Cascadia/WA Pow Farming ‘23/‘24

[carlh]

Little dudes first taste of pow at west today. He’s still a bit too light to plow through the untracked but did great once it was cut up until he got tired. So nice to ski soft fresh snow and west wasn’t too bad once we got there.
Also loving having the line blades for this they make short radius slow speed turns so much more fun than my big chargers.

[Buster Highmen]

Looks like absolute gaper status at 1pm heading up to Crystal for the 6" on hardpack. Headed down took an hour to get from B Lot to Greenwater.

Quality road maintenance by Alterra. Must be the new manager who doesn't know how to run stuff.

[S_jenks]

Update: Skiing is still fun.







Baker in low tide conditions is actually quite a riot, and the legs got a much needed workout. Lotta people slamming out there today so I bet there is going to plenty of ibuprofen consumed tomorrow.

[ptavv]

left my house in tacoma at 6:30, parked in one of the last rows of b-lot at 9:40 for no reason I can figure out

left the bathroom / donut stop in enumclaw at ~7:30… all of 410 to the blvd was 2 miles of 15mph, stop for 5-10 mins, then go 5 miles at 60mph, then repeat. No wrecks or anything until the blvd where there was a hilariously stuck tesla and winnebago #vanlife

ohwell, it was all worth it since the delay meant I didn't fall into the "green valley til they open six" trap that many of my friends who got there earlier did

got to the throne hike right as they dropped the gate

in homage to not skiing past pow to find more pow I took the first chute into a-basin, straight lined the top, made a waist deep turn, had over the head snow fly up and realized the whole thing was flushing underneath me

raced my slough to the apron and whooped my way down to put in the side stepper to get back six without the FQ line

found some friends, went to the king, skied untracked, over-the-head-with-every-turn pow (that snow where you're bouncing up and down in the pow the whole way down, god I missed it) down SE trees whooping with joy

back to six, found out south was closed, got some good turns in powder bowl, looked around for more good snow, couldn't find anything on par with the morning (probably won't all season) had a beer with friends at the elk, uneventful drive home

this morning's traffic was one of those things that was so dumb that it left me angry, then i promptly moved to acceptance somewhere between greenwater and the blvd and told myself it was an Ikon weekend so quantity was never going to be the thing anywyay, just go for quality and my god did it deliver

[greenmachine]

I concur that xtal was chalk full of gapers and assholes . The three runs I did have were quite good luckily enough. I think all of Bellevue and Ballard was there . If you are a beginner or intermediate why not wait until tomorrow ? Nice white Tesla stuck on the blvd . Did your battery run out ?


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[cstefanic]

found some friends, went to the king, skied untracked, over-the-head-with-every-turn pow (that snow where you're bouncing up and down in the pow the whole way down, god I missed it) down SE trees whooping with joy

Ignore my ignorance, I thought SE Trees was skiers right shoulder of Powder Bowl ridge down towards the furthest right entrance into bear pits into Downhill?


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[ptavv]

standing on top of the king looking towards the base, on skiers left are brain damage, hour glass, appliances, a variety of other interestingly named chutes and whatever that empty into a-basin. there's a ridge line and off to your right is a big mostly open face with some trees and rocks and features that empties into silver basin. that whole collective area is "se trees"

edit: it would be nice if there were an accessible version of the oft-rumored patrol map that has all these names more definitively set on it, even if only to help patrol out when things happen in these zones

[riff]

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[BaseFloopy]

Nice pics, riff ^

Ignore my ignorance, I thought SE Trees was skiers right shoulder of Powder Bowl ridge down towards the furthest right entrance into bear pits into Downhill?
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I've always called that Sign Chute but the LardassMap calls it something slightly different.

edit: it would be nice if there were an accessible version of the oft-rumored patrol map that has all these names more definitively set on it, even if only to help patrol out when things happen in these zones

Not sure if serious, please advise.

[AK47bp]

Just got back from summit, got lucky. Looks like 90 is now shut both ways. Dumping when I left. Snow was great.

[ey_allen]

Did a mini lap in the BC around Stevens today and skied a few nice turns. Ended up having some issues that led me over to the resort side and holy shit what a cluster.

Skied 7th and lots of gapers that shouldn’t be up there littering the mogul field. Made my way to the backside and had some soft turns but the singles line for Jupiter was 30 minutes.

Heard the lifties on Friday hyping this storm to anyone that would listen and seems like the word got out. Didn’t seem like the inbounds conditions were worth the hassle for those than showed up after 10am.

All in all soft deep turns were had and it was still better than not skiing.

[ptavv]

Not sure if serious, please advise.

totally serious. until just now I didn’t see Crystal had put a Fatmap on their site that had more names on it. the trail maps have always been pretty scant on detail out there which is weird bc the runs all have official unofficial names or whatever

[Dromond]

Headed up highway 2 this morning we passed a hilarious number of 2WD and AWD vehicles totally stuck in the middle of the road on packed snow/ice. These places need chain controls stations like CA.

Anyhow, after reaching the trailhead and bashing through traumatizing amounts of alder we did actually ski some awesomely nice pow in cold temps. The base is way thinner than normal but it was still good and I am glad that I was able to share it with a few friends.

[BaseFloopy]

totally serious. until just now I didn’t see Crystal had put a Fatmap on their site that had more names on it. the trail maps have always been pretty scant on detail out there which is weird bc the runs all have official unofficial names or whatever

Yeah I love crustal but keeping up with 3+ names for everything gets annoying sometimes. Adding to the mayhem, my kids and I make up our own names for some places.

