widened by the guys at the Lodge).  If there are too many of you some tow behind.
 
The Lodge interior looks like it was frozen in the 50s – and many of the Meany regulars were obviously skiers then. There are Tyrolian style wall paintings and lots of little kids running around. Everything looks like it has been improvised by guys who tend to over-engineer.  Everything is done by volunteers and their priority is obviously skiing, not fashion.
 
So here is the first pitch – family scenes, old guys (some in their 90s!), teenage boarders with bleached hair, everybody in ski wear with lots of duct tape, a bunch of odd contraptions including ancient snow cats and a rope tow of almost Rube Goldberg complexity – and everybody having a great time. Could come close to the snow-making scenes of those two guys with the ski jump on the farm.  Film in the summer and you’ll get footage of people brushing the slopes by hand, digging ditches, remodeling buildings, cutting firewood, overhauling snow cats, erecting towers, etc. In the winter there is a PSIA ski school affording pictures of cute kids snowplowing, going off jumps, falling down, etc.
 
On one wall of the main room in the Lodge is a rack full of tow grippers.  Kurt, you may not have grown up skiing with tow grippers, but I’ll bet your dad can tell you stories about them.  Can you think of another place in the US where they are still in use? (They are prohibited by the ANSI lift codes now, but Meany was using them when the Washington regulations were adopted and it was grandfathered in.)  The style used at Meany is what the Kiwis call "nutcrackers".  They are metal pliers that cam on the rope, but they also hang from a belt at about crotch level. The Meany tow is about 1,200 feet long with a 500 ft. elevation gain. The upper part of it is real steep. They used to run it fast, but in this age of softies they keep it down to about 19 mph (know how fast a high speed quad goes?).  Here is the second pitch – imagine people being pulled up this hill with rollers and bumps and drifted ungroomed snow on either side of the track. Imagine them getting air off the bumps and flying when they crest over the edge onto the platform at the top of the tow.  Now imagine that these folks include boarders, skiers with funny old gear and hand knitted hats, telemarkers, little kids with aggressive attitudes – all with lots of duct tape.  Now imagine the footage of the newbies!  Kurt, guess what happens when you clamp down with a tow gripper before you are up to speed?  At the beginning of the season they station a guy at the bottom of the tow with a shovel to fill in the faceplants.  The steep part with the rollers causes spectacular flailing falls with even more spectacular slides.  When someone falls at the top everyone in line behind him either bails or falls and the pile-ups of people unloading from the tow would get as many laughs as those vintage scenes of people unloading from chairlifts.  For most people skiing in America nowadays it will also seem pretty damn exotic (or at least anachronistic for those old enough to remember when rope tows were high tech).  It may not be India and skiing with bandsaw blade edges, but the skiing at Meany isn’t like anywhere else.
 
Now, here comes the clincher – the skiing itself is good and photogenic.  Because the hill doesn’t get skied during the week it usually has untracked snow on the weekends. Because it is on the east side of the crest it gets snow which is a whole lot lighter and drier than that at Snoqualmie just up the road. (Listen, there is an outfit called Cascade Powder Cats that is running a snow cat skiing operation just a little way down the ridge from Meany.)  Imagine these folks with the old gear and the funny hats (and the boarders and the little kids with helmets and attitudes) skiing open pitches of deep untracked powder.  If you learn to ski at a place like Meany where only a little of the snow gets groomed, you learn to ski really well, so these guys look smooth.  Then they drop into the trees.  Or they plunge down a really steep bank into a gully with a hot-tub sized hole full of water at the bottom.  Or they launch off a cornice or a cliff.  Or they hit a kicker.  There are something like 30 named runs from the top of that tow (most of the names are from the Al Capp cartoon strip which kind of reinforces the time warp aspect of the whole scene.)  There is enough variety to keep the crowd happy for the weekend, which also means that there is enough to give you decent shots of a lot of interesting terrain. The view from the top of the lift is pretty neat with all of the peaks in the central part of the Cascade crest visible on a clear day.  On one side of the lift the hill is exceptionally steep with widely spaced trees.  This slope gives some of the sweetest short powder shots you can imagine.  The get-back ("psychopath") is at the top of a cliff and protected with rotten climbing ropes.  The pool in the stream at the bottom of the cliff is named for Ferguson, a guy who fell in sometime in the late 50s.  Kurt, you could complement the humorous footage of the rope tow with shots of folks skiing some really good stuff.  The same folks who run the chain saws and welders in the summer are out there cutting smooth arcs in the powder during the winter. Or, send up a few of your big-name skiers or snowboarders and we’ll show them backcountry snow where it is as exciting going up as down.
 
