Keystone Slush Cup

This weekend was closing weekend at one of my very favorite resorts, and where I spent 80% of my season, Keystone. It was a great season there considering the snow conditions, and I can't wait for next season already. (Although I will say that they are going to have an AWESOME mountain bike season!)

Keystone doesn't just decide to close... they go out with a bang... er, splash. Here are some pictures of this weekend's Slush Cup. All pictures are courteous of Keystone's Facebook page, and all photos were taken by Keystone's EpicMix Manager, Larry Hutton.

March Madness

Well, it's Mid-March now! Where has the season gone?! Let me start out by sharing my absolutely ridiculous goggle tan. It's okay, you can laugh! I usually wear a face mask but it's been so beautiful out I just couldn't. Oh well!

For tourists, March is known as Spring Break. For locals, March is known as March Madness. And for those who like to have fun... It's known as MUSTACHE MARCH!

It's been exceptionally quiet this month compared to past years... I think people have decided to go elsewhere for their spring break since it's been such a bad snow year. It's been really warm and sunny and the snow is drying up quick- REALLY quick. Apparently we have rain and snow in the forecast, but with these temps it'll just end up being mush and ice! I've gotten my dirtbike out for the first time this month since fall, which was very exciting.

And I've also been able to ski quite a bit, which is also exciting! This week marks the half way point of the semester, which blows my mind because of how nice it is outside. It's always hard to stay motivated, the sun is not helping, haha!

Last weekend I had three friends from high school come out and visit from Wisconsin. We rode Keystone and Vail and their minds were blown to say the least. I'm bummed they didn't get the powder they were hoping for, but the weather was absolutely perfect. It was an awesome weekend and great to catch up.

Lastly, speaking of snow and avalanches (pertaining to my last entry), it seems there are some areas that are hardly lacking. Mt.Baker Ski Area and Mt.Baker Highway in Washington had to CLOSE yesterday because of downed trees over the highway and a MONSTROSITY of an avalanche that occurred at the resort overnight. According to the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center,

"Storm total snow amounts have become increasingly impressive as of early Thursday morning… with Mt Baker having received over 110 inches of snow in the past 6 days!

A very large slide on Shuksan Arm just east of the Mt Baker Ski Area ran into Rumble Gulley mid-morning and overran the tree line buffer protecting the base of the Shuksan Arm Chair… depositing debris into the lower part of the run. 

 

This slide is reported as the largest ever witnessed in the area by the General Manager… who has been there for over 40 years and who is closing the area to prevent any accidents involving “sidecountry” exposure to the developing extreme danger."

Photo: Grant Gunderson

If you click the image for a close-up, you can see how massive that crown is. It's a miracle that no one was injured, and it's very obvious that Mt.Baker took appropriate action by closing the resort due to unstable conditions.  And in case you're wondering - Yes, the snow is still coming down hard there!

Avalanche Level II Certification

You're standing at the top of a mountain after hiking 5 miles into the backcountry. It's a beautiful bluebird morning with mild temperatures, crisp air, and 8" of fresh snow from the night before. You and your best friend strap into your boards and play Rock Paper Scissors to see who gets to drop in first for the best run of your lives. You win - Must be your lucky day.

You drop in and the snow is incredible; The lightest, driest, most heavenly pow you have ever ridden in your life. You lean to make your third big swooping carve and "BAM!", a large crack rings out. You're swept off your feet at an alarming rate, and the surprise nearly takes your breath away. Before you're engulfed you get a glimpse of the mountain, and watch in horror as the entire face crumbles in all it's glory. You begin sinking and tumbling, but swimming is impossible because your board is strapped to your feet. The avalanche's path of choice is a rock garden, and the force of being slammed into one shatters your right arm. You gasp in pain and inhale a mouth full of snow. The snow fills every open cavity on your head, it doesn't discriminate body parts.  As the avalanche begins to slow, your relief quickly turns to horror as the light fluffy pow you were just riding solidifies to concrete. 

