Brian's Adventure Journal!

Cold Smoke

2013-01-08T09:52:00.001-05:00

The Jay Cloud was in full effect and we hit the road good and early for first chair on Saturday morning. We scored first tracks on deliverance and found face-shots aplenty throughout the rest of the day. With a few inches of refresher, Sunday was in nearly as good condition as Saturday with well over a foot of fresh over the entire weekend following roughly four feet during the previous week. For day two we hit Big Jay, then made a slightly ill informed attempt at Gilpin, across the street from The Dip. The results...well see for yourself!

Photo Credit: Rob Fox

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Winter 2012: It was the best times, it was the worst of times...

2012-12-31T19:54:00.002-05:00

Even though it basically didn't snow last season, we were determined to get after it. In the end, I was so thrilled with out accomplishments during such trying times, I decided to whip up a season encompassing highlight reel. If this is season even approaches last season in awesomeness I'll be content.

Soundtrack on Spotify:

Winter Readiness: The Daily Driver

2012-12-09T21:14:00.000-05:00

My old daily drivers finally got decommissioned at the tail end of last winter. Backcountry.com didn't allow me to post my review in it's entirety, and it took me a while to write it, so here is is unabridged:

These are going to be my new 50/50, / daily driver, and less than epic conditions touring ski. I had a pair of Black Diamond Havocs in the 185cm which I had been using to fill this roll, but they finally succumbed to the wear and tear of being a daily driver, so I took the excuse to buy something with a modern geometry. I went with the 181cm as a compromise for tree skiing and touring weight. You should note that the radius increases to 25m at 192. Were it not for the weight savings, I think I'd have preferred the big radius.

The Hardsides really get just about everything right. First off the 30/70 rocker profile is perfect. I skied Jay 2 weekends ago right after a 1' storm. Conditions were essentially packed powder, soft bumps, a few powdery stashes here and there, and eventually mashed potatoes. Unless you're in the race course, it seems that there is no reason not to get some early rise, and these felt pretty great. There was no tip flap at high speed, and they cruised over everything the early season east coast snow pack served up.

I skied these with Dukes on top of DynaDuke swap plates (www.binding-freedom.com) so I have more stack height than some people. Having said that, I find the wide waist to be no problem at all working an edge into firm snow. There was no real ice, but for a ski that is targeted toward 60 soft/40 hard ratio, it carves almost as well as GS ski.

To me the hybrid sandwich sidewall construction on these was a major selling point. Again, my last two pairs of 50/50 skis (K2 Shuksan 180, and more recently,BD Havoc 185) met their demise purely due to a breakdown of the materials. Both of those skis were enjoyable all-mountain skis. The K2s lasted 20 days split between resort and backcountry. I kept the BDs for 2.5 seasons but really should have tossed them early last winter. Both were a capped construction and both de-cambered. The BDs were even twisted longitudinally on one ski. The hybrid construction of the Hardside seemed to me to be an ideal compromise between weight savings and burly construction. ( The BD Warrant seems to do a similar thing, but I didn't care for the geometry as much.)

Between the sandwich and the titanal sheets, they feel great making big fast turns, and with the flat tail, you get plenty of power straight through the end of the turn. The titanal sure looses in the weight savings department (the Shuksans, the Havocs, the Warrants all weigh in at like a pound less than the Hardsides) but it seems that metal is what you need if you want to rail big fast turns. I guess the alternative is carbon fiber and I'm too stingy to go that route. Metal and wood seems to create a much damper ski anyway, which I really enjoy.

I skied quite a bit of bumps, and while certainly there are better tools for the job, I could hardly complain about the performance of the Hardsides. They are just soft enough to really point em without getting totally rocked. By the time i started to run out of gas, I did get tossed around a bit, so you do need to stay on top of them in moguls.

The last major selling point on these skis is the large radius. As I mentioned earlier, I might have preferred to go even longer, but made the compromise. Radii in excess of 21m seems to be the way to go (because it's fun at the resort, but also) because it eliminates the hooky behavior of the ski on really steep (> 35 degrees) terrain. This is problem that we'd started to notice on many skis up until a few years ago. The long radius really helps you keep them aimed down the fall line on the steeps while the early rise eases turn initiation. I have not had the chance to test them on anything truly steep yet, so the jury is still out. If the performance of my BD Zealots (192cm, 29m, big early rise) is any indication, these should do the trick just fine up in the Left Gully of Tuckerman Ravine.

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Winter Readiness: Thule Mountaineer on Factory Xterra Crossbars

2012-12-09T19:46:00.000-05:00

'Tis the season! With the first weekend of skiing already come and gone, it seemed high time to get the Thule strapped to the roof again. In truth, I wanted to get this done before Thanksgiving, but this turned out to be more of an ordeal than one might imagine. For posterity, the details are documented below.

The original set of mounting hardware finally succumbed to age and the elements, so I junked that stuff, and decided to replace it with new components. Locating the correct set of replacement parts was the first hurdle. The Thule website seems to list only one model of Mountaineer. I made the incorrect assumption, that this must be the only model, and that the parts under the Mountaineer Spare Parts tab would be compatibly with my box. Indeed there are at least two cargo boxes bearing this name, albeit with different arbitrary letters and numbers at the end.

Before ordering anything from the Thule website, determine which box you have! According to Thule, the model number and date of manufacture is listed on a sticker on the inside of the box... After God knows how many years of abuse (my box is second hand), no such sticker was to be found. You can determine which of two you have by measuring the hole spread of the mounting holes drilled in the bottom of the box. The spread on the box linked above is 3 1/4 inches. The hole spreads on the box unlisted on their website (the one I have, apparently ) is 3 11/16 inches. After the exchange of several e-mails, Thule shipped me the correct parts, and I returned the incorrect parts. I could not find them on the Thule website, but are available from other retailers. Why might this be? One can only speculate, but planned obsolescence jumps to mind rather quickly in the absence of any rational explanation...

