Category Archives: Skiing

Montana Lodge Life

The plan was hatched before the East got pummeled with snow and the West had one of the lowest snow years on record. In a way, it worked out. Sweeney and Kelly flew out and Catherine, Dylan, Atlas and I met them in Montana for some hut living, hot tubing, warm weather, and spring skiing.

We had a 8.5 hour drive from Seattle across the state, through Idaho and over 3 mountain passes. With Atlas still only 6 months, it was our first long trip with a dog in tow, and while he did well, it’s a bit different road tripping with a dog. But this story is about spending a few days up on a ridge with friends in western Montana, and doing some skiing, so let’s focus on that. Unfortunately Dylan and Catherine had to work part of the time, but we all got to enjoy the views and the hut amenities.

Dawn on Downing Mountain from our motel.

Sunrise on Downing Mountain Lodge from Sweeney’s goPro.

We met at a motel the night before, and it was great to see old friends again. The next morning, Sweeney, Kelly and I drove up early to ski until the hut was open to us. Catherine and Dylan took care of the pup and met us after.

Usually, there’s several feet of snow blocking the road for the last 1.5 miles to the lodge. Not this year. We drove up, and still had about a half mile hike to the snow each way. Behind us, the avalanche basin and upper zone glistened in the midday sun on the upper mountain.

Skinning commenced in the base of the gully and we set a steep track up. Luckily the snow had plenty of time to consolidate and the Low danger meant we were mostly concerned with timing the corn right. Day one was mostly a quick up and back, following the skier’s right side of the gully where some lightly crusted powder lay. The hike out was what made it unique.

That evening we all sampled Montana brews, and enjoyed the hot tubs and dry sauna and sunset over the valley below. We let Atlas outside on a long lead but as he’d never been ‘off leash’ outside a dog park, we kept an eye on him.

Day Two

We set out sights a bit higher for the second day, and skinning up past our previous days top out over the looker’s right shoulder and neared the summit ridge. Up there we found cool lines and some powder. Sweeney wanted to push on, but Kelly and I were content to hang out. I found myself in especially rough shape after being sick for months.

Sweeney got the best views as he pressed on a bit higher than us, all around were snow capped peaks and enough lines for a lifetime.

On the descent we found some variable powder, then snaked through trees in the burn zone and back out to the main gully.

We were hoping to make an afternoon group jaunt with skis, skins and snowshoes, but because of the lack of snow we instead took short walks on old logging roads and hung around the lodge.

Day 3

The last day I was pretty beat. Sweeney, Kelly and I make the trek up once again, first to our ski cache, and then following our day old skin track. The day was warm and I wanted to maximize lounging, so I turned around and did my best to make the most of the pristine corn for one last run. Sweeney and Kelly followed suit not far behind after they’d gained a few hundred more vert. They still had a whole second half left of their trip. After one more day at Downing Mountain they were headed to Whitefish.

Catherine and Atlas greeted me at the lodge. After we said our hellos and were headed inside, Atlas spotted a crow, and took off exploring for the first time. We were a little concerned at first, but he came back when called, and after handing out treats to everyone, we turned it into a fun game. By the afternoon he was playing fetch in the yard and was good and beat from romping about in the open spaces.

Day 4

We let Atlas tire himself out a bit as we packed up for the long ride come. We chased the sunset across Washington, where it beat us to the horizon near Ellensburg. After the long drive, we felt good to be home.

Here’s a short video of some of my skiing footage from the trip. Sweeney has much more, and everyone snapped some great shots of the trip.

Good Karma

Over the weekend Karma payed dividends in the form of the ol’ white gold! It all started with getting Xterrible stuck in a ditch on a snowy roadside somewhere in Vermont…

…As we arrived at the trail head, as described by a friend of a friend, we attempted to pull onto the shoulder and out of the road. I flipped on the 4WD and crept into the half foot or so of fluff on the edge of the road…only to be promptly pulled into a ditch immediately beside the road. Strongly suspecting I’d just sabotaged our day, Kelly and I exchanged dubious glances as I threw it into reverse and vainly tried to pull out of the snow. No dice. We shoveled a bit. Also not helpful. In a last-ditch effort, Kelly took the wheel while I pushed. The notion of me pushing a 5000 lb car is pretty ridiculous, but the idea of three of me pushing a 5000 lb car begins to sound plausible. If only there were two more of me…

Right on cue, two burly snowmobilers emerged at the trail and took notice of our plight. They strolled over and with one big heave between the bunch of us, we had the car back on the road. We thanked them profusely, cleared out a proper parking area, and started getting our gear ready for the tour.