And then... there is silence; A silence so powerful it makes you nauseated. You want to fight, but you can't. You can't decipher up from down, you can't move, you can't breathe, you can't make a sound. Minutes pass by and you hear the cries of your dearest friend, running around frantically screaming your name. 

Tears begin to flow from your eyes and freeze them shut as your morning flashbacks in your mind. Ten feet from your car you realized you forgot your beacon, but you were too excited so you left it behind...

 And that my friends, is the harsh reality of an avalanche.

I have a lot to report on, but this entry is going to be dedicated to my Avalanche Safety II Course that I completed two weeks ago. It was the first year CMC and the CAIC (Colorado Avalanche Information Center) held the course as a college credit, and I feel SO lucky to have been apart of it. The first three days were spent inside and the last three days were outdoor field days. I apologize for the lack of pictures from the outdoor field days. We unfortunately had to spend them outside in near negative temperatures with 40mph negative temp winds and blowing snow... Gotta love blizzards!

*I have to give a shout out to our main instructor Dan Moroz (American Avalanche Association), other instructors Brian Taylor (Wilderness Rescue), Drew Gibson (Copper Ski Patrol), Thomas Creighton (Copper Ski Patrol), John Snook (CAIC) and John Reller (Copper Ski Patrol/ Avy Dog Trainer). I have the utmost gratitude and respect for all of you and greatly appreciate your willingness to educate us.

I wish I could put the whole course in this blog because it was such great info, but unfortunately there's just too much. The first few days we spent some time reviewing stuff from our level I course, as well as going a lot deeper into topics we already learned about, such as snowpack, rescue, etc. We got an awesome weather forecasting presentation by John Snook which I found so interesting. It kind of made me wish there was a meteorology class at CMC, I would definitely take it!


Read The Weather
We learned about different types of climates and how they affect snow pack, such as the Maritime, Continental, and Intercontinental climates. Maritime climates originate near oceans (Oregon, Washington), have the highest frequency of precipitation, and have a very wet and deep snow pack. Continental climates (Colorado) are characterized by a lot of wind, stormy periods followed by sunny weather, and have a very shallow snow pack. Intercontinental climates (Utah) are right in between.

(Not completely accurate. I threw it together as an example.)

We also learned that the amount of snow we could get from each storm depends on where it comes from. Unfortunately because of Colorado's location, we're usually unlucky. A polar climate is dry (because it's continental) and cold (because it's north). A colder climate carries less precipitation than a warmer climate. So when a storm comes from Canada, it's got nothin! When a storm from the Southwest comes, it could have a lot of precipitation... However, there are a lot of mountain ranges it will hit before us. A cloud is like a sponge and a mountain is like a wall. When you push the sponge into the wall, what happens? Precipitation!

Read Your Snowpack


There are three main factors that can cause avalanches.
Snowpack - What climate do you live in? Is it heavy and wet or light and dry? What layers are in your snowpack?
Terrain - What type of terrain are you riding? 95% of avalanches occur on angles between 37-42 degrees. Rocks and trees can make snow weaker in continental climates, but trees can act as anchors in maritime climates.
Weather - Regular big storms can start an avy cycle and flush out facet layers. Wind causes cornices (a build up of snow on the leeward side).


What exactly causes an avalanche? Weak layers in the snow. Sometimes there are many weak layers, sometimes there's only one but it's thick and at the very bottom. There is no way to know what the layers are in your snow unless you DIG A PIT! There are a lot of different tests you can do- A propagation saw test, an extended column test, etc, etc. You don't have to learn them all to be safe in the backcountry though. Dig a pit and just feel for weak layers. If you can easily stick your fist or (worse yet) arm into your pit and it crumbles to pieces, get your butt up and hike out the way you came!

Read The Warnings
No matter what weather intermediary you use, there will always be avalanche warnings - Read them, and listen to them. The recent tragic loss of three ski pioneers outside of Mt.Baker happened during an avalanche danger rating of high. The mountain doesn't care who you are, nor does the snowpack.

