It’s been a good season at Mission Ridge

We certainly got value for money out of the season passes at Mission this year. Early and consistent snow has made it an easy target as a ski weekend.  The last two weekends in March wrapped up our season there.

Spring was in the house, with freeze-thaw conditions predominating. To the mountain ops credit, they have started grooming runs off the ridge like Allah, Lemolo and Tumwater. This makes them superbly skiable early in these Spring conditions. As the sun softens the Bomber side, we just picked off the runs on the ridge. Combine with some options on the lower mountain. Then wash, rinse, repeat. All day long … brainless, high speed fun!

Now just bring on the new Bubble Chair 2 for next season …

8900, 8500, 10300, 8900

41 days, 322,000m vert, 10 powder days

 

 

February – finally winter arrives

It took the lingering effects of #fuckingelnino a month or so to dissipate. But when they did – kaboom! Normal services were resumed in Pacific Northwest winter climate. It felt like mid-December rather than February, but we weren’t complaining.

It was a violent pulse of weather too, like the storms had been building up against a stubborn wall, which finally fractured and let the pent up energy through. We had serious snow in Seattle, Eastern WA was hit hugely, and serious weather abounded. We watched 100mph winds close (and apparently derail) lifts at Schweitzer one February Saturday. Mission did pretty well keeping their chairs running when we were there, despite some wild weather closing the hill early on a couple of occasions.

This all, of course, did wonderful things for the base and snow quality. We had great skiing every weekend, and while no deep pow, lots of nice 4-6 inch topups. The best day was Friday at Schweitzer. No people. Cold but not brutal. And a solid 6 inches of super light pow everywhere.  It was one of those days where every run was great.

Here’s some sunny footage from the Sunday after the wind storm.

Next stop – Austria. The annual Lech trip 🙂

Mission Ridge: 7000m, 8300m

Schweitzer: 10,300m, 9000m

Mission Ridge:  8200m, 8400m

Season Totals: 26 days, 195,800m vert. 6 powder days

January skiing – sunny and solid-ish

#fuckingelnino gradually moved on during January. Thankfully. This unwelcome climatological event, unfortunately, left behind a relatively warm dry winter.  Luckily there has been easily sufficient snow in the Washington Cascades to make for some fine fun, mostly sunny groomer skiing. By early January the base at Mission Ridge was deep enough to pretty much cover everything. Minor top ups made for a good first weekend of January cruising, with killer Cascades views.

We spent the next weekend at Whistler Creekside.  There was as much snow in the village as I think I’ve ever seen in Whistler. Again, fluctuating freezing levels meant venturing off groomed on the lower 2/3rds of the mountain was brutal. There was good snow on the upper mountain though, which made for some soft and fun runs in Harmony and Glacier Bowl especially.  Crowd management was needed though. Ski high early. Retreat to mid-mountain groomers mid-morning. Head high again once the post-lunch crowds dissipate. Works every time.

Since then, nowhere within weekend striking distance has been better than Mission Ridge.  MLK weekend actually delivered some fantastic skiing, with 10+ inches of pow and cold sunny weather to preserve the snow all weekend. It was the best skiing of the season by far.

Now if Mission Ridge can only keep chair 2 running – it has broken twice in the last two weekends – the season might get close to normal! At least we’ve paid for our season pass. And then some 🙂

Day 11, 12 Mission Ridge: 7600m, 7900m

Day 13-15 Whistler Blackcomb: 10700m, 10000m, 9700m

Day 16-20 Mission Ridge: 7300m, 8200m, 6600m, 8400m, 4400m

Season Totals: 20 days, 144,660m vert. 2 powder day

Ski Season 2018-19 finally up and running

#fuckingelnino

El Nino years are never welcome in the Pacific Northwest. This #fuckingelnino delivered clear sunny weather well into November.

#fuckingelnino

With an early Thanksgiving, Whistler managed to blow enough snow to open. Just. but not enough to tempt us up there. So we worked, cooked turkey, and drove up to Crystal on the Friday for two days.

Crystal’s investment in snow guns sure paid off. They blew enough gun pow to enable us to slide down Tinkerbell for two days. It was far from epic. At least it was skiing. And we had Ikon passes, which effectively gives us a Crystal season pass. And the weather was nice.

Luckily the cold meant Mission Ridge opened soon after, and some steady top-ups made it fun there in early December. Slightly rocky. But fun.

And since then, conditions have slowly got better and better. We’re still getting signature El Nino temperature bounces, giving some rain between the dumps. But now there’s plenty of snow, we’ve had a good powder day at Crystal before Xmas, and some ever improving cruising and the odd off-piste expedition at Mission Ridge.

So – #fingerscrossed, #fuckingelnino might be slowly slipping away.  And #fingerscrossed, we won’t have to ski Tinkerbell again this season!