As we concluded our gear harmonizing, a jovial ski-bum looking fellow rolled up in an old Toyota T-100 truck and introduced himself. Turns out this guy was also here to explore the unknown stashes that were thought to lay somewhere in the woods beyond. We teamed up with out new touring partner Zach, and the blind led the blind into the woods.

We followed the snowmobile trail into the forest; an easy skin after maybe a dozen snow machines packed it out for us. After 30 minutes or so we came around a corner to find a couple of sledders trying to drag a their machine back onto the trail, where it had apparently slid off. Sympathetic to their plight, Zach and I put our backs into it, and between the four of us had the sled back on the trail in a jiffy.

Having balanced our pool of Karma we traveled deeper into the woods in search of the elusive powder stashes. After a series of fortuitous educated guesses we happened across the elicit goods! We set a skin track up one of the best looking pitches and indulged in several laps of powdery euphoria.

Update: video now available here.

Gear List

POC Synapsis 2.0 Helmet White, S

POC engineers backed up with ultralight shell of the Synapsis XP Helmet with APB technology that provides supreme protection in a feathery 13oz package. A new turnring adjustment system allows you to dial the fit of the 2. 0 to your liking quickly and easily. Two oversized vents allow fresh air to enter and circulate your lid so hot-headed shredders can send cliffs or throw down in the park in cool comfort. Ballistic APB places a layer of pentration-proof Aramid between the molded shell and liner, allowing for a thin outer shell that’s both ultralight and protectiveAn EPS liner provides single-impact protection that keeps your head safe without weighing you downOptional visor is included for keeping the sun out of your eyes or looking wicked gnarly

GoPro HERO4 Black Edition One Color, One Size

If you take a look at the tech specs of the new GoPro Hero4 Black Edition camera, and then give us a call to point out some mistakes we made in the numbers, because you simply don’t believe them, we won’t be entirely shocked. The new Hero4 Black is the most advanced camera GoPro has made, and it boasts capture capabilities that rival cameras that cost ten times as much. The 4 is an eye-popping evolution of the already-impressive Hero3+ camera, and that’s where engineers started when they really wanted to knock it out of the park, and then some. The Hero3 and the 3+ were incredibly capable cameras, indeed, but the new Hero4 generation takes things to the next level. A lot has changed, but some basics haven’t, such as the overall dimensions of the camera. Exterior dimensions of the camera itself and its cases are all virtually unchanged. The Hero’s fantastic, wide-angle, six-element aspherical lens (f/2. 8-6. 0) also remains unchanged, ensuring the same stunning clarity and scope of your photos and videos, at virtually any light level, as we came to expect from the 3. Three field of view settings — ultra-wide, medium, and narrow — grant you an unmatched selection of perspectives. And for those lower light conditions, GoPro introduces new Night Photo and Night Lapse long-exposure imaging modes. Those mesmerizing time-lapse pictures of the stars trailing through a dark sky, or the rivers of headlights and taillights that form when capturing an urban scene at night? They’re yours to take now. Customizable settings for exposures of up to 30 seconds — whether taken individually or in Time Lapse mode for successive hours or exposures — mean you can capture an almost unlimited range of time-lapse events with the utmost precision. Also new to the Hero4 is its sound-capturing abilities. GoPro fielded feedback from audiophiles and everyday users alike to fine-tune the Hero’s microphone, which now captures far greater fidelity and boasts almost double the dynamic range of ..