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center has very accurate, up-to-date, and specific avalanche forecasting, as well as avalanche observations and accidents, weather forecasting, and other education tools. The CAIC uses the "Danger Rose" for their avalanche warning scale. The center is the peak of the mountain, the middle rim is at tree line, and the outside rim is below treeline. It's also a compass - The East side of the mountain could be more dangerous than the West.

Think this is a lot? I haven't even touched the surface!!

One of our classroom days the instructors went out and made an "avalanche accident scene" in the snowbank in the parking lot. A snowbank is a great spot to train because the hard consistency of plowed snow is much like that of avalanche debris. Our instructors acted very frantic because their friends were buried and everyone's responses really got the adrenaline flowing.

Recco, the avy dog pictured above, joined us for a few of our indoor class days and her buddy Race joined on Friday when we got an awesome presentation from John Reller about avalanche dogs. They're totally not lovable and totally not well behaved... as you can see in the pics below.

Friday was one of our field days. We went up to Hoosier Pass between Breckenridge and Alma. It was absolutely freezing... on top of snowy and windy. We worked on finding multiple burials with beacons (where as in level I we just did a single burial). We also had another avalanche accident scene and had to find dummies with and without beacons using our beacons and probes. Then we went and dug snow pits... I was BLOWN AWAY by how weak the snow pack was. The bottom layer against the ground was a good 6" thick and was the weakest snow in existence (called surface hoar or facets). Our pits were failing at the lowest level possible, which would be a massive slab avalanche if it were one. It was really crazy to see first hand how unsafe the snow is this season.

Saturday we went to Webster Pass and split into three groups. My group leader Dan Moroz brought us to what you could call the worst city planning in history. It was a back-in-the-boonies neighborhood literally built along side a massive avalanche path. He said he talked to some of the home owners during an avalanche and their experience was unreal: All of a sudden all the doors in their house flew open, they heard a loud, roaring, rumble, and then all the doors slammed shut. Talk about a pressure change!!

See the house to the upper right of Dan's head? CRAZY!!!!

 

 

Then we ventured and looked at other avalanche paths... Some of which we had to cross (one at a time I might add).

Unfortunately I had to miss Sunday, which was just a short tour up  St.John's road in Montezuma... But I'm going to stop this blog here anyway, it's getting long!! Moral of the story: If you live in the mountains, get educated on your snow pack... It'll save your life.

First Shred of 11/12!!!

Yesterday Keystone and Copper opened. I've gone to Keystone the last two years in a row and the lift lines have been crazy, so me and my friend decided to switch it up and go to Copper... Glad we did!!! The lift line was very pleasant compared to previous years at Keystone, so we got to take around 10 runs in the few hours we were there. The weather was absolutely perfect. There wasn't a cloud in the sky until around 1:30pm and it was in the mid 40's all day. It felt a little funny when I first got on my skis, but half way down the run I was linking turns like skiing never ended. Copper also had an awesome opening day park with several jibs AND two impressive sized kickers. Big props to Copper for that one, it's hard to get two jumps up this early! I didn't really ride anything in the park, mostly because I'm not ready to fall on my newly-healed arm after surgery, and also because I have this weird theory that riding park on opening day is bad luck. (My worst nightmare is to fall and break something during pre-season. Haha!) I enjoyed watching everyone else though!

Here are some picture's of opening day and Copper's "Bouncer Park" courteous of Woodward at Copper and Copper Mountain!

A sequence of my friend Dave, who is also a coach at Woodward at Copper.

On another note, a few of my friends went to Keystone and also had a blast. They said the lines weren't as bad as previous years and the opening day park was awesome (as always). The new EpicMix photographers were also out in action, which you can read more about here.

Here are some pictures courteous of Keystone Resort!

Summer, What's Summer?

I'm not sure if Colorado has decided to play the longest April Fool's joke known to man, or if it's just decided to exclusively host winter. If you haven't heard the word, Colorado has A LOT of snow. Not the "a lot of snow" where the peak hiking trails won't be open for another week... It's a lot of snow to the point that Keystone Ski Resort, that has been closed for 6 or more weeks, decided to reopen this weekend. It's "a lot of snow" to the point that ABasin has extended it's closing day into July. A lot of snow to the point where cities down river are planing for catastrophic flooding. And even a lot of snow to the point where Mother Nature said forget it and decided to just keep sending snow instead of rain.