A selection of pretty scenic pics is here. It’s been fine photograph weather 😉

Day 1 Crystal 3200m vert

Day 2 Crystal 3200m vert

Day 3 Mission Ridge 6900m vert

Day 4 Mission Ridge 6800m vert

Day 5 Crystal 2700m vert

Day 6 Crystal 4600m vert

Day 7 Crystal 9300m vert – powder day

Day 8  Mission Ridge 7500m vert

Day 9 Mission Ridge 7400m vert

Day 10 Mission Ridge 7800m vert

Season Totals: 10 days, 59,400m vert. 1 powder day

 

End of 2017-18 Season Summary

Since my last post, life kinda got on top of me. Crazy workload, trips to Europe, trips to Boston. There was time for work and skiing, and not much else. Hence here’s a brief wrap up of April and May skiing, more for posterity than anything else.

First stop was Whistler in early April. Great skiing, light crowds, hanging out with our  ski instructor friend Jess. It was funsies indeed, and a great way to belatedly hit 50 days for the season.

Friday 10,300m, Sat 11,300m, Sun 8300m vert

Saturday work meant we could only make the closing Sunday at Mission Ridge. It was the usual – great base, low crowds, Spring weather. Shame they closed.

Sunday 8000m vert

Work travel delayed the next trip until early May and a week riding Blackcomb. Despite the slightly limited terrain due to the new gondola construction to replace the Wizard and Solar Coaster chairs, there was some magnificent skiing. I love Spring at Blackcomb. Some GoPro footage of this week might emerge sometime if I buy a new laptop that can edit 60fps footage!

Sunday onwards: 6800m, 9400m, 11,000m, 8200m, 10,100m, 11,300m, 8600m vert

After a well deserved weekend at home we headed down to close the season at Mt Bachelor. The first 3 days were hardly Springtacular – the first day the lifts closed at 11.30am due to lightening (!) –  but the closing weekend brought sunny weather, silly costumes and lots of fun skiing.

3200m, 8200m, 6400m, 6300m, 6700m

Season Totals 63 days, 474,900m vert, 17 powder days

All in all, a decent season smattered with some truly wonderful skiing. Given the state of my knee on Sunday 7th January, I’m pretty pleased to still be able to churn out some decent vertical through the end of the season. The knee is far from perfect, but its manageable. Next challenge is biking season, with some long rides planned and serious training needed. If my knee survives that, there might just be some fun and games attempts to at least partially fix the bugger in early Fall.

Anything could happen.

Watch this space!

Excellent March Cascades Skiing

We’ve been blessed with some sensational mid-late March skiing in our local resorts since returning from Lech. We started at Mission Ridge with a 6 inch cold smoke day on a typically mostly deserted Saturday. There were plenty of scraps left for Sunday too. A fabulous weekend with great snow and cold clear weather.

The following Friday was a wild one at Stevens Pass. 4 inches of snow had fallen overnight, but the solid base meant only the brave went off the groomers early. The weather then oscillated every 45 minutes or so between sunshine and absolute dumpage as the storm pulses rolled in from the west. By the end of the day, I was lapping the Winnie Chutes off Skyliner, picking up face shots. The rock solid base was nowhere to be found. Quite a day.

We carried on from where we left off Friday in some superb conditions at Mission Ridge. The late Friday afternoon storms had made it over to the east side of the Cascades and laid a soft blanket of snow on Mission’s runs. With no killer freeze-thaw cycle earlier in the week, the whole mountain skied great for the weekend under clear, cold blue skies. One day I’ll process the GoPro footage of this one. One day.

Finally, we spent last weekend at Crystal. This was one of those weekends where the weather forecast was as out of kilter as the Seattle Sounders forward line. Saturday was a fun, mostly groomer Spring day, but the promised sun never arrived to soften up the mountain.

By Sunday morning it was unexpectedly dumping. We left at 2pm and there were 5 inches on our car outside the Alpine Inn. Easter Sunday is a reliable ‘no one on the hill’ day, so all day there was freshies on the groomers, and as the base built. tasty turns were available all over the mountain. Loadsafun.

Another massive storm is rolling in off the Pacific as I write. We might be in for some fun at Whistler this weekend. I love Spring in the Cascades 🙂

Mission Ridge 8200m, 8500m vert

Stevens Pass 7800m vert

Mission Ridge 9400m, 8100m vert

Crystal 10,400m, 7900m vert

Season Totals 47 days, 340,700m vert, 17 powder days

Fabbo Mission Ridge powder weekend

Our current theory is that Mission Ridge Skiing and Snowboarding Resort is simply a front for an alcohol sales business. This end of February weekend certainly provided considerable evidence towards confirming that theory. A sunny, cold Saturday morning dawned, with 4+ inches of excellent pow blanketing the mountain. Skiing both on and off groomed was really fantastic. It even got vaguely busy about 10am, with a few minutes of almost unheard of line control on Chair 2. And waits for maybe 3 minutes for a ride. 3 minutes!!!

Then at 10.30am the bar opened. We skied on to every chair for the rest of the day. And of course, as a scientist, I offer considerable photographic evidence.

It really was quite amazing, especially given the high-quality conditions.