You can pretty well imagine the scenes in the interior of the lodge after a day of skiing.  You’ve got about a hundred folks (who’ve shed the ski wear with the duct tape for polypro long johns) sitting around waiting for dinner in a sort of museum / rec room environment.  You’ve got old guys snoozing.  You’ve got a bunch of kids running around in and out of the snow.  You’ve got teenagers trying to claim a spot for themselves where nobody can see what they’re up to.  The energy level gets higher and higher as dinner approaches.  The place must look pretty much like it has for the last 70 plus years.  Then the whole crowd gets fed – a spectacle in itself.  Periodically they try to revive the tradition of folk dancing after dinner.  Kurt, it’s what ski lodges were like forty years ago!
 
The final pitch is the scene at the end of the weekend.  Three o’clock, the lessons are over, the lift ropes get hung so they won’t be buried before the next weekend, and everybody gets ready to head down.  Now, over the weekend there have been four or five cat loads of skiers coming to the lodge but everybody goes home at the same time.  Imagine 30 plus people loaded into this old snow cat. Imagine the packs and stuff piled high on top.  Imagine that forty or fifty more people have skied or snowboarded down to the spot where the trail flattens out and lined up on either side.  Image the loaded, topheavy-looking snow cat lumbering up between these two lines trailing a couple of ropes. Then imagine the footage of the snow cat towing all those skiers and snowboarders, in their funny hats and duct tape, as they whiz down a logging road throwing snowballs, playing crack-the-whip, knocking snow off the overhanging branches and generally celebrating another weekend.  Imagine the look on the face of the snowmobiler coming the other way who cuts around the snow cat only to find fifty skiers trailing behind.  Imagine the scene when the cat stops at a snow park dominated by RVs with snowmobile trailers.  Imagine skiers inching past mud puddles big enough to hide a car so that they don’t have to take off their skis.  Imagine snowmobiles whizzing everywhere, dozens of cars covered with snow, and this ancient snow cat with the packs on top whipping around in the middle of it.  Imagine those folks with the funny hats and duct tape unloading skis and boards and kids and gear in the middle of the mud and trucks and confusion.  Imagine them saying goodbye to each other and then getting in their fancy SUVs and Subarus.  The images of towing out behind the cat and the scene at the parking lot would be compelling even without the shots of the rope tow and the skiing!
 
 
Now here is the thing. If you want to capture the Meany scene you’re going to have to act now because they are talking about building themselves a chair lift!  It is true that they’ve talked about a chair lift for the last ten or twenty years, but this time they’re serious. They have a couple of schemes, but it looks like they can get most of the parts of an old double chair for free and they’re able to scare up a lot of volunteer labor.  It would be a sad thing if this uniquely Northwest ski experience vanished before you got your chance.  I don’t know what role you have in the films after having sold your company, but filming at Meany would give scenes that aren’t going to show up in any of the new-school videos and would provide a glimpse into a vanished era.  Kurt, even if this isn’t your job anymore, do your fans in Seattle a favor and pass the idea on to whoever does look at this kind of stuff.
 
 
So, anyway, let me know if I’ve sold you.  There is a Meany website with some pictures and a trail map at http://www.obatik.com/meany/.   I’d love to host some of your guys if they want to check the Lodge out some weekend, winter or summer.  I’ll even show them my favorite runs.  I’ll lend them a chainsaw.  Just let me know – and remember, if you don’t do it now you’ll be another year older when you do.
 
Yours truly,
 
 
Jerry Scott

February 4, 2007

Jerry and Will Ski Mt. Baldy

 

One of the attractions of Harvey Mudd was that even though it was located in sourthern California there was skiing only thirty minutes away.  That seemed like a shorter distance than certain other campuses in Pittsburgh or upstate New York advertised. When we dropped Will off in the fall of his Freshman year Odette and I drove up to the Mt. Baldy ski area to see what was happening there.  It was an epic trip in a daewoo subcompact.  Odette was terrified of the road and even more terrified of the prospect of me driving.  Bicycles passed us going uphill.   We got out at the parking lot but Odette retreated to the car after one look at the lift. The car filled with smoke from the brakes on the way down.

In February when it was cold and rainy in Seattle a break to visit Will seemed in order.  We went down to Claremont for Family Weekend and I took along my snowboard boots and bibs.  We stuck around the Sunday after the festivities and picked Will up at 10:00 in the morning for a ski trip.  Once we figured out how to fold down the back seat we fit Will into the front and his gear into the back of a small Chevy.

I drove this time and the trip seemed much shorter and less scary.  Once we got Odette talking about religious experiences she even seemed to relax her death grip on the door handle.  There was no visible snow  on the way up and the parking lot was sunny and dry.  Will didn’t want to take his skis with him but I cajoled him and he gave in when he saw other people with skis on their cars.  They gave us a 50% PSIA discount.  Odette got a $15 sightseer ticket.