Below is a collection of all things snow. The first is a video taken May 5th of Loveland Pass, Colorado, from the Loveland Ski Area parking lot to ABasin's. A few feet of snow have actually fallen since this video was taken. *Note that the real snow doesn't start until 1:35.


Next is an article from Weather.com about the flooding concerns in the west... something I never thought I'd have to worry about.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/flood-fears-west_2011-05-20

The next is an article that actually concerns the state of Washington, but I found it relevant. It seems like the whole West is dealing with snow concerns right now.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387344/Washington-State-Route-20-Highway-buried-75FEET-snow.html

And lastly, some pictures Keystone posted on their facebook of their reopening this weekend... Absolutely insane.

UPDATE!

It's been way too long since I've updated, and I apologize for that. It's been a very busy few weeks! Since I've updated we have got snow, snow, and more snow! There have been a lot of records that have been set in the last few weeks with early openings of certain runs etc. Keystone and Breck have opened and it's been so fun to be skiing again. My best friend Ashley has been staying with me for the past two weeks from Park City, Utah. Her and my roommate Elise are going to be in Dew Tour in a month so they have been working hard on the jumps and rails.

My friends Ashley, Angeli, Riley, and Oakley came from Park City for opening weekend of Keystone. I hadn't seen any of them in months besides Riley, so it was really awesome to see them. That's the hard thing about being a skier... you have so many great friends that you don't get to see to often because of all the traveling and living in different states. It was our friend Ryan's Birthday so we made him a Birthday Cake with a Tall Tee on it (it's a style thing for skiers, don't ask). We also made home made pizza's and salads and had a great night.

Oakley and Riley being goofy

 

Ash the pro skier trying to be a filmer... haha!

Angeli hiking some features in the park.

Ryan's Birthday cake!

Angeli cutting the pizza!

The next week Breckenridge opened and it couldn't have been a nicer day. There was fresh snow from the few previous nights and it was beautiful out. All my roommates were there and it was probably the most snow Breck has ever opened with.

 

This past week we had a storm that dropped I believe around 46" in 72 hours. It was a crazy storm that moved in really quick and CMC ended up canceling all classes for the Summit and Eagle campuses. 

My friend actually took this picture but I happened to be driving at the same exact time this picture was taken... the storm moved in so quick and visibility quickly turned to practically zero!

This was actually taken a little bit before the storm hit... you can imagine what it looked like after.

The night the storm rolled in I parked on the street so my friend Ashley could park in my spot. Never in my life have I had to walk up a snow mound to get inside my car. I almost got out... until I backed over a huge pile of snow that bottomed out my car.

Luckily one of my neighbors was out helping other people, so he stopped and pulled me out. As he was driving away he yelled "Go bears!" and I was confused until I saw a Chicago Bears sticker on the back of his SUV. He must have seen my Wisconsin plate... HAHA!

Just as the first storm cleared up another one started to move in... This is going to be an amazing season for snow!

Me and Ashley took a day off skiing yesterday and went out for lunch, shopping, and then dinner. She is going home Wednesday but will be back in a few weeks. I love having her around. She's one of those friends you don't find very often- the kind you meet and you instantly know you have a friend chemistry. We have the same values and beliefs about religion and life and the same taste in food, clothes and music. We went to one of our favorite stores Claire's and after an hour of debating, ended up leaving with almost all the same jewelry as each other. She is an incredible skier, one of the best pro's in the world actually, and my hero. I wish we got to spend more time together, but she's busy traveling to all the places I'd kill to go. I'm so blessed to have her as a friend. You can actually check out her website and blog here.

Ashley being goofy at Claire's trying on glasses and ear muffs.

Oh yeah, it's not even Thanksgiving yet but my friends all decided to get into the Christmas spirit! I came home to find a Christmas Tree and Stockings in our living room!