Armed with the correct replacement parts, I began the next phase of this roof rack adventure: getting the damn thing attached to the car. Yet again, this was less than straight forward. My adventuring vehicle of choice these days (and likely for the next 150,000 miles) is an '07 Nissan Xterra. The Xterra is a superlative light truck for the amateur adventurer, armed to the tooth with all sorts bells and whistles aimed squarely at the die hard weekend warrior, yet has one aggravating short coming: the factory cross bars are of cartoonishly large proportions. No doubt, some fool in marketing got his way, arguing that they would look more burly in glossy brochures and TV ads. In any event, most roof racks aren't really built like this, and the replacement parts (shown below) do not quite wrap around these industrial sized crossbars.

Solutions to this dilemma include the following:

Skip some parts.
Spend more money.
Custom mods!

Last time around, I opted to skip the lock washers (part E above), and the foam pads (part K). In hindsight, this was a decision of dubious merit. They probably include those parts for a reason...

In the spending more money category, Thule offers a bewildering array of adapter kits, which probably work just great. The appropriate parts (I think) for this job are linked below in the Gear List. However, when one has as vicious an adventuring habit as I do, every dollar counts, and thrift becomes the order of the day.

On that note, my dad and I decided to test our luck, with some power tools. Since the additional stack height of a lock washer and two foam pads is hardly more than a few millimeters, and evidently all the difference needed to get the nuts threaded onto the carriage bolts, we reasoned that we could just shorten the plastic sheath that covers the threads on the plastic nuts (part J). The steel threads are recessed fairly deeply inside of the plastic knob, so there is plenty of wiggle room before anything important gets wrecked. We took all 8 nuts to down to the basement and belt sanded a few millimeters off the bottom of them, and presto! Cookin' with gas!

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Snowliage

2012-10-14T23:15:00.000-04:00

There, I've said it: snowliage. That's precisely what it was, and why we were there. We saw some pretty ripe leaves, some frosted peaks, and some blue skies and generally spent some quality time in the mountains getting stoked for the snow season! Eye candy was produced in abundance.

White Mountain Recon Mission

2012-10-14T22:28:00.001-04:00

Since last winter was the worst snow year in recent memory, I deduce that we must be due for a year of epic magnitude. Let's hope that turns out to be true, because if not our toils in the wilderness last Sunday will have been for naught. Last Sunday, based solely on the vague description of an AMC hut caretaker, and armed with maps, cameras, and GPS we ventured off the beaten path into the White Mountains backcountry in slope of virgin lines. The word on the trail was that Hurricane Irene had opened up some gnarly new slides in some really choice locales. We decided to investigate...

We charged 4 miles into the objective area, and them rambled through the woods for another 2 miles or so before locating a telling drainage, wrought with water damage, and wash out debris. We followed the drainage uphill until eventually we became convinced that we'd hit the jackpot. Along the way we encountered a variety of exciting, natural terrain features including massive boulders, steep drainage banks, a rocky crux, a pitch averaging in the low 40s and topping off in the low 50s, and a steep, slabby rollover near the top. We didn't get enough photos (for reasons discussed below) and will have to head back for a more thorough investigation, but here is a quick teaser:

Heading up toward the crux.

Just above the rollover, looking back down.

About half way up the slide, we started to wonder how easy it would be to down-climb the wet bedrock. I took about 3 steps downward over the course of maybe 2 minutes. The steep, slick, rock provided poor footing and descending would be a balancing act, with fairly high consequences. We debated a while and decided the best course of action was to proceed upward - it just seemed safer at this point. In hindsight, this classic Type II Fun scenario would have been more safely conducted with the aid of some mountaineering gear: climbing helmets, harnesses, a rope, some cams or nuts, etc... It was probably only a 5.4 climb, but the potential for a mishap was certainly there. Loose topsoil, small holds, running water, loose rocks and other hazards were commonplace for the entire 800' climb. In the winter, I'll likely add crampons and a mountaineering axe to the mix. In short, don't just waltz in there in and expect a walk in the park - it was dicey for a long stretch. The challenging terrain, is actually the main reason that we managed to capture so few photos - we literally had our hands full for most of the climb.

Before divulging the precise location of this new gem, I think we'll take a few more scouting trips as the season develops - we'd hate for anyone to needlessly slog through the woods before we've given it a test drive! On our lengthy exfil from the mission area we managed to snag a few classic scenes of George from a moderate distance. Enjoy!

Tucks and Lion's Head Trails

2012-10-14T21:34:00.001-04:00

The objectives were two fold: peep some leaves and get in another more pre-season conditioning climb up a a big mountain. The weather was essentially horrendous, with visibility approaching nil at the summit and winds gusting in the 60s, to say nothing of the driving rain. Despite the inclement weather I was rewarded with a few glimpses out of the Ravine and across the Notch. These are the ones that made the cut:

Fall Fun

2012-10-14T21:10:00.000-04:00

A few weekends ago, Ziehl, his friend Annelise and I headed off to the Sandwich Range for a short hike and some ski recon. We decided to tackle Osceola and see if we could get a close look at the slides running down toward the Kanc on the North face of the mountain. The ski recon turned out to be a total flop: once at the top, we found ourselves totally socked in with only 100' or so of visibility. We could probably have bushed-whacked to the slides using Backcountry Navigator for bearings, but the undergrowth was so thick and the visibility so poor that we scrapped that part of the itinerary. We would have had to trample all sorts of alpine plants and probably still not get a great look at the objective. The rest of the hike was pretty nice though, and Ziehl documents it here.

