Sickskiing.com

October is a month of both excitement and frustration for me. The urge to ski is getting to the point of dizziness and often I will find myself lost- day dreaming about deep powder snow, huge couloirs on tall mountains, pillowy billowy tree runs or nailing a new grab or spin off a booter. Normally this dream world is shattered when a friend, boss or coworker finds me slack-jawed and glaze-eyed and startles me back into reality. The season seems so close and yet so far away.

Weather reports are watched with near religious devotion, waiting for that early season snowstorm that allows for a few turns down a snowfield somewhere. The ski “porn” is watched daily, drooling over the near perfect snow shredded by the likes of Pollard, Morrison, Mahre and Fujas. Jackets are bought, skis mounted and waxed, skins cut and bindings greased.

Sure, it can snow any month of the year in Cascades, but until late October or early November that snow is fleeting; here today, gone tomorrow. After months of anticipation and excitement on my part, it finally happens. Snow piles up on trees, rocks, brush. What was fall colors becomes deeply entrenched in wintery goodness- white, frosty and smooth. All I can think about is how to get up there and slide a few turns. These turns are normally not the smoothest, or prettiest things out there. Early season thighs burn, calves cramp. Balance points have to be partially-reestablished and the whole time the fear of hidden rocks and roots keeps one from ripping with total abandon. Still, it beats dreaming about skiing, watching other people ski and wearing ski gear around the house. The best part is the knowledge that it is only the beginning, and that you have another 10 months of skiing nirvana before hanging up the gear for more sensible activities like rock climbing and hiking. Here’s to the season of 09-10!

As you might know, Washington has not enjoyed the luxury of cold and wet; thus leaving skiing crazed individuals such as the crew here at Sickskiing needing to focus their energies on something constructive, as too much Gnarshmallow leads to carpal tunnel syndrome and a headache. So a decision was made to boulder on the perfect granite blocks in the Tumwater Canyon. We decided to add Mountain Home to the agenda as well. After some procrastination, we found ourselves leaving the westside at 9pm, not an alpine start in the least bit, but at least we were on the road. A stop at Winco for  food turned into an hour long epic, rife with indecisiveness about what kind of beef stew to purchase (Dinty Moore or Nalley?) and who was buying cups. Leaving the store, we felt quite satisfied with the apparent potato to beef ratio in Nalley Stew and the attractive red shade of the cups.

Caleb and Josh decided at this point that an impromptu shopping cart race was in order. I don’t think anyone is sure who won, but it looked like they had fun.

We finally reached our destination- a cabin a friend of ours let us borrow in Index, at 11:30pm. After eating beef stew and giggling like we were in the 8th grade again, we finally went to sleep at 3am. Yeah, not the greatest idea when you plan on waking up at 8am to climb hard. But we are impetuous and young, so these things don’t occur to us.

8am came too early. So did 9am. and 10. Our feet finally hit the floor at 10:30. Woohoo. What a motivated bunch we are… Met up with Justin Elkins, a rather ambitious young man and finally rolled into the Swiftwater parking lot at 11:30am.

Played around on the heel hook boulder and a few other random boulder problems, then walked over to the giant cave. The rock is some sort of chossy metamorphic, but the holds seemed good enough. You could literally spend hours in this cave doing various link-ups and still not climb everything. I’m going to remember it when I need some forearm burn on a rainy day. Proceeding across the street, we messed around on a few V-easy and V1 problems, looking for the famed problem “Royal Flush” (V1 or V2 depending on whom you ask). Eventually, we found it, and I have to say it is one of the most beautiful boulder problems ever. Imagine a painful fist to handsize crack, spliting the underside of a motorhome size boulder, through an overhang, then toping out up a slab. The route is about 20 feet in length and every bit is hard for a joke crack climber like myself. I’ve climbed plenty of V2s, even the occassional V4 and V5s; but Royal Flush is on a different playing field entirely. Thankfully, I was not alone in this plight, as even the strongest climber of the group, Justin, got thrashed by it, leaving some skin and blood behind. I now I have a goal for the summer, I think. Royal Flush, I’m gonna gitch’ you.

Next stop was Mountain Home and after some confusion about roads and junctions, we found it. The rock was extremely coarse. The routes were hard, with some a few of the boulders hold some V10s. Even the V2s were near impossible, but I think that was due to the lack of gumption we were all displaying. After shredding our fingertips and getting  frustrated with our lameness we called it a night, driving up road #400 to watch the sunset. I love roads like #400- long, narrow, rough and almost forgotten. There were several places where a car would get very stuck due to washouts and erosion, but the Jeep handled it like a champ. After enjoying a gorgeous display of orange and pink stretching from peak to peak, we drove home without mishap; thus ending another great adventure.

I decided that the best first post would be a picture that embodied everything that this site is about. Deliciously untracked, aesthetic backcountry ski lines. Sure, we all enjoy ripping down a groomer or the occasional foray into the park, but the experience of riding a remote couloir trumps even the best day in the resort.

The stakes in the wilderness are so much higher- make a mistake in the ski area, and you eat snow and laugh about it later. Make a mistake in the backcountry, and it could cost you actually being able to ski the line you worked so hard to get to. Or worse, it could put you or others in serious danger. It is a constant teater-totter of managing risk with reward.

The Cascade mountains are a unique place to ski, as we get an enourmous amount of snow, and while our peaks aren’t particularly tall they have an incredible amount of vertical relief, with long brush choked valleys and low elevation road access. Our mid-winter weather can range from 0 degree cold snaps to 45 degree rain storms, sometimes in the same week. These characteristics give the Cascades a rugged and wild feel that is unparrelled in other mountain ranges. Either you fall in love with them, or you move to area that actually makes sense to ski at- like Utah!

This blog was created to document the adventures of my friends and I- a group of goofy, mountain obbsessed, 20-somethings who decided that we should do something wild and risky. So we decided that we should rent a house in Leavenworth, and enjoy the outdoors to the fullest extent possible. Leavenworth is like an outdoors paradise- with world class kayaking, skiing, climbing, mountain biking and backpacking available from your doorstep.  This winter, watch for all kinds of visual content- video webisodes, photos of sick ski lines, POV shots of epic powder runs and the occasional non-skiing related deversion. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures as much as we enjoy participating in them.