Yodelin Wednesday

On the Wednesday after Catherine and I’s return from Leavenwroth, I decided it was time for a tour. The snow had piled up and settled down since the weekend, and despite the relatively low base compared to last spring, I gave Yodelin another try. There were two other groups skinning up, and the whole area is relatively protected, so my biggest concern was falling in a tree well, but luckily at least most of those were filled in. Route finding was a bit difficult since its turns out the access road is full of brush when it’s missing 5-8 feet of snow. It was a true East Coast skin heading in: frozen solid, and lots of thick brush. Luckily the higher elevations had over a foot of light and fluffy powder on top.

Conditions in the PNW have been even worse than last January , so it’s been tough to get the touring in. People have been doing it, but finding good routes as a difficult challenge and I’m not that familiar with the early season routes yet, aside from Rainier. This was my first tour since late last June, early July when I skinned up to Camp Muir. Taking a few laps at Yodelin is certainly a different sort of tour, but it was fun nonetheless.

Heading out was just as hard as skinning up due to the low coverage, but in between I got a few creamy turns. It was a fun walk in the woods and certainly an interesting way to start the touring season. Though it was fun, in retrospect I perhaps should’ve waited to go touring a few more days. It rained everywhere the day after, but I was also just shaking off a cold, which has since turned into a chronic cough probably due to spending the day inhaling cold mountain air…

Winter Readiness: Xterrible!

Before Winter 14-15 gets into gear (which seemingly won’t be for a while as of this writing) a couple of nagging issues have to be addressed with our adventure mobile. Firstly, the second generation Xterra in it’s factory configuration tends to bottom out when hauling ass over big potholes and rough roads. No fun when riding to or from the mountains exhausted at 10:30 PM. And second, the infamous Thule tried to sabotage my new carbon fiber skis last winter and such behavior wouldn’t be tolerated again!

The solution to the suspension was simple, however it’s worth giving some backstory. The suspension itself isn’t really bottoming out. I have new aftermarket struts and they seem to have plenty of life in them. After Googling around a bit I discovered that I’m not the first person to complain of this problem (read here and here, or just do some more Googling).

It turns out that the real issue is that there is just not very much clearance between the frame and axle. The factory bumpstops (hunks of rubber which prevent the frame from bouncing directly on the axle) are really firm and frequently collide with the axle giving the passengers a good jolt. One of the suggested solutions (and in my case the least invasive) was to replace the factory bumpstops with an aftermarket set designed to offer progressive resistance, stiffening the ride a bit and smoothing big jolts. You can read more about the solution here and find a solution for your own SUV here. It’s theoretically a simple install, involving only a few wrenches and some bolts, but after many New England winters my undercarriage was so ornery that it needed a professional touch.

The Thule required a bit more engineering. At some point last season my brand new DPS Wailer 99s rattled around in the roof box enough to severely damage one of the tips. After a good deal of staring at my crummy old second-hand Thule Mountaineer, drawing, speculating, measuring and theorizing, we devised a plan. And then we scrapped the original plan and did something else altogether.

The requirements were simple: we had to be able to easily toss at least 4 pairs of skis into the box in such a way that they would not shift around in transit. Thule and other have already solved this problem with their flat top style carriers, but I’ve never liked the idea of sandblasting your skis for 2 – 4 hours while en route to the mountain.

The solution was something of a hybrid between the flat tops and the existing box: we fashioned a set of bars which would mount inside the box and clamp down on 4 pairs of skis when closed. The obvious trade off is that only 4 pairs of skis can ride up top now. Seems like a fair trade off for peace of mind and longevity of equipment. Here’s a run down of the action:

The patient, looking rather surly.

Home gym flooring found at Home Depot, used to sandwich the skis between the lumber.

A 2″x6″ cut to size, beveled with a jigsaw and wrapped in strips of the home gym material.

Bolting the bottom braces into the Thule. We placed two bolts on the bottom and one on each side. The sides were strangely shaped, so shims were cut to size and wedged into place to consume the extra space.

Screwing the bottoms in…

Notice that the rubber mats are bolted on the sides of the lumber so that the bolts don’t contact the skis.

More eye candy…

Finished product with some big skis, for show. Also, notice the top rails. Those are 2″x4″s ripped in half and wrapped in the same rubber mat material. These are simply bolted on each end.