View Osceola Southern Approach in a larger map

After the hike, we decided to have some fun with my GoPro by mounting it in the windshield of my car for our exit from south side of Osceola via Tripoli Road. Tripoli Road is a windy mountain road which snakes through Thornton Gap. The road is seasonally closed, and is mostly unpaved. It's a quintessential New England backcountry road. We aimed the GoPro out the window and set it to fire a single still shot once every 2 seconds. While less than perfect, there were a few nifty shots in the bunch. Here's the best of the lot...

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Weekend in Martha's Vineyard

2012-09-03T17:58:00.000-04:00

Since summer in New England this year has been pretty much too hot to do anything but relax, we figured we had but one choice; maximize relaxation by spending a long weekend on New England's most indulgent vacation spot: Martha's Vineyard. We rented a cabin on at the one and only campground, bought ferry tickets, loaded up the cars and hit the road in search of some serious downtime and chillin'.

We rallied at Fenway.

Rolling out...

Leaving the ferry port in Woods Hole.

The other ferry on it's return from MV.

Yacht with a dinghy in tow. Commercial
fishing vessel in the background?

It was a nice yacht...

A sea-bird in in pursuit of leftovers.

They were persistent.

Under sail.

Our ambitions were reigned in to the bare essentials: some bike riding, some time on the water, a little sight seeing, a bit of campfire grilling, all interleaved with the amount of eating and drinking appropriate to a hedonistic vacation.

Upon disembarking the ferry and settling in at our cabin, we decided to explore the surrounding towns via rental mountain bike.

Exploring the island.
Photo credit: Shawn

A classic car out for a cruise.
Photo credit: Shawn

Quenching our thirst at the mid-way through the ride.
Photo credit: Shawn

The legendary bartender of Donovan's reef
mixes up some refreshments for us.
Photo credit: Shawn

The campsite: maximum luxury (well, by my standards anyway...).

The steaks: grilled to perfection.
Photo credit: Shawn

When we got back from our ride, we set about grilling some steaks, cooking some corn on the cob, and feasting on a small plethora of snacks. We hit the sack semi-early for an early rise: we would be in search of fish on the high seas with a charter fishing guide.

Prepare for boarding!
Photo credit: Shawn

The fishing boat.
Photo credit: Shawn

Leaving the bay.
Photo credit: Shawn

Zac with the first catch of the day!
Photo Credit: Shawn

LBK in search of dinner.

Success!

Shawn casting while Zac observes.

LBK wrangles a fish.

The spoils of victory.

Zac with his eye on the prize...

Action shot!

Shawn on the hunt.

Land ho! Back on shore, Kurt, our guide, cleans the fish for us.
Photo credit: Shawn

Our bountiful catch on the grill.
Photo credit: Shawn

The finished product.
Photo credit: Shawn

With a highly successful day of fishing under our belts, we retreated to the cabin to do some grillin' and chillin'. We left our final day open for some serious touristry. We piled into the car and set off for the south and east corners of the island to see what we could see. We eventually wound up in Edgarstown and where we took some time to eat ice cream and take in the view.

Photo credit: Shawn

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Hood Footage

2012-08-24T01:44:00.002-04:00

The original plan was to do a whole bunch more editing and get this thing wrapped up properly, but that was like 6 months ago and it's time to concede defeat. For posterity, here is the Mt. Hood Highlight Reel, rife with bad lighting, dull moments, and lack of sound track. It does, however, have some half-decent chase cam.

Eventually I think I'll bang out a Winter 2012 Retrospective, but for now, here's this:

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Deal Daemon - Android Apps on Google Play

2012-07-30T08:41:00.001-04:00

Deal Daemon - Android Apps on Google Play:

'via Blog this'

Deal Daemon version 2 is available in the Play Store! Check it out! Here are some screens:

Deal Daemon: Recent Matches

2012-07-28T16:33:00.000-04:00

The new Recent Matches tab now seems to be working. This feature allows the user to keep a short history of app activity and provides a way for the user revisit matches after they have dismissed the notification.

Recent Matches are shown here so that
users can review past activity.

A few bug fixes to the alert system are ongoing. After that I think I'll make some improvements to the social media and sharing stuff. Finally, I'll release it to the app store and put together some new promo material. ETA: we'll see...

Lesson's Learned

2012-06-17T00:44:00.000-04:00

Another winter has come and gone, and before too much of it fades from memory, I thought I'd share some of the tips I picked up along the way. None of it is especially profound, but who knows, maybe some of it will be useful to some one out there.

Black Diamond Ski Strap

Usage 1: Climbing Skin Melt-down

I have determined that it is not possible to overstate the usefulness of the Black Diamond Ski Strap to the back-country skier, especially the longer lengths. Before I elaborate, let me stress the importance of carrying two of them and of getting the long ones. They hardly weigh anything, so no quibbling about ounces! In this case the added value is worth the 2 extra calories you'll burn schlepping them up to the top of some mountain. I'll present my most compelling argument first...

This past March, on mile 1.5 of our 5 day hut tour in the Wallowas, during the execution of a lazy AVA turn, I somehow managed to kick the tip loop of my brand new (as in not used once ever) Black Diamond Ascension Split Skin clean out of the skin, resulting in no less than 2 cougar screams (in the words of Colin Fletcher) and a short profusion of swearing. Observe:

Evidently, all three screws ripped out of the material simultaneously...

