Put a Sagehen On It

The landscape is bright and lonely.  In the sagebrush steppe, the canopy is only the height of the tallest bush around, which is usually sage or bitterbrush, punctuated by the occasional juniper or hackberry.  The snowy ground is smooth and expansive.  At lower elevation, bumps caused by bushes scatter the rolling hills.  Draws between these hills offer moisture.  At lower elevations, they’re clogged with dogwood and willow brambles.  At higher elevations, aspen trees run up the ravines, creating ghostly-white groves, their bare, winter branches seemingly reach out to draw you in.  The rare skin track and the subsequent turns write a story over the hills, stretching out beyond where you can see.  Patches of dry, temperate forest host ponderosa and subalpine fir patches to break up the blankets of snow.

It’s a vibe, as the kids say.  (Or they did some time ago.  I am no longer in-touch with what’s hip with the kids these days.  I still think “put a bird on it” is funny.)  Eino has a playlist called “sage country snow,” inspired by said vibe.  Back when we both drank alcohol, one of our favorite things to do while dinking together was to make playlists.  I never listen to Neko Case on my own, which is a real shame because she always has my favorite songs on our playlists.  I don’t really miss drinking, but I do kind of miss the creativity that would flow during these sessions, one song inspiring the next, our differing tastes finding compliments in rhythm, lyrics or cheesy key changes.  Now, in sobriety, I’m finding more creativity through writing, which, unfortunately has not manifested itself in anything publishable, but, oh well. (Hah! Nothing is manifested except through doing the thing.)

Sage country snow.  Photo by Eino.

Eino and I celebrated our 14th anniversary on Saturday.  The longer we’re together, the more I marvel at how long we’ve been together.  Longer than most people are married.  If we’d have had a kid in the first few years of our relationship, they might be a teenager by now.  We spent our entire 30s together.  Moved to three different states together.  We’ve lived in this house for 7 years.  WTF?  I just realized that that is half our relationship.  I was talking to my mom the other day about the houses we lived in when I was a kid, and we lived in our first real house for 10 years.  In kid time, 10 years is an eternity.  We’ve lived in this small, weird mother-in-law rental for almost that long, even though the house has changed hands three times and our rent has doubled.  We like it here, so we’re still here.  Through that time, I experienced and adjusted to life-altering medical injuries to my brain and body.  I guess my point is, I’ve changed.  But so has Eino.  Thank God we’ve changed in ways that still work together.

We skied at Soldier Mountain last weekend.  It’s only a two-hour drive from our house, so I was surprised we haven’t been there before.  Soldier is totally our jam.  A small lodge, built after the old one burned down in 2009,* contains the ticket office, rental shop, food service, bar and boot-up area with cubbies(!), all under one roof.  The ski patrol shack sits beside the lodge.  It looks like it might have started as a mechanic shop or a barn and has been added onto at least three times.  No ski school building to be found, although there is a good-looking beginner carpet just beyond the main lift.  We pulled into the parking lot about noon on Sunday and I would’ve guessed it was a Tuesday for the lack of cars.  But, it’s Mormon country, so maybe they’re busier on Saturdays.  And their school district is down to a 4-day week, so, as Eino discovered the week before, the kids go skiing on Friday.  Soldier has two fixed-grip lifts, one painted sage green and pale yellow.  The first lift takes you to mid-mountain and the second takes you the rest of the way up.  They have cat skiing on the upper and outer ridges.  Usually I scoff at cat skiing as a snobby cash grab, intended to create a sense of exclusivity, but in these wide open, rolling hills in the middle of freaking nowhere (between Utah, Boise and Sun Valley), it makes sense.

Runs and the spaces between.  Photo by Eino.

Most of the runs are swaths of groomed snow between ungroomed, bare stretches.  With enough fresh snow, the mountain’s nothing-to-scoff-at 1,150 lift-serviced acres* would open up, and I bet you could ski virtually the entire area.  At some point recently, some patrollers bombed some nice-looking off-piste.  I’m no expert, but it didn’t look steep enough to me to be avy terrain; I bet they did it just for the fresh turn.  Some of the north-facing slopes take you through forested gullies.  As it is, most of the runs are about the same pitch, despite what the trail signs might imply.  Which was just fine with me, because all I can ski these days is less-than-very-steep groomers, so there was a lot of room to explore for a few hours.  The grooming was good: nice and smooth and still there in the late afternoon.

