Powder-fest in slough city
21" at my house in the past 6 days quickly erased memory of the last thaw that sent temps well into the 50s for three days. Luckily the thaw came attached with only a 5 minutes deluge of rain before temps plummeted, so snow pack while damaged some was by no means destroyed. Got 3" on Monday, 12" Friday and 6" Saturday night...yeah baby!
First day back on skis since Utah...saturday morning got out on a dawn patrol tour at Merck. Had to make it a dawn patrol since I had to take Cooper to a play date at 10. A freezing rain storm two weeks ago wrecked some havoc on some of my ski lines up there but it was still mightly nice...enough so to take that extra skin up. Ended up half an hour late for the play date. My bad Cooper...my bad.
Sunday morning woke up to another 4" and was still snowing pretty good through the morning hours. After serving up some breakfast for the kiddies, grabbed the gear and went up Equinox mtn. Up above about 3000' trail blazes are starting to get buried. Some still had another foot or more to go, but some were half buried that I saw...thats a-nice, especially since small shrubs like hobblebush and the likes are buried.
Pulled up at about 3300' elevation and decided that to be my dropping in point. Made a quick first turn getting off the skin track dropping down into the drainage and noticed a slough break off...it was a slough of the overnight snowfall maybe 8" up there. I watched as this slough gained momentum through the woods...before long it was a full-on freight train barreling down the mountain, running 5' up trees that could withstand its forced as it crashed into them, until it ran out of sight. Wow, never saw a slough like that in the east! I traversed a little bit around into the drainage until I didn't trigger a slough and let the skis do their thing...hello white room. As I was cruising through this wide drainage, I notice I'm paralleling the slough path...it continued on a path down through the drainage, over roughly 800 vertical feet I skied through this drainage before breaking off to traverse out on a ridge. As I'm traversing out, I'm breaking off sloughs which run similar to the first one I triggered...seriously?!
I finally get to my destination on the ridge, which is a wide open woods shot. On my first turn I hear the slough go and luckily can make high speed GS turns because I can actually hear the slough not far off my heels...crazy experience.
As I make my way down to my final pitch which is maybe 400-500' of vert at maybe 35+ degrees...again wide open woods. I get a little cocky and think I can do just like last pitch and out run it...unfortunately part way down trap myself in a closed off cliff area so have to pull up. The slough plows into me and drags me downhill several feet. Wow...that was intense! Skied down the rest of the pitch to the run-out...slough hot on my heels again :)
First day back on skis since Utah...saturday morning got out on a dawn patrol tour at Merck. Had to make it a dawn patrol since I had to take Cooper to a play date at 10. A freezing rain storm two weeks ago wrecked some havoc on some of my ski lines up there but it was still mightly nice...enough so to take that extra skin up. Ended up half an hour late for the play date. My bad Cooper...my bad.
Sunday morning woke up to another 4" and was still snowing pretty good through the morning hours. After serving up some breakfast for the kiddies, grabbed the gear and went up Equinox mtn. Up above about 3000' trail blazes are starting to get buried. Some still had another foot or more to go, but some were half buried that I saw...thats a-nice, especially since small shrubs like hobblebush and the likes are buried.
Pulled up at about 3300' elevation and decided that to be my dropping in point. Made a quick first turn getting off the skin track dropping down into the drainage and noticed a slough break off...it was a slough of the overnight snowfall maybe 8" up there. I watched as this slough gained momentum through the woods...before long it was a full-on freight train barreling down the mountain, running 5' up trees that could withstand its forced as it crashed into them, until it ran out of sight. Wow, never saw a slough like that in the east! I traversed a little bit around into the drainage until I didn't trigger a slough and let the skis do their thing...hello white room. As I was cruising through this wide drainage, I notice I'm paralleling the slough path...it continued on a path down through the drainage, over roughly 800 vertical feet I skied through this drainage before breaking off to traverse out on a ridge. As I'm traversing out, I'm breaking off sloughs which run similar to the first one I triggered...seriously?!
I finally get to my destination on the ridge, which is a wide open woods shot. On my first turn I hear the slough go and luckily can make high speed GS turns because I can actually hear the slough not far off my heels...crazy experience.
As I make my way down to my final pitch which is maybe 400-500' of vert at maybe 35+ degrees...again wide open woods. I get a little cocky and think I can do just like last pitch and out run it...unfortunately part way down trap myself in a closed off cliff area so have to pull up. The slough plows into me and drags me downhill several feet. Wow...that was intense! Skied down the rest of the pitch to the run-out...slough hot on my heels again :)
posted by More Cowbells at 9:45 PM
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