I briefly considered duct tape, and then briefly considered backing the screws out of the tip loop, cutting the damaged end of the skin off and re-trimming the entire length of it in the field with a pocket knife and trying to reattach the tip loop to the fresh end of the skin. Fortunately, before I tried any of these Mickey Mouse schemes I thought of just wrapping a ski strap around the loose end of the ski. I'm sure I'm not the first person to have thought of this, but if you have any doubts about the feasibility of this technique, consider that this was the technique that got me through the entire rest of the season! The ski strap did suffer a few nicks around right around the edge of the skis, but has not failed. Even so, the possibility of that failure has led me to believe that carrying an extra strap just in case is a worthwhile insurance policy while on any extended tours.

Ski strap with buckle on top. On a decently rockered ski, the strap won't
really contact the snow.

Tuck the loose end under the top so that it doesn't drag and get run over
by the other ski.

Usage 2: Emergency Booster Strap

Now here's one that I haven't actually heard of from anyone else. I can't personally vouch for it's effectiveness, though during our Wallowa Alpine Hut trip, Karl claimed that it was somewhat helpful. He was using borrowed AT boots and found them to be too soft to effectively steer a big pair of skis through heavy snow. The setup was starting to ruin his day, and this was the best I could think of at the time. I theorized that some added rigidity might stiffen up the spine of the boot. It sounds like this was only marginally successful for him as his boots were really just too soft for him. However, you have to bring at least one ski strap with you anyway, add an extra and you have at least something to fall back on in the event that you tear out a buckle post-holing near a big rock or experience some other kind of equipment failure while off the beaten path.

Hotronic Foot Warmers

I used to think that boot warmers were only for city slickers, ski bunnies in poofy jackets with fur hoods, old people and other individuals not exerting themselves enough to produce any body heat while on the slopes. I now realize that they are in fact for ski bums who want to be able to ski bell-to-bell after the Arctic Oscillation dumps an eye-balls deep blanket of snow on top of Jay and tops it off with an ambient temperature of zero degrees Fahrenheit and 40 mph winds without getting yet another case of first degree frostbite.

The bite of frost, depicted in graphic detail. Notice the swelling, even on
the normal colored toes.

They're actually on the upswing here. After about an hour or so of being
under a warm blanket the colored started to come back the blood started
to effuse.

They some times go numb during long hikes...

With our Wallowas trip already reserved and mostly paid for, the only reasonable decision was to pick up some boot warmers and play it safe for the foreseeable future. The crux of the whole setup is getting the 4 cell batteries and the extension cords. I drop the extension cords down each pant leg, tie the extension into a simple knot and leave the batteries either in my pants pockets or clipped to my belt. The belt is easily the more comfortable and convenient location, however storing them in a pocket should theoretically increase the battery life. On low power, the 4 cell battery has lasted me all day. Just having the option of instant heat alleviates a significant amount of stress during a long day in the mountains. They're worth the price tag.

Virtually no chance of the extension cord pulling out and snaking up your
pant leg.

Booster Straps

These are among my favorite purchases of the ski season. For some reason, these aftermarket replacement straps seem to be most popular among the ski-racing culture and less so in the AT and back-country crowd. Usually back-country shops have never heard of them, and when I walked into the local race shop with my BD Factor's to get Booster Straps installed, the boot tech had never even heard of Factors... Clearly some cross-pollination is needed. In any case, the leverage you are able to apply to the jam cleats on these things really lets you get them as tight as you could possibly want. The slight give in the elastic bands gives you a really smooth flex and stiffens toward the end of the range, eliminates shin bang, and generally gives me considerably greater confidence in my boots. They come in several stiffness-es: Junior, Intermediate, Expert and World Cup. I went with the Expert on my Lange Comp Pro 120s and the World Cup on the DB Factor 130s. I swear to Ullr, the World Cup straps stiffened the Factors up to the point that they're comparable to the Langes!

Nokian Hakka 7 SUV Studded

Last, but by no means least, if you intent to chase storms and can possibly scrounge up the cash (or get another credit card) just get yourself the top of the line kicks for your ride. Your frayed nerves will thank you in years not taken off the end of your life after countless white-knuckle rides through mountain passes in dim light. In all seriousness my only concern with these tires is getting rear-ended by people who can't stop as quickly. The road noise is totally negligible and even with no snow on the ground, they feel as though they give a much more precise ride than the all-weather tires my car came with. And they look pretty sweet, too.

Gear List (click links for more product info):

More Eye Candy

2012-06-16T00:05:00.002-04:00

What can I say? I can't help myself...

See the Deal Daemon page for more info.

Work Hard, Play Hard

2012-06-14T20:32:00.000-04:00

Things are moving right along with Deal Daemon rebooted. More eye candy:

Stay tuned - my to-do list is getting shorter by the day...

More Deal Daemon Development!

2012-05-26T23:58:00.000-04:00

Things are moving right along with the next version of Deal Daemon. The main highlights include: less clutter on the home screen, a cleaner style, social media sharing features and a more informative match notification. There's plenty of debugging left to do, the promo materials for the Play Store need updating (including the screen shots and video), and the home page needs to be refreshed... In the mean time, eye candy:

Lightened theme, less clutter.

Advanced options are hidden by default.

Searches screen, largely untouched.

Test search screen, also largely untouched.

More of the same...

Same notification page, new launcher icon.

Brand new match page! Actually contains
useful information and features!

Forwarding for your
non-Android-Empowered buddies.

For all of you social networking needs...

Looking sleek in API Level 15, the latest
and greatest in Android operating systems.

