Sussing Mission

No promising leads in South Carolina.  Remember to conserve soil and water.

-Dr. Yinsen

HOLLYWOODS BIRTHDAY

P.S. Here is a photo The Andrew McLean took of myself in the choke. Nothing like a skierboy sussing a legend.

Imagine your 25th birthday, October 5th, 2009 15 inches on top of an old 12 in alta. Then imagine deciding to ski off the summit of alta on one of its most recognizeable runs. MAIN CHUTE. Yes this is the northern hemisphere, yes this is oct 5, 2009. Yes it was as good as it looks.


met up with robby for some punch bowl laps. smooth and delicious.
second punch bowl lap brought a little confidence to milk like a vermont dairy farmer once again. HOLLYWOOD OUT OCT 5, 2009 hope the other boyz had a great day in unbelievealbe alta as well.

HOW TO MILK THE UTTERS OF FALL SNOW

find the most beautiful spot on the mountain, adjust the aperature, and send a turn, perferably one slash to make it look more epic than it is. the mountains utters are always out waiting to be milked so be like a vermont farmer and get that milk for cabot to make cheeseeeeeeeeeee

News Flash

Monday evening the wind kicked up and blew the clouds off the mountains above Anchorage: termination dust. Throughout the week the snow-line crept down. 3,000'. 2,000'.  Flurries at 500' by Saturday.  

Typically this is when we head up Archangel Road to the Lane Glacier. Well the state closed the road early this year. Balls. Plan B: meadow skipping and rock tagging at Hatcher Pass. It wasn't pretty but it was soft and fresh and it's only going to get better.

Get some fresh batteries in your beacons because it's on.

The Turk

the chugach from the talkeetna mountains 

i skied above this where there was quite a bit more snow

The Good Old Days

A short film featuring Purple Explosiv Beattie

Tagline:

Absinthe, knife-hits, bonus check mistakes, wave of the future, and shame spirals

Get psyched for the winter

The gathering began to flow in late night with round after round of bottle rockets. Once the select group settled the whiskey began to flow freeely along with the complaints of GOSB and a frightening idea that they may stand in our way on the skinner but on top Skier Boyz remain FREE.







The roars were loud at night but silenced by morning. Only the Picas voice of complaint remain. Empty whiskey bottles and bottled rockets littered a once beautiful meadow that had never seen a gather like so. 

Sending was the main reason for such a gathering and sending was what happened to almost every aspect of the loniest of lone boyz. the one and only lone peak cirque.

The silenced roar of buffaloes, squirrels and unidentified species  where heard amongst the gathering and all knew the friendship was only getting deeper as the whiskey dropped like a Mancross on a slope needed to torn apart.

This day was written in history through this blog and will be remembered for ever!

Dylan in the Euros

Found this Mancross video while surfing the world wide web while doing the twitter on my Palm Pilot.

Get ready.  Winter is coming.  

Click this

Ptarmigan Couloir, AK: August 3

Shut down this ash laden junkshow.  Was August good?  No. Absolutely not. Was it worth it? Debatable.  08/09 is over.  12 consecutive months of meadow skipping, face shots, core shots, slides, sloughs, bad ideas, planes, trains, and automobiles. Board it up,  put up the "No Trespassing" signs, put a padlock on the door.

The warm sunny summer combined with Reboubt's hiccups has certainly melted any snow that has fallen in the last year.  What is left is old snow. How old?  2 years? A decade?  I don't know, but what remains is garbage.  I knew this going in.  The only question was: How bad? 

I rolled into the Glen Alps Trailhead above Anchorage just before noon.   The plan was to bike 5 miles of dirt road (The Power Line Trail), stash the bike, and hike the 1,000' or so vert to the bottom of the snow.   Temps were in the high 60's and rising.  No clouds, no wind.  A perfect day for a bad idea. 

