28 February 2009 - Hog Loppet

I did the 30km Hog Loppet this year with a couple of the Caley boys, and three or four hundred other friends. Doug and Chuck are old hands at this, having done the tour many times before, but it was all new to me. To make it easier to catch the 6:30am bus up to Mission Ridge, we rode up in Chuck's van Friday night after work and spent the evening in Wenatchee. (We found out later all the wild ones stay in Leavenworth, but hey, we just came over for the skiing so Wenatchee was fine - really.)

We were a little worried about snow conditions, but a couple of small storms during the week brought in enough new snow to cover up all the rocks and we had fine conditions. A little cold and windy at the 6800' summit, so we were bundled up for the first downhill, but it didn't take long before we were working pretty hard and shedding the extra layers.

I'd heard the first part of the trip is difficult so I brought my heavier backcountry skis and plastic boots - that was great for the first 45 minutes of downhill (like the part in the picture) but most of the tour is on fairly easy logging roads so I was about the slowest skier out there. Pretty much everybody on touring or skate skis passed me before the day was over (even the ones I passed in the beginning when they were pasted into the hillside on their flimsy skis) but at least I got a good workout out of the deal. I even saw a few folks that had two pairs of skis - presumably backcountry skis for the off-trail part and touring or skates for the rest of it. I don't think that's the answer for me because I have enough trouble getting on the lift with a backpack and one pair of skis. If I do this again, I'll probably do it on touring skis instead. But still it was fun - good company, good snow and a lot of work. Check out the photo album here:
2009-Hog-Loppet

21 February 2009 - Amabilis Mt.

Not making a lot of progress on my quest to visit all the Sno-Parks this winter, but I've avoided exit 63 -- until now. Octavian didn't have a lot of time this Saturday so we opted for a very early jaunt up Amabilis. We were the first car in the parking lot and started out in the fog and wind, but broke out into a beautiful sunny day just below the summit. Snow conditions weren't too bad - the lower road was freshly groomed and there was a bit of fresh snow on the crust on the upper ungroomed part. The lower road was a bit icy, but the trip up didn't take too long and the trip down was as fast as I've ever done it; maybe as fast as I've ever skied on a road. Another trip that deserves a better write up and more pictures so I'll try to get back to it to finish up. (If my boss wouldn't keep interrupting me at work, I could keep up with this blog...)

15 February 2009 - Mt Tahoma Trails (North)

The plan was to check out the southern Washington Sno-Parks this weekend. I was all set to take my nephews Huey, Dewey & Louie to Oldman Pass for a little snow play and exploration when my brother told me Dewey broke his arm in a snowmobile accident. (As if I needed another reason to hate those machines besides the noise, waste and smoke they make. Now one of my favorite kids is laid up for a month with no recess!) I didn't want to drive all that far just by myself, but I wanted to visit a new park, so I went down to check out the Mt. Tahoma Trails.

The snow wasn't too bad, and even got a few flurries while I was out. That made the skiing OK, but the pictures aren't that great. If I get a few minutes later this week I'll try to see if any of them are worth posting.

7 February 2009 - Methow

The Trues and the Popas made the long car trip to Winthrop this weekend for a bit of cross country skiing and to get some nice eastern Washington sunshine. In fact, we all played hooky from work and school and made it a three day-er. The trip report is coming soon, in the meantime here's one quick snapshot...

1 February 2009 - Pipe Creek Sno-Park

I've always wanted to ski the Blewett Pass area. There's three Sno-Parks near the pass and lots of marked trails, but I've never managed a ski trip here. Since it's on the east side of the mountains, the weather is more likely to be good when the Snoqualmie corridor is stormy, but then I can't get to Blewett without a white-knuckle drive over I90, and when the weather on Snoqualmie pass is good, I usually just stop there and ski at Cabin Creek or head up Amabilis. We did drive over here last year near the end of the season and got out of the car at each of the Sno-Parks but never put on our skis -- there was so little snow, and what was left was so icy you would need crampons to walk up the logging roads.

There hasn't been much new snow the last week or so, and we knew we would be taking a chance on the conditions, but we decided to go for it and headed over on super bowl sunday. (This is traditionally the day for my first Mt. Si training hike of the year, but since I was up there once already this year, I didn't feel the need to go this weekend.)

We stopped at Swauk Campground and looked around a bit, but the conditions weren't very promising so we headed up the road to Pipe Creek. Pipe Creek is about 500' higher (3600') and with this poor snow cover we thought the extra elevation would help. The pass itself is even higher and has plenty of trails, but I hope to be in that area in a few weeks for the Hog Loppit, so we stayed down in the Pipe Creek area.

We chose the Diamond View Loop -- who could resist a trail with a name like that? Most of the trail follows a logging road, so you would think it would be pretty easy, but for some reason the sign does have that funny black-diamond shape.

The snow was deep enough on the trails, but the surface was so icy it was almost impossible to ski where there was any grade. You can see we had to side step up the steep sections, and there was even one point where we had to take the skis off and walk up on the edge of the road where there was a little dirt and pine needles for traction. This is where Karen told me she was putting skis up for sale on Craig's list as soon we got home.

After we gained the elevation to reach the actual loop, the snow was quite a bit better. From the east side of the loop, we had a nice view of Table Mt. You can just see the spot where a few years ago I accidentaly left the keys in the Jeep and Huck decided to take it for a spin.

There's another nice view off to the west on the other side of the loop.

After this we dropped back on to the icy logging road trail and slid back to the parking lot. We made it back without any broken bones and still had time for a nice dinner at the Sunset Cafe and we found some decent coffee at the new Swiftwater Espresso in Cle Elum. After we got home, K did list her skis, but she doesn't know I was the anonymous bidder and they're safely back in the Thule.