I also like to think management read my last blog post about only skiing groomers this weekend to help my knee recovery. Miraculously Lemolo was groomed, Allah was groomed, and the ‘tree shot’ below the top pitch of Tumwater was groomed. Unheard of! Unfortunately, it seems it was not my plea,  the real reason being the mountain acquired a new winch cat groomer. They were certainly putting it to good use. With a light wind blowing snow up these runs all day, they were quite superb indeed.

Sunday was almost weirder. Gale force winds were forecast so predictably Chair 2 didn’t open. But with serious dumpage happening, we expected horrid lift lines at chairs 3 and 4.

The reality? We skied on to every chair all day. If there were 200 people skiing, I’d be amazed.

We traversed from Chair 3 to the lower Bomber runs, getting fresh tracks every run in blower, continually refreshing pow. We hiked the cat track past Johnsons to pick up a few more dreamy pow turns. Conditions were so good they even tempted me off the groomers into trees on lower Wawa and off the Warren Miller Memorial run (aka Tillicum – geddit? it’s cryptic).

What a weekend. And by all account from my buddies this weekend, it got even better …

Sat 7600m, Sun 5400m vert

31 days, 206,400m vert, 9 powder days

April Riding in the Washington Cascades

Deep snow. No crowds. Generally good weather. Spring skiing in the Cascades in mid-April can be majestic.

Crystal skied beautifully all weekend on their penultimate weekend of the season. There had been lots of snow on the Friday and the remnants were plentiful all over the mountain on Saturday. Sunday a crazy wind hit the high ridges until lunchtime. Crazy as in ‘almost impossible to push off Rex and head down the hill’ crazy. The groomers everywhere were great though, soft and perfect for laying down long carving turns. By noon when the wind dropped, the wind blown off the Green Valley chairs was epic.

Bear Pits

A great weekend of steeps and quality snow and groomers.

Mission didn’t disappoint the following weekend either. Sunny clear-ish weather meant for cold nights and warmer days. This delivered classic Spring corn snow by noon. The highlights were laps of The Castle on both afternoons. Perfect corn on a majestic Spring ski weekend.

That wrapped up another superb season at Mission for us. Just 14 days. But with included free days at 49 Degrees and Snoqualmie Pass, that adds up to 20 days on a ~$400 season pass.

We have purchased again for next year 🙂

 

Crystal 10,900m, 8000m vert

Mission Ridge 8000m, 6700m vert

60 days, 496,800m vert, 16 powder days

Wrapping up February at Mission Ridge

There was some seriously wild PNW weather in mid-February, and when we arrived at Mission at President’s weekend Saturday, it was clearly in ice-storm recovery mode. We had 2 inches of heavy snow on firm stuff underneath, which was excellent for 3 runs. Then it got skied off. So Saturday was ok, but by Monday the ski hill was covered in many more inches of super light snow and we had a genuine, wonderful powder day. It was a day spent in trees that now have fantastic cover. Pick a line off the cat track or sneak into Wawa trees, and there was great pow everywhere.

Epic line off The Big Rock

Kathy

Kathy on Wawa

Jan on Wawa

Kathy on Alah trees

The Flying Squirrel in gnarly steep trees

The Flying Squirrel

Gene in Wawa trees

The following weekend was a little similar. Saturday was a good groomer day with fun off-piste excursions. Sunday was a dumping powder day. More snow. More ripping tree avoiding excitement. And there were maybe 500 people on the hill. Welcome to Mission Ridge.

Pres Weekend: 5600m, 9500m, 8500m vert

Sat 8500m, Sunday 8200m vert

Season Totals: 39 days,  321,700m vert, 10 powder days

 

Riding in the Washington Cascades Sunshine

January often brings ‘the doldrums’ to the Pacific Northwest. A period of high pressure gives sunshine in the mountains with little new snow for a week or two. This year, the last half of January is very doldrums-like. Still, the base is good and the occasional little top ups and cold temperatures keep the skiing kinda fine.

A Sunday at Snoqualmie was never going to be quiet. We started at the Summit East parking lot, and when we clipped in the bindings, the snow arrived. Good timing indeed. We explored Summit East quite extensively, and there is some good fall line, bumpy terrain there. By the end of the day, with a couple of inches new snow on top, these runs were ripping wonderfully. And East is not a busy spot.

We then skied from Summit East to Summit West, skirting smallish lines in Central – very respectable for a Sunday really. The killer runs were under the Wild Fire chair in West. Short but steep, bumpy, with trees to hop around and snow covered boulders to drop. And no wait at all.

The lines midweek at Alpental typically comprised the ticket checker and me. There were maybe 100 people there for a morning of high-speed frontside groomer and bump shredding. The bowl off chair 2 was pretty solid, so I avoided that, and after 20 laps of the quad, I was rolling back down the freeway to Seattle.

Alpental

Mission Ridge views

It wasn’t really a lot busier at Mission Ridge on the weekend. Lodges were packed with racers and families, but most chair rides required a 1 minute wait maximum. The mountain was still riding well despite having little new snow for a week. And the views were pretty darn awesome. The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful part of the world.

Sunday morning on Mission Ridge

Snoqualmie 5900m

Alpental 8300m

Mission Ridge 9200m, 7100m

Season totals 29 days,  236,300m vert, 8 powder days