Glen Alps is the most popular trailhead in the state and there was no shortage of fanny packers shooting me strange looks as I started unloading all the gear necessary for this ill conceived triathlon.    "Are you going skiing?"  "Is there any snow?"  All fair questions given the circumstances.  But I had the inside track.  From the baseball field near my house I could just barely make out one solitary sliver of snow in the entire front range.  It looked continuous.  It was worth a shot.  Biking the Power Line Trail along the South Fork of Campbell Creek the sliver came into view.  Ashy and thin, but doable.  With the bike stashed, I climbed the steep slope to the bottom of the snow.  As I climbed Foraker came into view, then Hunter and Denali. 

The Alaska Range over Anchorage

The snow made for easy booting.  I felt comfortable only kicking in about 1".  As I climbed the couloir steepened and the snow became more firm.   I felt stupid for leaving the ax at home. Eventually the snow petered out roughly 200' vert below the ridge.  Good enough.  Let's get this over.  Click.  Click.  

"Good afternoon snow enthusiasts .   Today in the Ptarmigan Couloir you will find excellent skiing and riding with a 0 to 72" base.  Today's snow conditions are mostly bullet proof decades old snow with large sun cups and inverted ice runnels.  Watch out for rocks that have been falling into this gully since the last ice age.  Use extra caution because the 1/2" of ash mud makes detecting these rocks impossible.  So come on up and enjoy the best skiing in the Anchorage bowl."

So with the question of "How bad" finally answered and August in my back pocket I can take 08/09 out back and give it the mercy killing it deserves.  

El Guapo

P.S.  I got a job working as a Corrosion Engineer for the state.

Long Bike Ride

Corn skiing conditions on the Cascade Volcanoes eventually turned to summer glacier conditions so I decided it would be cool to do something other than read guidebooks and dream about future skiing. For this reason, I decided it would be a good idea to go on a nice long bike ride. Lehua was planning on riding from Portland Oregon to Tijuana Mexico along the Pacific Coast. About a 1,600 mile ride. I figured this was about the length of the long bike ride I was looking for, so I decided to go and see how a Boyz GOSB collaboration epic would go. I initially thought I was going to start in Portland on the 8th and ride to San Fran in order to fly back for work on the 22nd. I found out along the way that I didn't need to be back for work until the 3rd of August, so thus committed to ride at least to Los Angeles. In short, we rode along the coast for about 60 miles a day, camping at state park beach campgrounds along the way. I towed a bob trailer behind my bike, carrying our clothes, tent, sleeping bags and Lehua had panniers on her bike carrying day use items, rain gear, cooking gear, etc. The weather was cold and damp, to the point that your really never got warm. Along the way, I got to see almost the entire Oregon Coast, amazing Redwood Forests and agricultural land in Humboldt County, rode over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco and was amazed when I learned first hand that Santa Cruz really wasn't that cool of a town. I planned to be in Los Angeles this weekend to box up my bike and head to work. That was my belief at least, until last Sunday when I broke the frame of my brand new steel frame bike in Monterrey. Learned first hand that too much gear in a bob trailer for 1200 or so miles will break a frame. Decided to call it good, 320 miles from my goal of Los Angeles and take a train home to Salt Lake for work. Lehua is riding on solo, into Big Sur with the goal of making a wedding in San Diego later next week. Adam M. Lawton

Archangel Valley, AK: July 2, 2009

Back in April, I lamented that the ash would ruin the summer skiing.  I felt my consecutive months streak would be in jeopardy.  I considered finishing my season after the Valdez trip, but Dylan convinced me otherwise.  Just keep it going was the gist of it.  So I did.  I found good snow through May and June.  I found bad snow through May and June.  I also found some half decent snow in July.  

