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Warning: The following is a compilation of the short, boring, nothing-special trips that I've done in the past month or so. I realize that it is boring writing coupled with mediocre photos of easy terrain, but I'll include this page more for purposes of documentation rather than entertainment. You have been warned.
November 20, 2004
Dave, Ben Kaufman, and I did a very short tour at Stevens Pass. It was sunny, warm, and the ski down did way too much damage to my skis. Apparently, two inches of snow over a gravel road doesn't provide good skiing. Halloween was great, where is the snow??
Note: Click on the thumbnails for a larger photo. Ctrl+W closes a window for quick viewing.
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| Dave skins up the dirt, roots, and rocks masquerading as snow. | Sun-bathed ski area looking bare for late November | Glacier Peak in the distance from our high point. |
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| My tracks through the trees. | Ben skins through the fresh snow. |
November 27, 2004
Home for Thanksgiving, my dad and I decided to go skiing. Tumalo/Bachelor always has the most early season snow, and the memories of last Thanksgiving, when
we skied knee-deep powder on Tumalo, drove us to optimism. The day was damn cold and windy, but the East bowl had plenty of snow, mostly smooth windbuff.
I fell at the bottom of my first run and lost of of my pole baskets, so the rest of the skinning was a bit challenging. Paranoid after being avvied off of
Observation Rock, I insisted that we hike the ridge rather than skin the bowl after our first lap. My worries were put to rest after digging a pit, so we
avoided the horrendously windy ridge and skinned the really windy bowl on the subsequent runs. The
ski down the other side, back to the car, was bad, hitting rocks every turn. Better than nothing; significantly worse than last year.
My dad forgot his camera, and I forgot to charge my battery, so the camera died after only a few shots. Here's what I've got.
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| Skinning up. | Dad enjoys the wind affected snow. | Hood fully zipped to fend off the wind. I exit my last turn. |
December 5, 2004
An absolutely behemoth crew assembed at Sky's place Sunday morning. Two Hummels, Justin, Corey, Sky, Ben, Dave, Phil, and I were planning to go to Stevens
Pass for a few turns. I was nursing a nasty head cold, but unrealistically hoped that I wouldn't drag ass. We skinned to the top lift, and lapped deep powder
for a few hours. I was skiing very poorly and just got more and more frustrated as the day went on, but such is life. Dave stole my camera and snapped a few
photos:
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| Sky | Ben | Corey | Me, flailing. |
December 31, 2004
This time I was home for the second half of winter break. I spent the first half in Seattle and Banff, working to get the fish tank done, and climbing ice. So
I was due for some skiing. It still wasn't snowing, so Bachelor/Tumalo was really the only option. We discussed driving south to Thielsen, but figured that
we'd be skiing in a whiteout. The bowl was tracked out by the time we had skinned to the summit, but the visibility was decent and the base was good. The
A$$HOLE snowmobilers were out in full force, highmarking the bowl. I laughed at the one who bogged his machine down 20 feet from the top and had to spend half
an hour digging it out, but the roar and whine of the rest of his posse had my trigger finger twitching.
The choppy crud was difficult skiing; only on the second half of the last run did I realize that I had to get speed and blast through the lumps with GS turns.
By then it was too late to go for another lap to refine my technique, but we had fun nevertheless. The ski down to the car was fun, and I hit only one rock!
Maybe winter has showed up at last. We drove home and ate lobster. May the New Year be filled with powder and corn.
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| The snow fell and the wind blew as we skinned up. | I make my way down the bowl. | Dad follows. |
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| We go for a second lap. | Ditto. | At the bottom we took a break beneath a tree... |
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| before skinning and | skinning | and going for another lap... |
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| only to skin back out....(bored yet?) | ..and skiing to the car. |