Crystal Mountain backcountry...finally some new snow!

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After a long dry spell, we finally got some new snow...only about 7" new showing on telemetry, but the wind did a good job doubling that on east aspects.  Occasionally we'd touch down on the old crust, but for the most part the snow was way better than expected.  Hopefully there's more to come.

Chair Peak mixed bag of turns

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Not much new snow during the week and the sun put a crust on everything south facing, so Mike, Ross, Becky and I headed up to Snoqualmie Pass for a quick your before having to get gussied that night up for the office holiday party.  We toured up to the north slope of Chair Peak....unfortunately the wind did a number on the snow and it was a total mixed bag of powder, crust, ice, and everything else.   Still nice to get out of the Seattle clouds into the sun and stretch the legs for a bit.

a little skiing at Mt.Hood, a lot of relaxing at Timberline

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Thanksgiving with the family in Salem...then up to Mt.Hood on the 25th for some post-turkey day exercise.   Becky and I got a crack of noon start from Timberline and skinned up to the top of the Palmer chair.  The snow up high was a mix of wind-buffed powder and small ribs of ice....perfectly skiable but not exactly great conditions.   As we sat around at the top of the Palmer snowfield and had a snack, a snowcat drove up the slope, turned around and headed back down, leaving a 10ft wide lane of perfectly groomed corduroy.  The Palmer chair wasn't running, so we figured maybe the employee had gone up just to inspect the lift towers or something...but whatever the reason, we were happy to be able to take a break from the variable conditions and hop onto the groomer for some lazy high-speed turns.
We still had a couple hours before sunset, so we toured over towards the west and yo-yoed a couple laps around Little Zig-Zag canyon that held some great calf-deep powder before shuffling back over to Timberline Lodge for a relaxing night of hot-tubbing and dinner.

season opener...Baker & Alpental touring

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Maybe being away for the fall is why it felt like winter showed up in a hurry...but the Cascades got plastered over just the past two weeks and it was time to get the ski season going.

Becky and I toured at Baker on Saturday...we expected the snow to be great, but the sunshine was a unexpected bonus.   Not a big day...our legs aren't quite in shape yet, but we yo-yoed some mellow powder and enjoyed the views of Mt.Baker and Shuksan.

Sunday, we met up with Kirsten, Mica, Andy, and Tundra for some laps at Alpental.  Quite brushy down low, but coverage and snow quality mid-mountain and higher was fantastic.

home!

 

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Got back to the good ol' PNW on Thursday morning...spent the first few days napping, visiting with family, napping, knocking the dust off the bicycle and motorcycle...by Sunday I was ready to play in the snow.
Didn't make much of an effort to find any partners for the trip to the Muir Snowfield...figured my pace would be way off after a month and a half of doing nothing but being a desk jockey in Shanghai and I figured it might be more relaxing to just tootle along at my own pace.
It was sunny in the parking lot but clouds were sitting off to the south...and as I slowly made my way up the hill the clouds continued to follow over my shoulder. Fortunately I was able to stay in the sun the whole way up and even at Camp Muir the wind was nearly dead calm which made the temp which was somewhere in the teens quite tolerable.
The ski down was a total mixed bag of ice and powder, and once into the clouds the visibility was terrible..but   it was so very nice to get back into the mountains after being away since September.

last weekend in Shanghai, visit to Qibao

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The time really has flown by over here...can't believe that my last weekend in China is already here.   My coworker Nancy recommended I go take a look at Qibao, an old water-town about ten miles from the office.  A quick subway ride and I was on the outskirts of Shanghai trying to figure out where exactly were these canals.  Eventually I followed the crowds and found my way into the Qibao 'old street' area....wow...talk about sensory overload.  The crowds and sights were one thing, but the smells were something else.  Imagine equal parts of fruit, meat, sugar, and sesame oil all cooking in a pan with a teaspoon of garbage put on top....the competing smells of the various food vendors, trash, and canals was overwhelming. Pretty crazy place to walk through though...Seattle is gonna feel like wilderness after spending time here.

Becky's five day blitz of Shanghai!

Hard to believe that at first when we found out I was heading to China for work that Becky wasn't sure she'd fly over here to join me for a little while....she's so much more into 'cultural trips' than I am and she really hasn't done much travelling that wasn't sport related in quite some time.   Fortunately she decided to head on over and hang out with me for a little while.