I got up early and made the 90 minute drive to Archangel Valley in the Talkeetna Mountains.  The dirt road leading to the Reed Lake trailhead is notoriously bad.  So once I got off the pavement, I had to keep the Jeep at about 45 mph to fly over the deep potholes and through the ruts.  The suspension is shot but stiff.  It rides like a dream this morning.  I am completely out of control.  At every corner the vehicle "skips/bounces" towards the outside of the road.  It's OK because I have my lights on for safety.   

I arrive at the trailhead in record time.  Upper Reed Lake is about 5 miles up the trail and it is the bottom of the schuss run.  The trail is mellow as it follows a creek up the valley.  The trail is slick as rain soaked clay conspires against me.  The trail is fun as it disappears into a maze of car-sized boulders.  Whistle pigs greet my arrival into the upper valley.  Lower Reed Lake is a glacier blue/green.  I follow the creek up past waterfalls to Upper Reed.  There is still ice covering about 25% of the lake.  Here my adventure starts.  

Bluebird.  I hike up scree along side of the snow.  Sweat stings my eyes and coats the inside of my Smiths.  I can see the entire run.  Garmonts on and commence booting.  It goes quick and soon I am at the pass looking over several glaciers covered with ash and snow.  Upper Reed Lake is far below still showing the the final evidence of a harsh winter.

There are some clouds building but I am in no rush.  A Clifbar, some water.  Man, those clouds are building quick.  A front is pushing up the Bomber Glacier.  There is a very sharp line in the sky delineating blue from black.  And it is coming my way.  Now I'm rushing.  ("You can see Russia from here!")  I hurry down the slope.  Recent snow over the ash makes for fine skiing but the white gets less continuous.  The ash slows me down.  Then the thunder.  The thunder that starts behind you and circles all around you 2 or 3 times.  Echoing off the steep walls of the mountains surrounding you.  There isn't supposed to be weather like this in AK.  I guess no one told the storm.  Now even the ash laden snow gives way to rocks.  There are some ribbons that go lower.  I milk it low.  Real low.  The absurdity of the situation is not lost and I smile.  More swirling thunder.  Shit!  I transition into to hiking garb and work my way around the lake and back to the trail.  The thunder engulfs the valley and the winds pick up.  All of the metal in this entire valley now is residing on back and in my hands.  Hustle.

Thunder, rain.  A hard rail.  A hard hail.  Small hail, larger hail.  I can feel the hail hitting my hood.  Thunder.  Now lightening.  Hail.  Rain.  Wind.  Hustle.

  

"Nothing's gonna happen."  The Skier Boyz mantra calms me.  The storm is moving into the next valley.  "Nothing's gonna happen."  The black skies are now gray.  Thunder looms, but now in the distance.  A trace a blue.  Far off thunder.  "Nothing's gonna happen."  

Month #21 was an adventure, but they all are to some extent.  I am have my doubts about August, but I had my doubts about May, June, and July.  I suspect that I will take Dylan's advice and "just keep it going."  And after August, it all starts again with late September face shots.  

Pistolero

BUTTERFLY 6/28

The butterfly sits on mt superior and is the last snow to melt out due to the two couloirs above it constantly shedding snow into there. I wanted to ski it last year but i was too lazy, so i went up this year.
cool shot of suicide chute, two folks were hiking it then skied it as i was going up.
water flowing on the south face, pretty awesome. my route was up the apron, hit the rock band to the lookers right of the bottom waterfall, follow that straight up next to the waterflow and hit the butterfly, you can see it way up there
skied each wing of the butterfly then down the middle, then i put my hiking boots back on and traversed over from the bottom of the butterfly to about halfway up suicide chute, topped out, skied suicide which was the deffenition of sub par skiing and hiked down the waterfall then fell down part of the waterfall at the bottom of suicide and put my skis back on and avoided inevitable landmines of jagged rocks littered through out the bottom apron. cool ski in a wild location this time of the year.
the turns in the butterfly, if you click it you can actually see them twas a day well spent. hwood lets get a crew up baldy for some july skiing wedensday!

