April 14, Fruita - Kokopelli Lion's Trail to Troy Built

We needed to keep a couple trails off Bill & Renee's agenda, as Bill is slightly afraid of heights, and there were a couple of sections on this trail that spooked him.  We also wanted to do an easier route so we didn't fry our legs before Don/Val and Bill/Renee arrived with fresh legs.  We have normally done this route at the end of our trip with super tired legs, so it was real a real treat with fresher legs.  After the hard rain from yesterday, the trails were in primo shape.  The amount of hard-pan trail was awesome.  We are here a couple of weeks earlier in April, and the cows were out in the beginning section, as opposed to the end of the ride.  9.34 miles.

Sad News, Loss of another good one.

On the drive to Fruita, we heard the sad news of the death of  a friend and coworkers wife, wonderful mother of two beautiful boys.  Ellie Booher met her maker on Friday while backcountry skiing out of the Fairy Meadows hut in Canada.
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NE Shoulder of Chair Peak, Snoqualmie Pass, Wa.

Crested Butte

Lucky Shot, Crystal Mt,

Ellie, Greg, and Chris

Ellie and Francine enjoy a burrito
Crested Butte

Ellie rides off into the distance

  News Report:  A female skier died after being injured in an avalanche Friday while backcountry skiing with a group in British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountain Range.

The skier, who was part of a ski tour group with Fairy Meadows, was caught in the slide southeast of Fairy Meadows lodge on the Gothics Glacier at around 3:15 p.m., according to Golden and District Search and Rescue.

“The subject was fully buried in an avalanche for approximately 45 minutes,” said Shauna Speers, search and rescue manager, in an e-mail.

According to the Canadian Avalanche Centre’s incident reports, the slide was triggered when the ski tour group was “skinning up” the slope.

The group managed to dig the skier out, as two search and rescue members made their way to the area with Alpine Helicopters to join in the resuscitation and rescue efforts, Speers said.

The victim was flown to Golden and later taken to a Calgary hospital, but she did not survive.

April 12, Corner Canyon Trails, SLC, Draper Utah

This was our second time at Corner Canyon and there has been a lot of trail work, since our last visit.  We pulled into the fairly full parking lot at the trailhead, next to the equestrian facility.  It being a sunny Saturday, the trails were full of friendly mountain bikers, even with our 3pm start time.  We climbed Lower Corner Canyon Trail, to Canyon Hollow Trail, to Brock's Point Trail, to the top of the Rush flow trail.  3.75 miles.  Debated on going down Rush directional flow trail with everyone else, but ended up heading down Ann's to the potato hill trail  and Creek view trail.  Total ride a nice easy 9 miles

Francine on flat spot on the climb on Canyon Hollow Trail

  Ann's trail with the Wasatch mountains in the background.

View across the valley of new, one-way downhill flow trail, Rush Trail.
 (you can see two riders in the picture)

Francine descending on new section of Creek View Trail

 Real fun ride.  We rode here a couple of years ago, and they have really worked on their network of trails.  Having a couple of trails one-way, downhill, really limits the interaction between uphill and downhill riders.  One-way trails really seem to work well at busy trail areas.  It is nice to be able to go fast and not have to worry about uphill traffic..  We couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed that we were being discouraged from descending on Potato Hill trail, as we were told we would meet a lot of uphill traffic.  I think the SLC mountain bikers are embracing a "preferred" direction on their trails.  Saw way fewer hikers than a couple of years ago, as this is turning into a busy mountain biking area.  Definitely worth a stop if you are headed to Moab or Fruita.  We spent the night at Marriot Springhill Suites in Draper, about ten minutes from the trailhead.  AAA rate of 80 bucks for a nice updated room.  Watching the rain from our hotel window.  Hopefully it is the only wet day of our trip.

April 8, Moto Mattawa

Dragged Scott and Vic down to the Columbia river, where we rode the singletrack trails outside the town of Mattawa.  Temperatures were in the high seventies, and the trails were quite dry, and pretty sandy in some spots.  Riding was pretty technical and kept us on our toes.  Everyone had a good time, but my riding partners were grumping about the two hour drive to the trailhead.  Hopefully, with the snow melting out, our next ride will be closer to home.

Kevin and Vic, above the Coulumbia River,
No I am not getting fat, it's called a chest protector.

April 7, Roslyn Trails

Tried to mountain bike above the town of Roslyn,  Unfortunately patches of snow, continued to shut us down.  Could not even make it to the contour trail.  With recent warm weather, it will hopefully fully melt out soon.

April 1, North Slope of Chair Peak

Touring was on the brain, but no plans.  After yesterday's bike ride I was lacking a little motivation.  Luckily as I was sitting on the upstairs throne contemplating life, the phone rang.  "Crispin, what's up?"  Crispin said he was at exit 47, did I want to tour?   Well a little more notice would have been nice, but I quickly threw my gear together and met up with Crispin at Alpental's lot 4.  Two hours later we were straddling the ridgeline leading up to the NE buttress of Chair Peak.  Nice.  Dropped down to the cliffs that tower over Snow Lake, then skinned over to the entrance of the Snow Lake couloir.  Turns here were a little messy, but made for a great loop down to Snow Lake.  Climbed to Snow Lake Divide then cruised back down to Source Lake and the parking lot.  South slopes were pretty sticky by then.  Great day.

