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Preparations are well under way at my favorite feeder hill in the Eastern Cascades. Again this season, I'll be managing the operations of this north central Washington historical institution of intrigue & wonder. It's a labor of love that supplements my side gig as a house husband. Here's...

This is a flyover the Wenatchee Valley... Start a 8 minutes for a fly over Squilchuck Canyon (my house is up this canyon) to Mission Ridge... good view Rainier and the Enchantments

Just picked up a pair of Ascendants from Full Tilt. I'm retiring a 10yr old BD Quadrants. From my living room they feel like the most comfortable boots I have worn in a while. Anybody have any previous on-mountain experience with these?

A spot for trail-maps that were created before the turn of the 21st century I like older style maps... particularly where the map is super imposed on the map. This is Mission Ridge WA from 1986

I'm a map collector. Google Earth is one of my favorite software inventions so far this century. I can kill hours playing with the 3D, and light animation feature This is an image my new homestead (blue square). I won't be able to see any of these mountains from my house, but I can climb the...

I recently read this: Downhill Slide It's an analysis, written around the turn of the century, of consolidation and expansion in the ski industry. The main focus is how resort expansion and declining growth of the sport is effecting resort towns and the environment. After reading the book, I...

We're experiencing some serious overcrowding at our less remote sites in the Cascades. The local SAR teams have been stretched to the limit. I read about a few rescues every week. My personal experience with this recent phenomena reached a new level this past week. I had to pack-out a dirty...

I'm working on a project with a goal of walking our entire local trail system. We have a fairly well connected modular system throughout the valley. I was inspired to embark on this project by a guy who completed a project with a goal of covering all of the ground in San Francisco...

We topped out at 107 in the valley yesterday. The snow is gone in the Paradise lot. There's a fire behind my house by for the time being, they've got it surrounded. Praise be...Summer is almost over!!❄ Bubble chair install in progress. Greater the 50-50 for a la Nina season.

Spent this weekend touring in the Entiat Range. This zone is a Central Washingtonian slice of heaven. Far enough from the city to keep the West side urbanites away. Yet close enough to home for a quick overnight winter wilderness experience. The approach starts pretty low, so this sweet...

We left Sun Valley at about 3 PM and drove 5 hours to Pendleton OR. We were left with about a 2 hour drive to the ski area the next morning. We arrived shortly after the chairs started spinning. Tickets at Bluewood are free for Mission Ridge pass holders so the price was right for a short...

Drove from Pebble Creek to Hailey ID, on the night of the 16th. Hailey is about 20 minutes away from the ski area. Sun Valley has seen a ton of snow throughout the past couple of weeks, but nothing new had been reported over the past couple of days. We weren't disappointed. It was cold, but...

Left Ogden on the 15th, and headed North for Pocatelo ID. Pebble Creek is a sleeper spot about 30 minutes from Pocatelo. They had reported 72 inches of new snow over the past 10 days. 3 lifts and 2200 vertical feet... it seemed like a great Mom and Pop stop. We were not disappointed...

Left Sandy early on Friday, and made our way up to Powder Mountain. 6 inches over night were on the report. We arrived 20 minutes before opening. 8,000 acres of primo-hippie pow awaited us. We skied slightly dense untracked snow from wired to wire. We were like kids in a candy store. It was...

They weren't the best days ever, but It was certainly lovable. ?? Day 1: Snow was in the forecast for both days. Along with stormy conditions, we got some wicked winds. The morning of the 13th started slow. It started snowing early, but wind holds across the mountain constrained the fun to...

Spent the day at Alta. It was pretty windy. On piste was pretty variable. Skied some nice leftovers off piste. The best turns for me were off the Supreme chair. We made a trio of longish traverses challenged by a stiff wind off of the Sugarloaf chair to ski some decent untracked snow early...

We hit the road on Sunday. Destination: The Wasatch. The past week has been phenomenal in the Cascades, so it felt weird leaving... but it looks like our timing is good. There have been copious amounts of snow down here over the past couple of weeks, and there is more to come. It was a 10...

Summer snow is still available in the PNW. Spent the day at Mt Rainier with my old lady yesterday. We had a blast. The crowd was light (we were the only people with sliding gear), the sky was incredibly blue, the views were amazing, and of course... the snow was soft. We kept a leisurely...

It's the end of June, and there is still plenty of fairly easily accessible snow in the PNW. Chinook and Paradise are still skin-able from the car. The vast majority of the forest roads are now passable. The final 3 miles of the road to Artist's Point in the Baker zone will be the last to...

Brownski wrote a great piece on Skiing In The Rain... Heck rain in the Winter always puts a damper on the day. That said, to be perfectly honest, I actually like skiing in the rain. That is... if it's not a cold rain. Obviously, the experience is very gear dependent, but with proper...