Deal Daemon: Back In Action

2012-05-24T01:04:00.004-04:00

Now that winter has totally wound down, Deal Daemon development is back in full swing! Here's a quick preview of the new deal notification screen features. Expect lots more changes to the UI in the near future!

The Oregon Trip: Wallowas Highlight Reel

2012-05-01T20:00:00.000-04:00

This post is part of a series.

The Oregon Trip: Road Trip

2012-04-12T23:00:00.001-04:00

There's no short way to tell this tale, so I won't even try. In fact, the scope of the story is so great, that words would hardly do it justice. To that end, I'll start with the map:

View Norway Basin in a larger map

The plan was to rally in Portland and embark on a shred-quest, the scale of which had been witnessed by none of us before... The team consisted of myself, Rob, his brother Brad, Brad's best friend Ryan, and fellow ski team alum Karl. We'd rally in Portland, drive 6.5 east to Halfway, OR. From there we'd meet up with the Wallowa Alpine Hut guides at the Carson House and spend one last night in civilization before plunging into the wilderness. The following morning, the guides would tow us into the woods behind a snowmobile for roughly 6 miles, at which time, we'd skin an additional 2.5 miles and 2000 vertical feet to the Norway Basin yurt. The yurt would serve as our back-country skiing base-camp for the next 5 nights.

Halfway, OR...

Halfway to nowhere, in the words of Karl Cyr...

Plains, mountains...

...and sunsets.

View Norway Basin in a larger map

In the map above, the black path represents the drive, the green represents the snowmobile drag, and the blue is the skin to the yurt. The bed marks the Carson House.

View Norway Basin in a larger map

After some last minute 'gear harmonizing' at the trail head, we were on the trail, in pursuit of pow, gnar, first tracks, fist descents and virtually every other Holy Grail conceivable to five back-country skiers such as ourselves.

Right around now, it dawns on us: we're actually doing this!

The snowmobile drag got off to a great start, including one overheated drive-train, resolved by shoveling a bunch of snow onto the tread, and one mid-course un-packaging of the gear sled, resulting in the loss of some miscellaneous gear, and all four tow-ees. The snow machine turned around and came back for us and the gear as soon as they realized that about 1000 lbs. of dudes had dropped off the tow line.

At about mile 6, we transitioned into climbing skins and prepared for the final push toward base camp. Laden with extra clothes, emergency gear, spare parts and overnight gear, the last 2.5 miles from the sno-mo drop-off to the yurt, took us nearly two hours. Once at the yurt, we took some time to unpack our non-essentials, hydrate and rest before a quick orientation with our guides, Kip and Victor. From a local high point, known as Rocky Top, they pointed out most of the significant land marks and major regions accessible from the yurt. Victor's knowledge of the area proved indispensable and we left him hefty tip. Once we were all oriented, we took a quick schuss down to Bob's Hole, the landing area for virtually everything west of the yurt, and then headed back to the yurt for some planning and R&R.

Home sweet, yurt.

Unloading any excess gear.
Photo credit: Ryan

So much gear!
Photo credit: Brad

Skin track.
Photo credit: Brad.

Photo credit: Brad.

Victor and Kip showing us the lay of the land.
Photo credit: Brad.

Transitioning.
Photo credit: Ryan.

Finally, a few glimpses into the terrain we'll be skiing. The topo maps
don't do it justice.

Photo credit: Brad

Inspecting our handiwork.

View Norway Basin in a larger map

With about 3000' of vert and one decent run under our belts we retreated to the yurt to gear up for the next day. The recent rain event and associated warm-up had destroyed virtually all of the deep persistent instabilities. There were a few sun crusts near the surface of the snow pack, but precipitation since the development of those layers had been sparse. If anything were to rip out, it would be low consequence. Additionally, the forecast for the following day was fair, but weather was expected to be moving in toward the end of the day. If we really wanted to get into the alpine and slay some big lines, we'd have one shot at it. We ate, drank, stared at the map until it was nearly committed to memory, and hit the sack for an alpine start the next day, with alarms set for 6 AM.

Karl and Brad, doing some homework.

A lot to take in...

Continue Reading at The Oregon Trip: Big Mountain Lines.

Gear List (click links for more product info):

The Oregon Trip: Big Mountain Lines

2012-04-12T23:00:00.000-04:00

Continued From The Oregon Trip: Road Trip.

We settled on making a push for The Horn. We'd head due west for a few miles, make our way into the alpine and try our luck at the couloirs descending from Horn. We made breakfast, melted some snow to top off our Nalgenes, plotted a few waypoints on our GPS devices and hit the skin track.

Our route brought us down into Bob's Hole, up and over Norway Ridge and due west along the southern face of Norway Ridge and straight into the alpine. Eventually we'd hit a steep face just beneath the floor of the bowl underneath the horn. We'd kick turn our way up the face, and transition for a boot-pack up one of the couloirs to the top of The Horn and commence the slaying of big lines! Check out the objective area below.

View Norway Basin in a larger map

View Norway Basin in a larger map

When we hit the trail, the whole place was totally socked in. It wasn't really fog, just low cloud cover. Armed with map, compass, and GPS we hit the trail with confidence and determination. We kept spaced out for most of the skin track, but regrouped for route-finding discussions at islands of safety. For most of the skin we could really only see the person immediately in front of or behind us.

Instruments only. Rob skillfully breaks trail and navigates.

Karl and I get ready to space out before making a traverse.

The clouds start to break up, and we realize we're right on target!

Rob gets to work on a snow-pit. He
gets a Q2 CT 20 and an ECT with no
propagation at all!

