This trip was kind of a way for me to re-familiarize myself with my digital camera, as its been neglected for the most part during my college years. I had hoped to shoot more, but with the pace of the trip it didnt turn out that way. However I think I got some interesting captures.
The trip out the Washington state had been in the works for a few months now. With constant updates of inch-age from my friends, the imagery of high mountains and deep powder were never far from my mind. I made my preparations best I could and boarded the flight to Seattle Airport.
The first day was spent on the rainy road, waking at 5AM so that we could be at Mount Baker at opening. Making our way up the interstate and some backroads we reached our destination a little before opening giving us a little time to talk to the locals. They were saying that it has been the best spring skiing they've seen in years, and if not for a dry spell back in December it wouldve been likely for Baker to break its long standing record of 1,140 inches. We were happy enough with the 4 or 5 inches we got the previous night (and a couple feet the past weeks ;) )
This view greeted us from the parking lot:
Just to show deep it was.
Being a suburban boy from Ohio, you can imagine Ive never experienced anything like this. It was knee deep huckin' run after run. We would ride the number 8 lift and by the time you reached the top you'd have a thick coating of snow on ya, which made for awesome snow but terrible seeing conditions. But round came 4 O'Clock and the lifts were closing; it was time for us to thank the spirits for getting us down the mountain (relatively) safely and enlightening our midwestern minds on what was to come on the rest of the trip. On the way down the mountain... I snapped some shots.
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| Steam rising from the vent-like mountain streams; Captured by Taylor |
And so we bid farewell to the Baker area, and traveled the 2 and a half-odd hours back to Seattle for a (albeit short) night of rest. Tomorrow, we would hit Crystal Mountain, but down a man due to injuries from the previous day.
Today was the day you look forward to on a skiing trip, and to an extent, expect when you plan to be on the mountain 3 out of 4 days. It was a bluebird day, skies as deep and clear as diamonds in caves. We got to the mountain with ease, about a half an hour after open and the lots were filling up fast, it was clear that everybody else had the same idea as we did; so we grabbed our gear and hucked it up to the lodge and the lifts. At the top we found a view of Mount Rainer so spectacular that we had to grab a shot or two.
After the above capture, I wanted to get a shot with Myself and T. We saw a guy smoking a cigarette nearby getting ready for the day, and asked him for the shot and he obliged.
Directly after this he asked whether or not we were locals, to which we responded, "no" which resulted in his response, "Oh, well then I can show you guys my secret spot then." And so we spent our first 30 minutes on the mountain skiing down some fresh groomers, onto another lift (The Forest Queen Express) and over to a section of the mountain titled 'Bear Pitts'.
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| looking back up the trail from the 'secret' spot |
The section was the place of dreams, deep powder, playful tree lines, and a guide as welcoming as the mountain itself. We followed him a bit until he skirted off the trail and up to a little nook under a tree where we braked for a cigarette and a listen to his story. A resident skier for many years he had been coming back to the Pitts over and over again, and was his motif to ski the section all day long.
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| Matt in his spot, lookin' like he was sitting on a gold mine |
We parted ways to ski the rest of the mountain and find what kind of trouble we could get into ourselves, and even met up with him again on one of our many times trough the Bear Pitts.
That ended our first day at Crystal. A place so gnarly that we would decide to come back on our last day. We went back to the rest space with grins on our faces cause we knew we had met a real cool dude and had a gnarly day to look back on.
Now here is where I get a little embarrassed, Im not sure if it was from skiing back to back and being tired as a dog, or just losing my mojo for the day but the one day we spent in downtown Seattle I took barely any photos. Which as photographer looking to improve my street eye is something that I regret deeply as I type this. In any case, here's the few I grabbed.
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| Birdman in perfect form (Jokes Jokes); Captured by Taylor |
Now, here's the icing on the cake. Lift 6 (High Campbell) had been closed the previous day, infact it had been closed the past few days, and today it was open. So we were presented with an additional 6 to 8 inches of untouched from the previous days in the Southback area of the mountain. So we traversed from lift six, across Campbell Basin and into the Avalanche Basin. There we found what Had to be a foot and a half of untouched. You could groove all the way down with pow up to your waist and have no problem. Just ease back into the turns and feel the mountain carry you down. Definitely one of the most sublime things I've ever felt.
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| Bottom of Avalanche Basin, I had gotten stuck and decided to take a rest after taking a tumble higher up the mountain. |
We departed from the Southback to explore the Northway, where we had tried to get to the previous day on the mountain, but were unable to due to avalanche conditions and blocked gates. At the top of Northway Peak we took a rest with a group. I ended up discovering a roll of Thin Mint cookies that I had forgotten about, frozen in the side pocket of my bag. I ended up giving some to a Greek-Lish man by the name of Rechyko (I can only guess how to spell his name) and talked to him a bit. We got his story and I got is photograph.
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| Tree tops of Northway Country |
We skied for a couple hours after the transition from south to north, and barely made it to the bottom after realizing we were pushing how far we could stay on our skis, it had been a long week and we were exhausted.
Crystal Mountain become more than just a ski area, to me atleast, something ephemeral. The lift names were confusing at first, and though good areas were everywhere, getting to where you wanted to go could be difficult or impossible, but whenever you took a turn you'd find something new and amazing. Fresh lines were abundant and tomahawking halfway down the mountain was almost welcome because of the fresh snow. It felt like I was a kid again, playing in the snow out back. Except I had grown a little, and the hills had too. We met some cool cats aswell, Matt and Rechyko are definitely going to be well remembered as well as the others who welcomed us into Washington.
