Monkey

I had a good time today at Squaw. It was bright and clear, and even though there was still high winds and the vast majority of the place was on wind hold or outright closed, I decided to go up anyway.

Helen didn’t join me today. She’s still nursing a large blister on her ankle, and since the conditions looked a bit marginal she went down to Tahoe City and relaxed and did a bit of sketching.

I bought my ticket around 9am and headed over to KT-22, which was the only lift open that I cared to ride. It turned out that most of KT-22 was closed: all of what I would call “the front” (GS Bowl, etc.) all the way around the Nose to just before Rock Garden was off limits today. The only options were Rock Garden, Saddle, and the stuff just past the Saddle on riders left. So I ended up lapping Rock Garden until I found a sweet line that most people were avoiding due to the sketchy entrance. I ended up lapping that one line 5 or 6 times out of the 10 KT-22 runs I did make. I went over to the Far East Express (Red Dog wasn’t running) and took one run there, but went right back to KT-22.

The snow up there was a real mixed bag. They had up to 18″ in the last storm, but the wind has been really howling here since then and it’s taken its toll. It’s either super-wind-packed, or hard-pack up there. Not much else, and not much ice thankfully. The line I liked in Rock Garden was good because the wind-packed parts were less packed and had broken up into some nice softness that you could make long high-speed turns on before hitting the chop below. In the morning, before the sun had a chance to do its work, the lower part of the mountain was essentially ice, so I (and pretty much everyone else from what I could tell) stuck to the groomers on the way back to the lift. As the day wore on the sun turned almost everything it hit down low to slush. Things stayed nicer up-top for the most part, but it still got heavy.

I took a siesta in the room for lunch, and when I went back out around 2pm the Funitel was running, as were the Gold Coast Express and Shirley Lake Express, so I headed over that way. Pretty crowded over there, since it’s all blue and all the intermediates flocked to the place. I found some really nice, untracked heavy pow in the trees far riders right on Shirley Lake. The trees are really nicely spaced over there, too, so I did something like 8 high-speed laps through the trees, laying down fresh lines for at least a third of each run. Even though it was heavy (almost slushy in spots) it was nice to get something I could sink the board into a bit more.

Overall, an excellent day. Except for the hour and a half or so of relaxing during lunch I rode the whole day, and got close to last chair up Shirley Lake before heading back. They gave out vouchers for $17 off your next lift ticket purchase since so much was closed, but honestly I feel like I got my money’s worth today.

I’m hopeful they’ll open up more of the upper mountain tomorrow, but I know that even though it looks nice from a distance it will all be pretty wind packed. It should still be a good time, though.

First day in Squaw and not off to a great start. Heavy rain at the base, high winds even at the base (quite literally howling outside my window), and no upper-mountain lifts running. The highest thing they got running was KT-22, and that went on wind-hold periodically. At $79 a lift ticket I opted to hang out in the room and see if they managed to get any upper mountain lifts running. At noon they officially gave up and left it all closed, and at $59 for a half-day ticket I couldn’t see going to ride in the rain for at least half of every run.

They reported 11-12″ of new snow overnight at the summit… let’s hope that survived. If I’m lucky, they’ll open the upper mountain tomorrow with more fresh on top of what they got last night… fingers crossed.

It was our first time to Mt. Bachelor, near Bend, OR. Overall a great mountain with a lot of terrain to explore, especially below the tree line.

Friday was beautiful and clear, without a cloud in the sky. Little to no wind in the morning, with a tiny bit of wind in the afternoon. What an excellent day to go to a new hill. We went straight up to the top and took a few laps under the Summit Express. The view was fantastic and the groomers under the lift were fast and wide. In fact, the groomers were in excellent shape over the entire mountain, and many a high-speed run was had.

I took one run off of the Summit Express looking for a run called Cow’s Face, but I overshot it and ended up in Never Never Land. About half way down I remembered “Oh yea, it’s a cone”… a little extra traversing rider’s right at the very top put me way, way around the side of the mountain. I found some nice terrain, though, with some untracked snow that was fairly slushy but nice and smooth. I ended up at the boundary line on a thin, undulating traverse back to the front of the mountain. Eventually the traverse got a little wider, then it became groomed, which was nice at that point because I could pick up some more speed. Still, it took what seemed like forever to get back… felt longer than the traverse on Blackcomb back from the bowls you get to via Spanky’s. I ended up at the bottom of the hill near the Sunrise Lodge. A long trip for the few turns of goodness near the tree line, so I didn’t repeat it.

We hiked (walked, really, much like the walk to Exterminator at Crystal) up to the summit (me three times, Helen once). The terrain up there is nice. Dropping down into the large bowl in the center (via the helpfully named 1, 2, 3, or 4 runs) was nice and steep up top mellowing out into a decent bowl further down. The snow was pretty variable: a mix of wind packed, super-firm bordering on ice, and bits of blue ice that sounded and felt like little rocks. Helen and I took a run down West Ridge to head for the Pine Martin Lodge for lunch and found a whole lot more of that blue ice (see picture). We had to pick our way through it in spots, but we still managed to find some smooth patches of wind-packed that made for some nice turns. The wind effect on the upper part of this mountain is pretty dramatic. On a nice pow day the summit is probably awesome, but given the wind exposure I suspect that’s pretty rare.

The lower mountain is fantastic, too. We did many laps on the Outback Express, and a few on the Northwest Express. The groomed runs here are wide, smooth, and the snow quality was excellent. Much high-speed carving. The trees around both of these lifts look like they’d be really sweet with decent snow. As it was, the only thing I found in my few trips through the trees was firm and packed.

On Saturday it was quite windy, so we didn’t make any trips up to the summit and stuck to lower runs. You could see the wind whipping the snow around on the summit from below… didn’t look like much fun. More overcast than Friday, but the sun managed to show itself enough to make it a darn nice day, despite the extra wind.

Neither day seemed especially crowded… I’m not sure if I ever really waited in a lift line (beyond the first one up)… if I did, it was only a few people ahead of me.

The pizza at the joint in the Pine Martin Lodge was good, as was the small chocolate cake thing. “Service” was slow as hell. The burger and chili at the café upstairs the next day was excellent.

We stayed in Sunriver, in the Sunriver Resort. The room was very nice, and pretty much what I expect to get for the price. The drive from Sunriver to Mt. Bachelor was all of 20-25min, which was sweet. Dinner in the Owl’s Nest the first night was good, but too expensive, even for the quality and quantity of the food. Bar prices felt high, too. We didn’t go back, and opted for food in-town the next two nights.

Overall we had a great time, and would definitely go back. The drive down from our house in Carnation was just about 6 hours even… we went via Yakima, just because we’d never been there.

I’ve been needing some form of mobile rack to hold the boards that are knocking around the shop in various states of completion, as well as parts of boards in progress. Helen found this for me on Craig’s List today. It was a real bargain and perfect for the task. Its width is adjustable, up to eight feet if necessary, and it has 17 bars per side. The bars slide side to side, and they telescope out to something like 40″. A most excellent addition to the Monkey Shop.