We emerged from the fog and cloud cover to discover that we were more or less where we wanted to be if not guilty of setting a ridiculous skin-track.

Until the fog lifted, there was some debate as to which route was best...

From here we had only a short climb into the floor of the bowl, where we could start our final ascent and get ready for the skiing! As we made our toward the last big push, the clouds totally clear out, and we start to get a good look at what we've gotten ourselves into. We can't help but split ear to ear grins...

Karl, on the floor, just beneath run number one. In the background, a large
cornice can be seen with avalanche debris below it.

Brad, with our second run of the day in the background.
Photo credit: Ryan.

Me, in the floor of the cirque facing out toward Red Mountain.
Photo credit: Ryan

Ryan, ready for action.

Here's where it starts to get good...

After having a good look around, eating some snacks, drinking some water and joking around, we put on our game faces. It was time to throw the skis on our backs, set a boot pack, and then ski! Until now, we hadn't really done anything remarkable. Sure, we'd had a few good turns the previous afternoon, and we'd done some nice skinning in a relatively pristine wilderness, but this is what we were really here for. We were in the alpine, the sun was out, stability was excellent, and there were only a few precarious steps between us shredding couloirs and bowls! The planning, the, flying, the driving, the credit card bills, the labored breathing, and the sweat were all about to pay off...

At the top of the climb we arrive at a convenient landing area. We stop to
admire our boot-pack and scope out run number two.

A short stroll from our landing area, Brad makes a discovery...

...and we all go to have a look.

We sit in awe for a good 20 minutes, speculating endlessly about the
bewildering array of skiing and climbing spread out before us.

Rob surveys the land.

Mountains, desert... ...and mountains.

The entrance to run one, and run two in the background.

A view of the ridge, as it wraps back from our position toward the south
facing flank.

After we'd had our fill of breathtaking scenery, we returned to the task at hand: slaying big mountain lines. After some debate, we decided to split up: Rob and Brad would ski the steep, narrow chute running northeast off of The Horn, and Ryan, Karl and I would take the wider, mellower chute off of the northwest flank of The Horn. We'd regroup in the floor of the bowl, then cross the floor, and ascend the south facing slope, traverse northeast along the ridge and drop in from somewhere near the top. Most of the best GoPro footage is from these two runs.

Gettin' ready for action!
Photo credit: Brad

Rob does the honors...

Brad follows suit.

Rob and Brad's line can be seen winding it's way down from the buttress
at the top left of the frame.

A closer view of the same.

Me, taking that tentative first turn.

Karl, dropping in. Ryan spectates from the top.

Karl opens up the throttle.

Ryan gets after it.

Some high speed shredding.

All smiles, for some reason...

The line skied by me, Karl and Ryan.

Mission Accomplished! Our first objective of the day was a resounding success, and armed with a powerful adrenaline rush, we concocted a route up the opposite face in search of our next conquest. The next climb was relatively short and totally non-technical - we took our time and enjoyed the climb. We were greeted by stunning views in practically every direction we turned.

Brad on the traverse.

Ryan and Karl breaking trail toward line two.

Scale... Right around here Karl remarked that he was 'baking' and felt like
he was 'crossing the desert'. We were, after all, in the middle of a
Superdome sized parabolic mirror.
Photo credit: Brad

Rob on his way.

Kick turns...
Photo credit: Brad

Just one last traverse before run two!

Not a bad place to hang out.

On the home stretch...

Ryan looks back over our skin track.

Ryan and Brad dropped in just below us.

Karl, wrapping up a transition.

Rob, ready for round two.

Again, we were compelled to loiter around the top of the ridge admiring the scenery and contemplating the awesomeness of alpine touring. We lazily traversed across the ridge from the saddle toward the high end where we planned to drop in. It was mostly non-technical, with one brief steep section that simply required some deliberate movement. We stopped short of the absolute top of the ridge because the snow quality seemed to deteriorate close to the craggy top. There were certainly a few cool chutes dropping down from the top and emptying out into the wide-open run-out. However, in the afternoon sun the snow was warming up quickly. Lots of wet slough was running down from the craggy peak and ruining the snow surface. We kept our eyes open for rollerballs and planned to make this our last run for the day before heading back for Bob's Hole and the yurt. We stuck to the middle of the slope for the best skiing and laid down some nice super-g turns.

I start getting the camera ready for action
while Ryan and Brad, to the left, and Karl
and Rob to the right study their line.

Ryan, all smiles as usual.

Brad slays.

Rob charges the fall line.

Lat but not least, Karl gets after it.

Making our way back to the yurt.

After an epic day in the alpine, the yurt might as well have been the penthouse suite: we split some wood, stoked the fire, and made ourselves at home. The view from outside the yurt was nearly as good as the view from the alpine, and the yurt itself was like a haven of warmth and comfort in the midst of a vast wilderness. Truly, life was good!

Home sweet, yurt: bastion of back-country comfort and luxury!

Me, splitting wood for the stove.
Photo credit: Brad.

Ryan strums up some victorious tunes after our successful alpine mission.
Photo credit: Ryan

The evening view out the front door of the bunk rooms.

The yurt, with Spines and Lines just
visible beyond.

Continue Reading at The Oregon Trip: Spines, Lines and Woods.

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The Oregon Trip: Spines, Lines and Woods

2012-04-12T22:30:00.000-04:00

Continued From The Oregon Trip: Big Mountain Lines.

