November 5, 2005
OH. MY. GOD.
Hannah showed up at 5:45 and gave me a lift to Sky's house. There we met Sky and the Hummels. All five of us crowded into the Hummels' Exploder and drove to Mt. Baker Ski Area. It was dumping in the parking lot. They had six feet of base. If you stepped off the cat track you'd sink to your waist, maybe deeper.
First thing we heard was that a skier was buried at Table Mountain. Later we learned that he was buried for ten minutes; his partners promply initiated a beacon search, and he was dug out alive without injury. Either way, I was nervous about the snowpack.
The Hummels and Sky jumped off some stuff, I was very happy to get some faceshots, and Hannah strugged with skinny skis and deeeeep snow. We met up with Dave and Ben Kaufman, and we all headed up for more. We skinned up to the ski area summit and started slogging down (yes, down) some mellow slopes. Finally we ended up in a steep little canyon stuffed to the gills with pow. A lift runs right up the middle of it, and the ski was a blast. Given that it was a terrain trap of nth degree, I skied to the bottom safe zone asap. Jason hit a two-tier huck and flubbed the first half. He did a summersault, and landed on the ledge in between drops. His skis were on the surface and his posterior was drilled into five feet of fresh. We laughed until we almost fell over.
Jason's line
Sky. Photo by Dave.
We skinned back up to the top, and headed down again. The massive traffic had cut the slopes of powder up into deep, heavy crud. You had to get speed and blast through the chunks. Ben threw down, backslapped, and did a straightline to ragdoll. It was all great fun. We regrouped on the road and looked up to see Hannah blasting through the chunks like a pro. And to think that a few days prior she had been complaining that she was getting worse as a skier.
One more run and we headed for home. More snow is falling right now. Sweeeeet.