We only saw traces of snow on the way up lift one.  The lift towers were identical to those on the old Thunderbird lift at Snoqualmie.  The guy at the top station was wearing a ski mask.  There seemed to be a small patch of snow for beginner lessons, otherwise desert.

I went to the rental shop and discovered that I’d forgotten my regular glasses.  I guessed at what went in which block on the form and for $25 they gave me the most beat-up board I have ever seen.  The base looked kind of like it had been worked over with a cheese shredder.  The bindings were too close together and they were set up duck-footed with way too much front angle.

We skiied down between big rails and around a corner into a gully with a single cat track width of snow which we followed to the bases of two lifts.  We took the bigger one and rode it up to the top of the ridge where a single cat track of snow took us back down to the bottom.  It reminded me of Timberline in August.

After two runs we took the baby lift back to the lodge and had lunch with Odette.  Two more runs with the camera (on one of which I lost my lens cap) and we were done for the day.

I’m not sure you could call what we did skiing, but it was actually fun.  With four feet of snow the place would be awsome.  Overall it reminded me of Meany – old gear, decrepit vehicles all over the place, buildings patched together – marginal climatic conditions – but potentially huge fun.  The bowl where the intermediate lift is located looks entirely skiiable with well spaced trees.  The upper lift wasn’t running so I don’t know what that terrain is like but it looked big and wide open.

The ride down was uneventful (except that I made a fool of myself blurting out when the folks in front of us couldn’t figure out how to get on the chair.)  I don’t know if I’ll ever get back, but now at least I won’t be one year older when I ski the San Gabriels!

here’s a link to the gallery

March 10 – 14, 2007

 

Will flew home from college late on Friday night with his ski gear.  Saturday we went to the Apple store to drop off his computer for repair and then hit the road for Bend.  We drove over via Biggs Junction and it took exactly six hours.  We stayed at the Riverhouse which had cheap rooms and a  4-day-for-the-price-of-3 ski lift deal.  We went out that night to eat at the sushi place we always go to and found a hole in the gound instead.  We ate at Cork (“Bend’s restaurant of the year”) and it was very good.

Sunday was the spring start of daylight savings time and “spring ahead” means set the clock to an early time.  We discoverd that we hadn’t closed the deadbolt on the door to our room when a maid burst into our room at 9:00 – when we thought it was still 7:00.  Will was suffering from a cold but we skied all day.  It was hot and I should have put on sunscreen.  The summit chair was open.  Offpiste was pretty slushy but we ripped up the groomed and had ourselves a good day.  We had dinner that night at the Deschutes Brewery brewpub and that was good, too.

Monday it rained – the mountain was in clouds and it drizzled periodically.  We took a long break for latte before we started and then skiied for about three hours without stopping – mainly outback and skyliner.  The snow was very soft and wet.  We got very wet and called it a day at 2:00.  We found that the bookstore we always go to in Bend had moved across the street.  We spend more time in the gamming/manga store than in the book store.  We went to the used CD place.  At 5:30 we were on the doorstep of the Thai place when it opened.  We stopped at a Riteaid for actifed for Will but they wouldn’t sell us anything without a prescription.

Monday night everything froze up and Tuesday was boilerplate.  I struggled more than Will but on our second run we found a pair of skiis and maybe half-a-mile below an injured skier.  Will reported her to the lift operators and we went in or a long latte break.  We found the snow softer lower down and spent the rest of the day on Skyliner (returning to outback for four or five runs at the end of the day.)  That night we went to the Tumalo Feed Company  for steak – we won’t be back.  (A steakhouse is supposed to be like Palm in New York or like the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle or like Hy’s in Whister – not like something out of Grand Ol’ Opry.)

Wednesday morning will thought he was going to die and I really didn’t feel like skiing ice only to have the mountain warm up just when we had to leave – so we packed up and checked out at 9:00.  We drove back over Mt. Hood and it took just over 6 hours, including a quick lunch at Subway in Longview.  We picked up Will’s computer from the Apple store and were home just after 6:30.

here is a link to the gallery

Official Mountaineers climb (with Art & Jeff and Brett Dyson and Sloan Brockman and a couple other guys.) Left cars at 6:00 AM, summitted at about 1:00, single strand rappel off the summit while Art skied it, back to cars at 6:30 after about 7,200 total elevation gain. Snow was really soft. Thanks to Brett and Frank Miles for some of these images. (cover page is a summer shot taken from downtown Darrington on a bike tour in 2005) Here’s Brett’s video of Art skiing. Here’s Art’s posting on “turns all year“.

here’s a link to the gallery

Alpental

Camp Muir

Mt. Bachelor

Mt. Batchelor 2007

Lake Tahoe

Tahoe 2008

Mission Ridge 2008

Mt. Baldy 2007

Pilchuck 2007

Snoqualmie 2005

Snoqualmie 2009

Whistler 2006

Whistler 2008

Whistler 2009

Whistler 2014