Saturday, we walked all over the city, and sampled some truly amazing fried dumplings..
Photos from day 1



Sunday, we hopped a bullet train to the nearby city of Suzhou to check out some gardens and a museum designed by I.M. Pei.
Photos from day 2



Monday, I had to return to work so Becky hit a couple museums and in the evening we took the subway over to the 'Fabric Market' where she met with a tailor to get measured for a custom-made cashmere coat.
Photos from day 3



Tuesday, the weather was a big improvement from the drizzle on Monday so Becky was able to get back out and do more urban hiking...this time armed with my slr camera instead of her point & shoot (i think she got some really nice pictures).  We finished off the day with a trip to a nearby Taiwanese restaurant where again we filled our bellies with all sorts of food that would be hard to find back home.
Photos from day 4



Wednesday, another day of perfect weather for Becky, so more sightseeing, checking out neighborhoods, galleries, markets... I think at this point she's seen more of Shanghai than I have!  My coworker Nancy and her husband Gummi took Becky and I to a Hunan restaurant for lunch where yet again we ate all sorts of culinary treats that we'd never had before.   That evening, we braved the Shanghai subway at rush-hour and headed for the airport.
Photos from day 5

Aimless wandering through Shanghai....

Having walked around a lot of downtown Shanghai, the French Concession neighborhood, and the wacky new area of Pudong, I took the subway over to the YuYuan Garden, tourist market, and just kinda wandered aimlessly for most of the day...
Its tiring walking around the touristy parts of town, constantly saying 'may-yo' ("no" in chinese)...to every offer for a watch, a tea drinking scam, or a massage....but getting off the main drag everyone pretty much leaves you alone and you get to see the city.

Morning jaunt across the Huangpu River

Finally had a half day free and took the subway over to Pudong...the 'new' part of Shanghai.  Big, big architecture over there....funny though that I think the most therapeutic thing aboiut heading over there was the lack of honking horns.  Throughout most of Shanghai there is a near constant din of honking car horns, but traffic in Pudong was so light, there weren't any horns....peace and quiet...or at least pretty close to it.

exported...

Five days after getting home from Kauai, I was back at Seatac....off to Shanghai for six weeks.    At this point, its two weeks down, four to go....so far so good.   The work is great, the city is fascinating, the lack of mountains, fresh air, and exercise is a little depressing at times, but it is certainly one heck of a cultural experience and the whole world seems a lot smaller and more easily accessible than I ever thought before.

Kauai...the calm after the wedding...the calm before Shanghai

Two days after the wedding, we were Hawaii bound.
Kauai seems like a bit of an unoriginal destination for the honeymoon...but after a week there, we definitely understood why so many people go there.
lounging at the St.Regis, backpacking the Kalalau trail along the NaPali coast, more lounging at the St.Regis, surfing, snorkeling with sea turtles, more surfing, driving up to the top of the Kalalau overlook and Waimea canyon, more lounging, then home....

its about damn time :)

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Becky and I got hitched...shoulda done it a long time ago....

where did the summer go?....Mt.Hinman climb

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A rather brief backpacking season this summer with travel, wedding plans, and a lingering snowpack in the Cascades, but Becky and I knocked off Mt.Hinman a few weeks before the wedding.  The approach was longish, not particularly scenic, and once at treeline the mosquitoes were incredibly thick.  We kept climbing and climbing, hoping to eventually get above the bugs. Once above treeline the views opened up and the scenery was amazing...but the skeeters were still biting any exposed flesh.
Finally, just a few hundred vertical below the summit we found a small spot amongst the rocks to set up the tent that was above bug territory.
The evening was quiet, warm, and with a full moon it was a good opportunity to try some night photography.
Sunday morning we took the quick walk to the summit of Hinman and then reentered the buggy realm of the forest for the hike back out.

where did the summer go?.... Rainier turns

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In between too many work trips to Oakland this summer, I managed to get up to Rainier in August for some skiing on the Russell and Flett glaciers.... Becky would've joined me, but she had a cold, so it was a solo jaunt.  Skiable snow all the way down to treeline even in August.   Managed to get to the top of the Russell, just below 10,000ft...wasn't feeling all the fast but it was nice to get out.

playing hooky, harvesting corn - Van Trump glaciers, Mt.Rainier

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Becky, Marcus, Anastasia, Ross, and I took off Friday and headed for Rainier... we had plans to climb Rainier that weekend, but the forecast didn't pan out, so we figured we should at least go get some turns while the weather was cooperating

Ulrichs couloir, Mt.Stuart

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Cascadian couloir, Mt. Stuart

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Spearhead Traverse... going for a little walk at Whistler

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Becky and I have had the Spearhead Traverse on our to-do list for years. The Spearhead is a high alpine traverse that connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains by travelling around the head of the U-shaped valley that divides the ski resort. Its a ridiculously scenic trip that provides a pretty mellow ski route across more than a dozen glaciers and high passes.