Having temporarily slaked our big-mountain-line-slaying thirst with the previous day's activities, we got off to a decidedly non-alpine start for the second full day. We had heard that the forecast was for snow and poor visibility, and sure enough it was pretty socked in when we lumbered out of the yurt that morning. To make matters, it came in wet and heavy, on top of the whatever may have refrozen after the afternoon's sun. Between the dubious snow-pack and our dubious legs, we decided to stay out of the alpine and stick to low consequence pistes for the day.

Overcast and wet...

The fog made for some surreal scenes.

Low viz...

The conditions were less than inspiring, but we figured we'd make a go of it.
Photo credit: Ryan.

Our first objective of the day was to head back up toward Rocky Top, and check out the conditions on the windward side of the ridge. It was a decent sized slope with a medium pitch but nothing too complicated. I broke trail through the heavy, crusty mank that had come in over night. At the top of the ridge the winds were whipping up a ground blizzard and practically chased us down into the cover of the terrain contours. Unfortunately the wind had beaten us into submission, and no one bothered to pull out a camera for this leg of the trip...

View Norway Basin in a larger map

The skiing was half-decent if not a bit crusty and the weather was much more tolerable off the ridge. However we learned an important lesson: the snow was slabby and the wind direction was being influence by the local contours of the land. What we thought was a windward slope was actually getting loaded from somewhere. Rob and Karl both kicked off very smalls slabs (a few inches deep and running only 10 feet or so). They were both able to ski out of these slides, but we decided that it was time to seek more sheltered less exposed terrain. After all, the snow was still coming down and the wind was still blowing. We turned back toward Bob's Hole, swung by the yurt for a lunch-time IPA and pushed on toward Spines and Lines, a set of spines and chutes nestled just south of the yurt.

View Norway Basin in a larger map

Spines and Lines dumps you into the Pit of Despair, a local depression lower in elevation Bob's Hole and considerably lower than the yurt. Nothing like winding up like 600 vertical feet below home at the end of a day of skiing. We made sure not to wind up at the absolute bottom of the Pit, yet when we got to the end of the run and saw the climb that lay ahead of us, we despaired anyway....

Anyhow, the skiing looked decent and there seemed to be very little wind around the yurt when we left, so we hoped the snow-pack would be more reasonable in that area. Brad broke trail up to the top of the line and we eagerly got ready to ride some untouched back-country spines. The snow was still heavy and but we made the best of it and shot some quality POV footage. Karl and I rode the spine to looker's left (above), and Ryan, Brad and Rob followed the chutes to looker's right. The snow was nowhere nearly as slabby as it had been earlier in the day, but Rob still managed to kick off a large slough in one of the chutes, reaffirming our suspicions that the alpine would be a no-go for the rest of the trip. We climbed out of the Pit of Despair and returned to the yurt to plan our attack for the last full day of skiing.

I break trail up out from the Pit of Despair back to the
yurt, with Brad following.
Photo credit: Ryan.

When we awoke on the last full day, we were greeted to nearly two feet of heavy new snow. Low angle woods, here we come. We plotted a course due east of the yurt toward East Lake Falls. The slopes to the east of Rocky Top cascaded their way through well spaced evergreen and eventually into a north-south running drainage. We decided to check out the conditions and just lap woods for the day. Again, the gloomy weather left us without sufficient motivation to pull out the point-and-shoots, but we managed to capture some good POV cam actionand even some cool chase cam shots.

View Norway Basin in a larger map

Continue Reading at The Oregon Trip: Return to Civilization.

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The Oregon Trip: Return to Civilization

2012-04-12T22:00:00.002-04:00

Continued From The Oregon Trip: Spines, Lines, and Woods.

The conditions on the final day were less than epic, and with our day-packs overloaded with extra gear, spare parts, extra clothes, trash, etc. we decided to just schuss straight back Halfway via the snow-mo path and steal a few turns here and there as the opportunities presented themselves.

The snow predictably grew heavier, wetter, and slower as we lost elevation culminating in literally skating and poling the final 6 miles out of the woods. Brad declared it to be torture, and Ryan dubbed it the trail of tears. I offered no argument here.

We skulked back to Carson House, showered ate snacks and then made a hasty egress, across Oregon and toward a civilization rife with beer, pizza, more showers, couches and other amenities that we hadn't realized we might miss so much.

Back to Halfway, OR.

Goodbye, Wallowas...

We arrived back in Portland late that night and crashed. The next day we feasted on unreasonably large breakfasts and took a ride out to Mount Saint Helens for some casual touristry. The scenery was every bit as stunning as in the Wallowas. The visibility and lighting were exceptional and we got great views into the crater.

The very next day we realized we hadn't quite had our lift served resort skiing fix for the year, so Rob, Brad and I piled into the car and set out for Mount Hood. Again, we were greeted by uncharacteristically blue skies and overall pleasant weather. We found ourselves lacking sufficient ambition for the usual profusion of still photos, but we managed to snag a few minutes of quality chase cam footage on some of Hood's more exciting terrain.

Mt. Hood.

Eventually we realized that we all had real lives that needed attention, so after a week of exceptional fun in the mountains we parted ways with half-baked plans of a round two already beginning to formulate in our collective consciousness...

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The Oregon Trip: Mt. Hood Footage

2012-04-12T22:00:00.000-04:00

~~Coming Soon~~! Available here.

This post is part of a series.

To Ride, Shoot Shoot Straight and Shred Pow

2012-03-31T22:36:00.000-04:00

My partners in crime Ziehl and Marshal have already done photographic justice to the pivotal weekend of February 26th storm which totally dominated Jay Peak, so rather than belabor the point, I'll officially post the highlight reel. Hope you enjoy!

One Water, One Coffee, One Beer...

