Mad Pow Disease
There is only one cure for the current bout of mad pow disease affecting roughly 90% of western Washington’s snow shredders: MORE POWDER!
Mother Nature’s been delivering over the past 2 weeks. Steven’s Pass picked up a sick 23 inches of fresh over Sunday night and The Summit at Snoqualmie has seen over 90 inches of snow since this storm cycle fired-up at the start of last week, doubling the base depth at the recently renovated and reopened Summit East.
If you haven’t been able to get out and enjoy the mega epic powder that Mother Nature’s been blessing the Cascades with, you have two HUGE chances to get some! This Thursday, Summit East is opening for yet another “Powder Thursday“, spinning the East Peak chair from 9-4. How deep will it be? Well if yesterday’s belly-button deep slashes at Alpental are any indication, the conditions should be off-the-chain!
If you can’t make that or you’re too cool to have a pass to the Summit, this weekend is the annual Hope On The Slopes 24-hr ski/snowboard race against cancer. Why shred pow just during the day when you could shred it all night?! If you’re interested in participating, we still have a handful of spots open on the two HST-sponsored teams. Email your friendly officers to sign-up or learn more. If you’re really cool and are interested in donating towards the cause, you can do so via this link.
Finally, here are some pictures showing you how we’re coping with the current bout of mad pow disease.
Sometimes you’ve gotta hike for the goods.
Sometimes the going is treacherous.
But the effort is (almost) always worth it!
The 26th Legen – wait for it – dary Banked Slalom
This past weekend I was not only lucky enough to attend the 26th edition of the Mt. Baker Legendary Banked Slalom, but to race in it. Being new to the LBS, I wasn’t sure what to expect. In the end I got to spend the weekend amongst the most core group of shredders, riding in the least competitive contest snowboarding has to offer.
The course was brutal, featuring a “choose your own adventure” section, and the conditions weren’t much better. Thanks to Contour you can see the course from a racer’s POV:
Friday was a mixed bag of rain and snow. On Saturday, Old Man Winter did a fly-by, bringing gusts of up to 92 MPH and a dumping of snow. Of course, with snow and wind come whiteouts, which is pretty much what everyone was racing in Saturday. You couldn’t see more than one gate ahead and the precip at the bottom felt like riding through a cloud of tacks. Did anyone complain? Nope, “Just another day at Baker.” As the wind increased on Saturday, they progressively closed down more and more chairs. After 2:00 you could no longer get up to the course from the base without hiking in to the only chair still running. But when I dropped in that afternoon the sidelines were packed with spectators who had done just that to cheer us on.
Preparing to drop-in.
Yours truly, getting it!
Of course, the conditions were perfect for Sunday’s finals: bluebird skies, deep fresh powder and light winds. Having finished but failed to qualify Friday and DQ’d Saturday with a goggle- and glove-removing high-speed tomahawk down the middle of the course, I wasn’t lucky enough to compete for the golden duct tape. I was, however, lucky enough to run into a group of almost-lost friends and get several backcountry laps in.
Outside of the rope lines, the terrain at Baker stops feeling like Washington and starts feeling like Alaska. Big cliffs break-up the middle of lines with screamingly steep chutes between them. The backside of the rolling terrain above the Canyon, known as Hemispheres, is dotted with dozens of booters of all shapes and sizes and there aren’t many trees to get in your way or slow you down.
Fewer trees = bigger slides. Big crown on the back of Hemis.
Of course, there was a race and some people did win. 17-year-old hotshot Harry Kearney took home the golden duct tape for the Pro Men (and a wad of cash, likely in $2 bills with the occasional Canadian coin tossed in). Keeping her winning streak going, Maelle Ricker took the top spot for the Pro Women for the fourth year in a row. Surprisingly, LBS legend Terje Haakonsen, who posted the best time in Saturday’s blizzard didn’t make the podium, going home in 4th place with an honorable mention. Friday’s fastest racer, Temple Cummins, finished in a shocking 10th place.