Mt. Shasta, CA

On June 19th Josh Boyd and I made a 24 hr. push from SLC, UT to climb and ski Mount Shasta. Arriving at the Brewer creek trail head at 2 a.m., after a 12 hour drive we slept for two hours then got on the mountain to experience an epic day. It wasn't too bad because we were excited to be in CA and on this mammoth volcano, the second largest in the U.S, 14,140 ft. Todd Glew, who works on the mountain as a guide and road dog met us for the climb and ski. I am almost positive that this is the first time three buffalos from Beverly, MA had stood on top of this volcano together. Our route was the Wintun-Holtum on the north side of the mountain.

The Buffaloes begin their 7,000 ft. climb and a 6,000 ft. descent on magical Mt. Shasta.

Boyd gazes at our line and the summit above in a cloud

It was not a very difficult ascent, but the weather made it interesting, check out the huge clouds below. Typical volcano conditions.

Boyd and Glew a few hundred feet below he summit. This is where the buffaloes caught up to everyone who stayed on the mountain overnight and reached the summit first.

Buffaloes love to roam on top of big mountains!

The Glewstick carving some killer corn con cigarette.
Skiing towards the bottom we were in and out of a foggy haze. Was it the crippler or Shasta?

New Alpiner Boyd fixing the heel and fixing his problems.

The last stretch of snow before we had to hike down.

After skiing Shasta we went to the coast, climbed on the beach and Relaxed with the Arcata locals. I love California. Jake F.

HOLLYWOODS HELMET CAM

SKIING Helmet Cam 09 from jonathan fay on Vimeo.

This bad boy opens up with one KILLER april 4th 2009 run down greely hill, powder capiotol of the world. shots like that only achieved with rain-x on the lens, and regular camber skis on my feet. there are some other shots in there of vermont around xmas, some 'satch backcountry, an epically deep april 4th keyhole, and well it all closes with one of my favorite runs of all time. on the run i hit some huge rocks and should have tomahawked 100 vertical feet into little chute, luckily was dressed in all black and have a bit of ninja steeze and rode it out.

thanks if you can SUFFER through the whole thing

coors LIGHTning JUNE 14th

The Uintas. Unexplored by some, respected by all played host to a gathering that it must not have been ready for. The group consisted of ella, emile, brett, stephan, jake, jon and micah. We arrived after an inspiring, lush, green drive in the Econoline 150 from salt lake to about 40 miles east of park city. The blue bird drive turned into a snowy hike. Graupel seemingly the size of a rocky mountain oysters were periodically falling from the white sky.
The group pushed on. Snow has never stopped any of these skiers from continuing on. If we were lucky it would be free refills each lap.
The weather report this day called for mostly cloudy conditions in the morning and a 70% chance of thunderstorms and rain in the afternoon. Some of the storms expected to produce heavy percipitation. Well it was about 11 so we figured we had some time. Here is Brett checking out hayden peak? from the saddle. A storm was passing to the east over the peak and he soon found out you shouldnt look at lightning strikes through binocs.
Well drop in off the saddle before the thunderstorm hits. Here is Micah milking a few tele turns. The group gathered on the lunch rocks just intime to be right next to a powerful storm. We decided to take shelter and not hike back up with our skis ( lightning rods) on our backs aiming high at the sky until the storm passed. The storm did pass. Out of the protection we went. The sky really seamed to light up and it got calm. It was only about 25 minutes back to the top so why not take another lap.
Well just as everyone completed hiking another round of thunder was blowing in rapidly. The sky was immediately dark and tense. We hustled back to the protected grove lower in elevation.

Looking out just before hunkering down. The storm came and we took shelter from hail and sleet. A few echoing blasts later we decided its probably best to go the opposite way as the storm ( back to the car) As we left, the sleet turned into snowflakes, the ground was coated with a fresh coat of white, unbelieveable. Its mid june and we are seeing intense winterish storms. The thunder stopped and things let up again.
Lots of stuff to ski out here when the weather is right. The buffalo had admited to never skiing in june. Its mid june and it appears there are still a few lines up here to go ski. We all had a blast.