2012-02-10T01:08:00.003-05:00

...Such was our demeanor when we lumbered into Cafe Noche in Conway Village and hastily ordered all of the food and drink appropriate to the circumstances. We had just skulked down from a day of superlative skiing in Tuckerman Ravine and were on the ride home this past Sunday . Let's rewind back to last Friday night for a full trip report...

Over the course of last week, Mount Washington somehow managed to pick up enough snow to fill in most of the lines in Tucks to a reasonable state. Most of it was due not to actual heavy snowfall but to wind loading. Our hope was that during the course of the week things would sinter enough that much of it would be skiable for the weekend. We rallied in North Conway and prayed for a favorable weekend update and avy forecast.

As we got closer to the Notch, we were dismayed to see that snow was falling a good deal more heavily than had been forecast - great for the Wildcat crowd, not so great for us. Between new snow and windloading we could be in for some sketchy conditions. We arrived at Pinkham to find a fairly startling mix of Moderate and Considerable ratings.

We decided we'd skin up the Tucks Trail, change into crampons at the Lion's Head Winter Route, climb to the ridge, and have a look at the east snow fields from which point we could easily summit and lap the East Snow Fields. With so little protection from the wind and such mellow terrain, they should be pretty scoured and free from touchy slabs.

We arrived at the Winter Route to find a log jam of climbers messing around with their gear. We were promptly advised by one of them, that shortly down the trail we would encounter an hour long wait while dozens of novice climbers were coached up and over the steeps. None of us relished the idea of standing around in the wind in sub-zero temperatures, and we were forced to abandon Plan A.

We quickly settled upon a contingency plan: we'd try our hand in The Lobster Claw, with the thought that it might be just filled in enough to be skiable, but still small enough to preclude the presence of any truly large slabs. We continued to HoJo's, de-skinned, got dressed for the cold, and prepared for some boot-packing.

Rob looks dubious as we head up
into the bowl.

Alex breaks trail as we begin to wallow into drifts...

We realize it's time to stop and evaluate the situation.

Some deep and crumbly looking snow pack.

Once we got into the bowl, it became totally socked in and gusty. We started toward the snow fields under The Lobster Claw, bushwhacking through the un-buried shrubs and into ever deeper drifts. Eventually, we realized that we needed to seriously consider the safety of the situation. We started digging some snowpits and discovered small chunks of slab breaking off before we'd even finished digging out columns. Kinda shady... The poor visibility and double-digit sub-zero temperature didn't help much. We decided to go no higher than the snow fields at the bottom of the Lobster Claw and stay out of the slide paths. We'd get a few good turns in, and then pick our way to the Cutler River for maybe a few more untracked turns before the Sherbie. In short: skunked.

We tried to make the best of it...

Ziehl in front and Alex in the background getting ready for action.

One of about a dozen decent turns....

Gettin' tossed back...

Alex celebrates our prodigious accomplishment of skiing about 6 turns.

Well we tried to make the best of it anyway. It was better than not skiing... After picking our way through all the shrubs and junk in the floor of the ravine we began searching for the Cutler River in what was probably slowest wilderness travel I've ever participated in in my life: a knee to thigh deep wallow through frozen bushes and back and forth across the only partially frozen Cutler...

Yea. Adventure...

We finally make it to the skiable part of the drainage and get
ready to make about 4 more turns...

Ziehl gets in a few good turns before the bottom of a pitch.

And then there was profanity...

Back at HoJo's we conclude that we'd made the right choice...

And right on cue, as soon as we get back to the car, the skies clear and it
turns into a beautiful day...

Well that was a debacle. We called it quits for the day, planned out some rest and refueling, and contemplated our next move. After some thought, we decided we'd get an early, start head up to HoJo's and see what the report called for. We were none too enthused about the inbound skiing story in New England, and thought a bad day in Tucks would probably be better than the same day in the resort. We were pleasantly surprised, to say the least. We arrived at HoJo's to find that Left Gully and Lobster Claw were both de-escalated to a rating of Low. Our path was laid clear before us: we quickly agreed to ski The LG and then make our way across the bowl to The Lobster Claw. The LG if nothing else would be long, steep, and fast. The Lobster Claw, we knew from the previous day, would have a decent amount of snow at least toward the bottom. It was a good 20 degrees warmer, less windy and visibility was great - in hindsight I could have used my black lenses. We eagerly went after The LG.

Rob leads the charge up LG.

The bowl from about half way up LG. Temping, but maybe not such a
great idea.

At the top of LG, setting up a bench to get into our skis.

Check out that boot-pack.

Skier ready!

Rob charges some really firm, wind scoured snow.

Toward the runout, Rob steered us toward this sweet stash.

Ziehl slashes some powder turns toward the bottom of LG.

After warming on Left Gully, we decided to traverse across the floor of the ravine to scope the conditions on the south facing aspects. In the clear skies, we could see that the coverage in Lobster Claw was a lot worse than we'd expected. We decided to poke around under Right Gully to see how the conditions would be. A number of people had already hiked all over lower portions of the south facing aspects. The snow felt a good deal more stable than it had the previous day, and the southern aspects had been in the sun for a while by the time we got there, but we were still concerned about the pillowy convexities toward the top or the Sluice and Right Gully, so we stuck to the low angle bottom parts. This was easily the best skiing of the weekend. Ziehl took a turn behind the camera for a few runs.

The view on the way out. Has to be one of the bluest days on record for
this place.

After a short dry spell of epic skiing, we finally hit some good luck and scored some high quality turns. It seemed like we might finally be through the worst part of the winter (the part with no good skiing) and with lifted spirits we headed back down into The Valley in search of sustenance.

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