Crispin and Geeb, Pineapple Basin in background

Ridgeline leading up to NE buttress of Chair Peak

nice.

very nice.

Crispin and Geeb,   Mt. Roosevelt to the right

Snow Lake Couloir

March 31, Mansion Trails, Ellensburg

First time was so much fun we headed back for another day.  This time we took Scott Sumner and Don Hecker.   Another beautiful day.  We ended up doing another out and back, but got the lowdown from a local on the loop options.  Next time will definitely try to make more of  a loop ride.  The trail, riding up is great, but the downhill is pretty stutter bumped.

March 27, Mansion Trails, Ellensburg

Escaped the rain at Snoqualmie Pass to check out some new trails that have been recently built above Ellensburg.  Trailhead is the same, off of Cove Rd., but in addition to the existing hiking trails, several miles of signed mountain bike trails have been added.  The main trail, Chest Pains, provides about a 4 mile climb of 1,200 feet to the top of the ridge, where it connects into the green dot road system.  From the parking area, head straight up, across the irrigation ditch veering slightly left, pass a main trail on the right, stay left and you should start traversing left.  New trails are all signed.  Rode Chest Pains, Silver Pelvis Loop.  Passed the bottom and top of RIP Line on our left.  Once at the top, we had to hustle back down as the spring showers were approaching.  Got hit with some hail on our descent back down Chest Pains.  Went left on Oh Deer.  When that hit the doubletrack, we opted for that instead of the trails, and hightailed it back to the car.  Approx. 9 miles.

Trail is very narrow, very new.  Will be interesting to see how it develops.  Hopefully the horses will stay away, especially while wet.

March 22/23, Whistler Bumps

Made a quick trip to Whistler for Rick's annual bumpalooza.   Rick, and his brother Jerry still think bumps are better than powder.   Rick just got his second hip joint resurfaced, so he was in prime condition.  Great weekend of soft snow and good bumps.

Rick Mirakami, bumps

Francine and Dave

Francine and Kevin

Jerry

March 5-8, Red Mt. Canada

Escaped the pineapple weather system that was drenching the Cascades and got just far enough north to escape the rain.  Yearly ski trip with my sister's family.  Snow was a little heavy, but we got lot's of fresh tracks. 

Kristin, Jim, and Len.

Jimmy shreds on his powder skis.

Unfortunately only hooked up with WASU guy, Jack for one day, and his sister Maddie could not escape Boston during her final year at Northeastern.

March 3, Hyak

Not much to post on the blog lately.  Snow conditions have been high for avalanches, so have been staying on the chairlift served slopes.   I have toured Hyak a few times, and am hopeful to get a little more touring done when the avalanche danger mellow out. 

Scott Sumner contemplates the silence.   Snoq. Pass shut down for the morning due to snowfall.

February 15. Vertfest - Alpental

Signed up for two hours of suffering.   Thankfully snow conditions were probably about the best they have been.   I managed to stay away from the leaders and finished in a respectable 19th place.   As always a fun event, other than the racing.  Good to see Holly and Heather on the podium for the women's race.   Strongest local men's racer was Brandon in 6th.   He managed to get second in the next race down at Mt. Bachelor.

Feb 7, Wind - Pineapple and Wonder Gully

Took a chair lift assist to head out with Don Hecker and ran into Dan Larsen as well.  What was beautiful powder earlier in the week, has been destroyed by the high winds of the last two days.   We found a nice pocket of powder on the Lee side of Pineapple Basin, then headed for the Wonder Gully hoping it may have escaped the wind.  Alas, the gully was totally wind packed.  Skiing was okay as there was almost zero ski penetration, but definitely on the firm side.   We did hear some settling as we traversed underneath the tooth, over to Bryant.  Dan Larsen did the quick video.  Thanks

Heading up into Pineapple Basin

Kevin with the Tooth in the background

Dan enjoying the powder

Headed up the shoulder towards Bryant
 and the Wonder Gully

Don carves it up

Don

Dan 

Feb. 4, Commonwealth Basin

Planned to head up Kendall trees with Francine today.  I had seen a couple trip reports that made it seem like a doable objective.  Unfortunately, when we reached the trees, it looked like full survivor skiing.  There was just a lot of brush still not covered by our thin snowpack.  The few tracks from the weekend had frozen up quite hard.   I am sure up high, we could have gotten decent turns, but we decided to skip Kendall and cruised further up valley.  Second plan was to tour the drainage between Red and Kendall.  I contoured in, a little too soon, for the drainage and we ended up  skiing a short slope beneath Kendall.   More of a snowshoe trip than a ski, but good to get out.  Great snow quality where untracked.

Francine

February 2, Searching for Pow

Hooked up with Crispin, Greg, and Dwayne?.    Headed uphill from the Alpental parking lot.  Lots of tracks above source lake.   We had fairly poor visibility in the Chair Peak basin, but finally found good visibility and no tracks over the west shoulder.

Greg

Classic Greg ski form

Crispin

Crispin and dog Geeb

Dwayne tele-turn

Kevin gets above the pow.