I skied it back in 2007 without her, and she's been wanting to ski it ever since. Since our schedules rarely seem to mesh with catching a good snow and weather window, we couldn't quite believe our plans to take Friday off where actually coinciding with some nice weather and fairly safe avy conditions.

We gave it the ol' college try to find some partners to join us, but no one was available to play. Given that we'd be skiing it just as a team of two and spending a lot of time on glaciated terrain, we were hesitant to go...waffling and trying to come up with other plans until about 9pm Thursday night. Finally we decided this really wasn't any different than any number of trips we've done just the two of us, and given the forecast, there was no way we'd be alone up there. We scrambled to finish packing, load up the car, and catch a reasonable amount of sleep before our alarm would go off at 3am.

Friday morning quickly arrived, and we grabbed the multiple thermoses of coffee and barreled out of Seattle at 3:30am heading for Whistler. Fortunately not too many folks are out and about that time of day and by 8am we were in the parking garage in Whistler village throwing on the ski clothes and walking to the lifts.

One of the best things about the Spearhead Traverse is that no time is wasted on the approach...by taking the chairlifts at Blackcomb, you can knock off a vertical mile of elevation without breaking a sweat. We saw more than a few folks with big packs on the ride up, so we figured we weren't going to be alone, and riding up the gondola we chatted with a local whose buddies were skiing the traverse in a day, so we knew we'd have a highway to follow the whole way.

The rest of the day was just one scenic vista after the next, expansive glaciers, neat little passes, a few short pitches of nice north facing powder. By mid-afternoon our sleep-deprived brains were starting to be ready for a nap, but we shuffled on for a little longer, taking advantage of the weaker than expected sun which kept some of the south facing terrain from become a sloppy avy-prone mess. By 4pm we'd topped out above the Diavolo glacier, we had another short south facing pitch below us and we knew it would be a rutted, icy mess in the morning, but a great little windlip next to some rocks and a wonderful view lured us into camping for the night. We'd been carrying crampons and axes (we appeared to be the only skiers carrying this extra baggage) so we figured we could always just boot down the slope in the morning. We dug in, set up the tent, re-hydrated and ate dinner, and were sacked our before sunset.

Twelve hours later we emerged from our cocoon very well rested and ready to keep on shuffling. As we expected the slope down to the Diavolo was a frozen mess, so we tossed the crampons on and made quick work of descending the slope. We saw and heard some other skiers made a chattery descent shortly thereafter which they referred to as 'bone-jarring'. Once out on the sunny flats of the Diavolo, we hopped into the skin track and headed for the next col. Topping out between Fitzsimmons and Benvolio we were now looking at the long straight shot out towards Whistler.
A quick descending traverse across the Overlord glacier and a short climb to Whirwind Fissile col and then a long ski down off the glaciated terrain. I had hoped the snow would be good for the ski down from the col, but the strong spring sun did its work on the west facing slope and provided us with a long pitch of breakable crust. It was hard to complain though given that the weather and views were so nice...so what if we had some bad snow.

Once past Fissile Peak we stopped in the sun, ate some lunch, and lounged about for a good long while. A few more short climbs and more breakable crust finally brought us to the Whistler resort boundary by early afternoon and then we joined the masses of resort skiers for a ski down in the village.
After walking through the village on a very sleepy Friday morning and two days of blissful mountain travel, skiing into the sea of humanity at Whistler village, during the Telus festival, was a bit shocking. We still managed to stake out a table at Zog's and get a big bowl of poutine before we tossed the gear into the car and headed for Seattle.

deep and fluffy in the Crystal backcountry

Face shot deep snow in mid-March....not bad. 

A couple days in the sun

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Finally some good backcountry conditions in the Cascades...cold, clear weather and some leftover powder from the midweek storms. Saturday we headed up to Snoqualmie Pass and skied the north slope of Chair Peak, then toured over to Mt.Roosevelt and skied a hidden line off the west side of the mountain.

Sunday we headed up to Stevens Pass and skied Lichtenburg Mtn…still plenty of good snow out there.  Maybe there are a couple more months of winter left afterall.

Happy New Yurt

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Spent the long New Years weekend touring out of the Cascade Powder Cats yurt near Stevens Pass. The company has just this season opened up use of their yurt for non-guided parties and we were their first. Getting a ride in their snowcat up to the hut saved us eight miles of skinning uphill and let us bring along a few extras, like umpteen pounds of bbq pork and sausages for our dinners.

The weather was really cold, but clear, and the last storm had dumped a couple feet of powder for us to track up. Over the three days the wind took its toll on the upper slopes and windslabs messed up some of the most interesting terrain, but we farmed the wind sheltered slopes below the yurt and got in some nice touring.

Ryan runs a really nice operation at Cascade Powder Cats and its great that the Cascades have another hut to tour out of.