ESPN thought the Banked Slalom was so cool, they made a video about it:
Punxsutawney Phil says…
… La Nina’s a bust, that blizzard in Chicago was a fluke and spring is coming early this year. In case you’re confused, yesterday was Groundhog’s Day and Phil, the Punxsutawney prognosticator of pleasant weather, did NOT see his shadow. By local lore, that means an early spring, arriving in only SIX weeks from now.
However we’re not of the dressing-up-in-suits-and-having-awesome-white-beards kind of folk’ll that the people of Punxsutawney are. We believe in actual scientific forecasting. Sure that outlook’s been dismal lately and it’s not getting much better, at least not yet. But don’t despair, Old Man Winter should be back from his vacation in the Bahamas soon. March is notorious for bringing lots of snow and more daylight to enjoy it in.
Don’t get us wrong. There’s still good snow out there, you just have to go n’ get it. Proof? Check out this picture from the first of the month taken in the far Alpental backcountry.
If you’re feeling too lazy to get rad in the rain, you can also get cozy in front of the TV and enjoy the awesomeness of Bill Murray:
Whistler 2011: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Since it wasn’t possible to top last year’s awesome Whistler trip conditions, this year we decided to explore different directions – notably in the party dimension. While hucking pow and doing flips n’ shit is an important part of snowboarding, you occasionally have to step back from the scene and realize that snowboarding is all about having fun with rad people by doing awesome things. Keeping that in mind, here’s a brief photographic summary of this year’s Whistler College Weekend Blowout Extraordinare!
We spent a lot of time riding chairlifts. But not as much time as we spent eating candy while waiting in line to ride chairlifts.
There was fresh snow to be harvested on Saturday in the 7th Heaven zone of Blackcomb mountain. By the time we finished, the area looked like a 13 year old smack junkie.
On Saturday night we threw down on a trip-wide BBQ. Rob grilled 48 burgers, a handful of veggie patties, 4 rounds of chicken skewers and didn’t even break a sweat.
There were a lot of people in plaid. ALOT.
President OPhama and the First Lady were present to approve of any and all shenanigans. Including what would become one of the rowdiest, most awesome trips into Whistler Village HST has ever seen.
Traditionally, HST has taken over Whistler Village on the Sunday night before MLK Day and partied ’till they passed out. This year, we decided to bump that forward to Saturday night. After running into an equally radical bachelorette party consisting mostly of UW students, we settled on transforming the Irish pub into party central.
Pint glasses quickly became optional.
While high-fives became mandatory.
Somewhere in the midst of all the chaos, a taxi cab was ralphed in, several HSTers were tossed into the street to fend for themselves and the “Legend of Darron Jasser” was begun.
Statistically speaking, this year:
- 0 people were forgotten in Seattle
- 0 people were stranded at the border
- 1 car was searched
- < 20% floor space was left vacant
- 57 burgers and veggie burger were inhaled
- 1 hot tub was drained
- 20,000+ degrees were spun
- 4.23 bajillion acres of powder land were thoroughly thrashed
- 7+ fifths went dry
- 50+ cans of PBR were cannoned
- 1 MILLION HIGH FIVES WERE RAISED
- 1 epic trip was had
Oh and because we promised you snowboarding, here’s a sweet compilation of HST members doing what they do best (no, not Aleah’s mother… the other thing we do best).
Put on your chillest song for this one. Credit: Alvin Brian Fontanella Santos.
Shredsmas 2011
A year ago, we declared the first Saturday of January a holiday we dubbed “Shredsmas”. Celebrating Shredsmas is easy, all you have to do is go snowboarding, give lots of high-fives, consume candy, frosty beverages and grilled food and generally be radical.
Last year’s Shredsmas revelers.
We’ll be observing Shredsmas @ Steven’s Pass this year. In honor of the holiday, we’ll fire-up some grills in one of the parking lots on the west (Seattle) side of the pass at 12:30. So come re-energize and get your fill of hot grilled foods, snacks and beverages!
Non-members are welcome to attend, we just ask they chip-in a few bucks towards the common good.