Since moving to the Pacific Northwest from Colorado I’ve experienced some apprehension about my future skiing life. You see, over the last five years skiing managed to take over my being and I became addicted to ‘the life’. It got even worse when, two years ago, a client engagement landed a job writing reviews for a popular Colorado ski blog, which led to my best friend Chris and I skiing every mountain (at least three times) in the state in one season.
A job like that can spoil a man: the fresh tracks each morning; the search for freshies each afternoon; followed by some apres beers; some good food; a hot tub and a nice hardy sleep at a ski-in/ski-out condo. Then the next few days the on and off-mountain routine would be repeated until we considered the mountain ‘reviewed’. All during this project our hearts were content, we were in great physical condition and we had the peace of mind of knowing that this was actually our job. Our biggest complaint was having to take ‘cool’ photos.
Smoky
Last season I skied alone, mostly. My wife was with me a few times and Chris made it up a few times, but really it was just me and my iPod at Copper and Winter Park, hitting my familiar lines and seeking new ones, adrift in tons of light, fluffy powder each time. One morning, I had to boot-pack out of a snowed-in parking lot at Winter Park just to get in the arena to play. It was a 20-plus inch day! In fact, my last ten outings last season were powder days — 8-inches reported, minimum.
Perhaps you can now understand my anxiety facing a new medium in what’s been called Cascade Concrete? A relative of Sierra Cement? And then the terrain! Is it really that much steeper here in the PNW? These questions sent me looking for answers online. And today I found some answers at Alpental.com, a site which provides literally no insider knowledge about the resort itself, but rather a a plethora of information about Alpental’s immediate backcountry.
alpental.com
For what must have been an hour I studied the Great Scott traverse to Piss Pass and then the Pineapple Pass, all of which leads to what looks like an oasis of snow, the Great Scott Bowl. Getting in and out of the bowl could pose a huge challenge in terms of cliffs and steeps, but oh man, the bowl is a huge, 40-degree face full of fluffy powder turns. It looks inspiring, like some of the lines at Telluride or Crested Butte, but with perhaps even more cliffs, if that is possible.
Bring on the season, be it wet and sloppy or cool and fluffy!
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