BTW this...:

in homage to not skiing past pow to find more pow I took the first chute into a-basin, straight lined the top, made a waist deep turn, had over the head snow fly up and realized the whole thing was flushing underneath me

raced my slough to the apron and whooped my way down to put in the side stepper to get back six without the FQ line

...is awesome. Glad everything worked out.

[Jvhowube]

Anyone in this thread ski Baker? Thinking of heading up on Weds and buying a day pass (with snow tires on my car) - just wondering how they deal with a giant dump like the one expected on Tuesday? I imagine there will be a lot of mitigation work, but that it will still be empty and worth it? - t. never skied baker

[Bandit Man]

Baker is never empty anymore

[ptavv]

Crystal was really good and also really crowded (lines were substantially longer than yesterday it seemed to me). Left my house 30 minutes earlier than yesterday, got there 90 minutes sooner. Guess I'll have to recalibrate for the rest of the year.

Only went up today since they'd closed South mid-day yesterday due to rising hazards and so it got filled in a lot more than the rest of the mountain. Took a leisurely time getting ready, spun two laps on FQ, then went to the C6 line. South wasn't open when I got on the chair but I figured I'd go scope out the gate only to find patrol opening it as I arrived. Third thru the Throne gate, first to the top of the King for the day. Seems like it took a bit for word to get out (or more likely, everyone who wanted to be there was trapped in the [I am told] very long GV line). Thought about the A-basin side of King but entrances looked wind hammered and still rocky so got a nice top to bottom untouched refreshed SE trees.

Took a bit to cycle around again and by then word was out and the Throne traverse to King (which is in sub-par shape) had a lot of people with no business being there, but more power to them I guess since despite the signage they've put in the low traverse to Silver basin. Anyway after that junk show and another hike up the King to the (now very crowded summit) I got another great run down connecting giant untouched patches in SE trees right.

Figured I'd done enough exercise and the lines and traverse traffic were killing my vibe so ate some hot dogs in the parking lot with friends and drank a beer and bailed early.

Great two days.

[BeardedClam]

Anyone in this thread ski Baker? Thinking of heading up on Weds and buying a day pass (with snow tires on my car) - just wondering how they deal with a giant dump like the one expected on Tuesday? I imagine there will be a lot of mitigation work, but that it will still be empty and worth it? - t. never skied baker

Best bet is probably Thursday. It takes a lot of time for them to get stuff open these days

[S_jenks]

Baker was busy as a beehive in the morning, but the crowds thinned out quickly as the day wore on and more ropes dropped. A leg burnin’ day for sure.

Can’t blame half the town turning out when everyone’s chomping at the bit.

[californiagrown]

Fun lapping Silver Fir yesterday, poking around to find some fun techy lines between wildcat and inspiration. the entrance to inspiration was an absolute shitshow as jong after jong launched themselves into yardsale after yardsale like lemmings. too many folks out and about for what was basically 3" dust on crust low tide conditions so heres hoping the predicted snow arrives and that they can get alpental open early this week and the hordes hold off until the weekend.

[The AD]

Now this looks like winter...

[Jason4]

Anyone in this thread ski Baker? Thinking of heading up on Weds and buying a day pass (with snow tires on my car) - just wondering how they deal with a giant dump like the one expected on Tuesday? I imagine there will be a lot of mitigation work, but that it will still be empty and worth it? - t. never skied baker

Baker locals are savages and track everything even remotely rideable by 930. Gone are the days of finding pockets of pow in the afternoon. Parking was crazy yesterday, they had people parking all the way down to the Firs lodge.

[Huskier]

Looks like shit is getting real. But you can't always pick your days and -IF- they open I may be braving said shit tomorrow. Questions for the weather-inclined Crystalites:

#1 It seems obvious that gondy is out tomorrow. It seems obvious that 6 is very low probability at best. How does REX fare in high wind scenarios?

#2 I can't recall in 19 years of Crystal-ing them ever losing power entirely. Backup power seems like something they can't possibly mess up, right? ....right?

[Buster Highmen]

Crustal has lost complete electrical power several times in the last 5 years. They go to diesel when electricity fails.
My bet is that the entire upper mountain will be closed tomorrow. 50 mph gusts and the upper mountain closes, including Rex.

[ey_allen]

Looks like shit is getting real. But you can't always pick your days and -IF- they open I may be braving said shit tomorrow. Questions for the weather-inclined Crystalites:

#1 It seems obvious that gondy is out tomorrow. It seems obvious that 6 is very low probability at best. How does REX fare in high wind scenarios?

#2 I can't recall in 19 years of Crystal-ing them ever losing power entirely. Backup power seems like something they can't possibly mess up, right? ....right?

I haven't regularly skied Crystal in ~7 years, so there are other more informed locals out there than me. With that said I spent a lot of powder days waiting for them to run chairs, and was turned around many times due to power outage from high winds. If my memory serves they can run REX slow on backup, but at some point management seemed to give up and just run Chinook and Forest Queen.

Crystal on a windy day is a mixed bag, but the rewards can be high if they run the chairs and maintain power.

To your points:
#1. I highly doubt they'd run it.
#2. They messed it up plenty in my ~10 years of skiing there regularly, but maybe they are better. All that pass and parking money has to be going somewhere right? Right?