Mt Adams Lawton, WA

A volcano vacation. The next stop after Rainier was Mt. Adams, named after veteran guide of Skier Boyz Adam Lawton. He claimed the summit as a first ascent and the run a first descent for the organization. Of course he was lying because it was first climbed in 1854 and first skied in 1932. Washington's second highest volcano (12,276 ft.) is found above the Hood River Gorge Region, towering 6,000 vertical feet above the small town of Trout Lake and the ranger station. We had a good view of it from Rainier and had a see what Rainier looked like from over there.

Our guide, Adam chose to climb the Suksdorf Ridge and to ski the Southwest chute, so knowing we wouldn't be crossing any big glaciers we went a lot lighter on gear than we carried on Rainier. And our backs hurt. We made it to the trail head about 3 p.m. and decided to bivy on the mountain and get up early to summit before it got too warm. Trout Lake was 83 degrees when we left to drive to the trail head. Luckily we met some generous Sledder Rednecks who wanted to carry our bags in half of the way. Three Sledder Rednecks on sleds and six thirty pound packs. What a favor. Vrooom, Vroooom!

It felt so good to hike without our packs on, up towards Cold Springs Campground and the South Climb Trail. When we reached Cold Springs our packs were there with the now drunk Sledder Rednecks. We said thanks again and continued up the trail below the Suksdorf Ridge, now with our packs on and large grins across our faces because the scenery was getting wild and beautiful. When climbing Adams you get up above the treeline very fast and can look out and have excellent views of St. Helens, Mt Hood and Jefferson. The late evening alpenglow was illuminating the snow covered peaks and I couldn't be happier to be on a volcano like this one. Our ascent and descent came into view high on the mountain and I was excited for the next day to come. We set up our bivy around 6,000 ft. on a sandy ledge with plenty of flat plots to lie down for a quick nap before our early morning mission to the summitt.

The 1:30 a.m. wake up call came in a blink of an eye and everyone was getting packed up to leave. We stashed our bivy gear at our camp and made our way up in the darkness of early morning. By 4 a.m. or so we knew we were going to summit too early. We went lighter than Rainier, moved faster and it wasn't as challenging. We sat down for awhile and dozed off at "Lunch Counter", below the Suksdorf Ridge at 9,000 ft. and continued climbing about an hour later. Crampons were a big help up the ridge, a 2,700 ft 30-35 degree open slope that has great skiing. Pikers Peak is the false summit above the Suksdorf, only 700 ft below the true summit. We summited at 8:30 a.m., way too early for good skiing conditions. Luckily it was a dead calm 40 degrees out and we were able to rest comfortably on the summit for two and a half hours before we made our descent. When the conditions became more manageable we began our descent from the summit to above the Southwest chute. Being a little west facing the Southwest chute still had not warmed enough for ideal skiing so we relaxed for about another hour, then experienced a epic run. It started a little firm, but quickly softened to a inch or two of corn snow and it got goood! 4,000 vertical feet of a constant 35 degree pitch and so much room. To me it seemed steeper than that when I stopped to catch my breath and regain composure to finish the run in good style. It was an amazing run. A run of a lifetime. I could not believe how good a run it was and long. So long I stopped twice and still my legs were on fire by the bottom. It took about 5-10 minutes for each person to finish the run. Everyone was gitty at the bottom and we were all thinking the same thing. What a amazing line, better skiing than Rainier. It took a lot of traversing to get back to our beach bivy and out to the cars by 2:30 p.m. Our treat was a dip in the Columbia River by all the kite boarders, pizza, then four of us hit the road back to SLC while Bret, Adam and Topher continues the Ring of Fire tour with Hood and Shasta. I wish I could have stayed. JF Buf