The Aurora Doubletree is an interesting place, though fortunately I’ll be going home tomororrow. After banging out five and a half miles on the treadmill after dinner (gotta do something while I’m here, sitting and eating all day is wearing) I snapped a few photos in the hotel. Not very high quality thanks to my old camera, but better than nothing (maybe?).
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This one of me, courtesy of Brad (with a little PP on my part).
What an amazing day.
Berthoud Pass was amazing yesterday. I had been planning to go up there for a few laps with Brad most of the week, and a perfectly timed storm came in. As of 6am Sunday morning, Winter Park was reporting 24″ in 48 hours. Simply unreal. I was thrilled to see that, as my Districts have become more and more rockered in recent weeks, making them perfect for the deep, wet, heavy snow that was waiting. The wind was transporting snow from place to place up high, but down in the trees it was just deep and stable.
Seconds later…
And then the inevitable…
But it’s hard not to smile after going face first into two feet of fresh snow.
A few more seconds later, and I got the best shot of the day:
It was unbelievably crowded there today. The bootpack on the west side looked like the short hike at Breckenridge, and the parking was overflowing.
Completely and totally awesome up there today, and this snow is just what we needed after a week of high pressure.
On a final note, I’d like to thank the two ladies who picked us up and gave us rides back to the top of the pass. Not at all what I expected, but we sure did a good job of cramming people and skis into those tiny cars. It must’ve been a sight to see, little cars with big skis sticking out the windows. Good times. Also thanks to the old hippy dude with the incredibly cool dog for the info, the Backcountry.com employee who was out visiting CO for all the awesome gear deals, and finally the Sweets Shop restaurant for a cheap burger and fried mushrooms at the end of the day.
Just one quick photo from the start of the first lap up Berthoud Pass this morning. The lot had many, many more cars in it by noon. Apparently Winter Park was turning people away because they were so full. Full report in the morning.
This is the final set. As previously stated, I did not take these, although I did some post processing. Enjoy.
Making our way south.
We stopped at Costco to get some vital provisions for the next couple days.
I believe this was taken in the Hoh Rain Forest.
This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip, taken in front of the patrol shack on Hurricane Ridge in Olympic NP.
These are from Rialto beach, on the second evening of the trip.
I had a blast, and look forward to seeing more of the PNW in the coming years.
As promised, here are more pictures from my trip to Seattle last July. As previously stated, I did not take these, although I did some post processing to some of them.
Seattle really is beautiful in the summertime. I don’t know if I could handle 9 months of short, cloudy, rainy days, but I could certainly handle the absolutely perfect summers.
On the recommendation of someone on the internets, we went to the Pike St. Brewery. Great beer at a great price during happy hour.
The Pike St. Market was a blast. I’d never seen anything like it before.
Cool art like this was everywhere.
A panorama from across the bay from the city, taken as we were about to venture off to the rest of the state.
More to come…
As stated in a previous post, I finally got Katrina’s photos from the Seattle trip. She took hundreds of photos, and I’ve gone through and selected some of my favorites. I did not take these photos, although I did some post processing to some of them. Enjoy.
Rainier taken during the flight in. It’s such a beautiful mountain. I still intend to get there this spring, and am talking to several people about the trip.
The two of us on the way to the Space Needle. The buildings immediately adjacent to it have some very interest architecture.
The view from the top, several hundred feet off the deck.
This was a rather large fountain that dozens of children were running around in.
There are so many pictures that it’s going to be a few posts to get them all in. More to follow.
It was a beautiful, warm day in the mountains today. It hasn’t snowed in a couple days but it snowed substantially over the past week and stayed cold until today. There was even a very solid layer of surface hoar on the order of an inch thick early in the morning up high. It got softer as the day went on. I was glad to be there as I hadn’t made it out to Breckenridge since early season.
Here’s me gaping it up on a kicker I’ve certainly done a better of of hitting.
Lake Chutes was phenomenal. Soft, filled in, and of course steep. A little wind up top, but nothing compared to the usual Breckenfridge gale force winds.
This morning I went after a line I’ve been eying for some time. It’s only filled in enough to ski a few times a year. After yesterday’s dumping of snow, I decided to go for it. I loaded up the beater tele skis and boots in the car, drove to work, and had a cup of coffee while checking my work email.
After booting up and walking over, I was treated to 6″ of blower pow on top of a hay blanket base. There’s only one word to describe it: eXtreme!!! I did three total laps, and had a great time on each. It was a fantastic start to an otherwise boring day at work.
As for how I know it’s a first descent? This hill didn’t exist last winter.
Yesterday I was up on Berthoud Pass for the on-snow session of the “advanced avalanche awareness” class put on by Friends of Berthoud Pass. It was a full day of skinning, digging, analyzing the snowpack, and beacon rescue. Much thanks to Jamie and Liz for sharing their time and knowledge to help save lives. Here are a few photos from the day:
Michael cutting out a column for a shovel compression test:
Nate flailing around in the snow after attempting a windblown traverse:
Yesterday was the first day I got to skin with my Factors (with intuitions) and Dukes. People have complained about the weight and lack of stride (for both), though I had no issues. I was able to comfortable get my toes to the tip of the opposing ski on each stride. On another note, my Bluehouse Districts have continued to decamber. They are now rockered continuously from tip to tail. Absolutely amazing performance in powder, not so much elsewhere.
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Through Polarized Eyes 