Soldier Mountain has changed hands a few times since we moved to Idaho.  Bruce Willis owned it for awhile in the 90s, then donated it to a non-profit.  A young couple bought it a few years back for a third of the price of a house in our neighborhood.  Then they sold it a couple years later, and now, like so many ski areas in the U.S., it’s owned by people who (I assume) don’t ski (some investment group in Utah).*  I have to spend some time in nearby Fairfield, ID for work over the next few months.  On our drive through town, I spotted the motel, the U of I extension office, and the school, all along the same main road.  It’s a small town, in the vast expanses of mountainous Idaho.  And, it's easy to pass on your drive to not-too-far-away, bigger, fancier ski areas.  I would know.  We passed it by for 12 years.  If Soldier was located next to a bigger town, it would be a totally legit, locals' hill.  As it is, I question its long-term viability.  They’ve added mountain bike trails recently, and run the lifts on the weekends in the summer.  That’s supposed to be good for business.  Maybe if they can actually capture the elite snowcat market, that’ll help.  So, maybe.  Hopefully.

Eino and I met at Crystal Mountain, when we both worked there.  We actually met over a year before we started dating.  I was working at the ski school sales desk before I became a full-time instructor, and he worked at the tune shop in the next room.  I’d say hi to him, but he didn’t say much.  He’s quiet is all, and I was dating somebody else and our paths didn’t cross much except briefly in the hallway.  My second year at Crystal, some of our mutual friends got it in their heads that we should date.  So, we hung out a few times, skied together with our mutual friends a few times.  Then, Eino asked me out.  I suggested we go skiing together on our day off, to which he responded, “That’s not really a date.”  And I said, “But it’s easy.”  So, on our first date, we skied together.  We had a great ski day, hiked the King and ate lunch at the mid-mountain lodge.  Our second date was a “real” date at a cute, little Italian restaurant in town with an over-attentive teenage waiter.  Our relationship was built around our love for our sport.  We’ve stayed together because we share more than this common interest, but skiing has been central to our relationship.  So, when I destroyed my knee 5 years ago, and then developed arthritis despite/because of my diligent rehab, skiing because something we could not share without lots of pain and anxiety.  It took me several years to accept that I was never going to get back to where I was.  Even if I replace the damn thing, I won’t be able to ski like I did.  And I need to put off the replacement as long as possible if I want to be able to walk when I’m 80.  I can still ski, but I can only handle not-steep groomers for an hour or two every other week or so.  At first, I doubted that I could still find enjoyment in the sport at this lower level.  First world problems, yeah, I know.  But it’s a part of my identity, so yeah, it matters to me.

Eino getting some nice angles. Photo by Amy.

I didn’t feel like skiing this year until about January.  But then, one day, I wanted to go.  I looked forward to the weekend that Eino and I could go up to the hill and make some turns together.  We did, and it was fun.  I didn’t over-do it, stopped before my knee started hurting, and made sure to do all the after-care that keeps my knee working okay enough.  And I’ve been able to ski several more times since then.  I skipped last weekend because my knee was kind of sore, but I’ll probably be able to go next weekend.  Eino doesn’t ski as hard or as long as he used to either, due to injuries.  But we can still ski together.  Last weekend at Soldier, he made a few runs while I taped up my knees and put on my boots in the lodge.  We skied about 6 runs together, ate chili in the lodge, then made a few more runs.  I quit for the day before he did because I was starting to hurt.  I hung out in the lodge, watched the staff and skiing public kick the snow off their boots—ski or cowboy—as they tromped through the lodge.  Eino took three more runs, then we stopped at the coffee shop on our way out of town.  We don’t ski like we used to, but we can still do it and we can still enjoy it together.

*Wikipedia, y’all

Ski Area Naming Department

Nakiska, near Kaninaskis. Say that 48 times fast.

They's some mighty boring names out there. Mt Snow.  I mean, come on, people.  Beaver Creek?  Copper Mountain? Winterplace? I live in Sleepeatplace, then. Willamette Pass? Is that, by chance, in Montana, near some random place? Nope. It's on. . . . .wait for it. . . . . .Willamette Pass.  Good job guys.  I know nobody gave (or gives) a toss about whether some stocky, bald, angry 40 something is going to smile ever so slightly at the lyricism of a given place name, or run name, but still.  Thankfully, not everybody went on break.

Where is it at? Mt Washington? Let's call it Mt Washington. I'm goin on break.

Herewith, some best ski area names. Fun, lyrical, weird, or otherwise interesting for one reason or other.

Nub's Nob, MI. Yawgoo Valley, RI. Frost Fire, ND. Hoodoo, OR. Mt Cheeseman, NZ, not cos it's original, as it's on Mt Cheeseman, but, dag. Good call just the same. Whakapapa.  Talk about lyrics.  That's right out of a late 50s rock song.

Bogus Basin, ID. You can't call us biased, cos there's a few conspicuous names not here.  Mt Ashland, for one. It's not bad, but, well, just a name. Crystal Mountain, Mt Baker, Buck Hill, all solid places, with great memories.  Mt Bachelor, Copper, Welch Village, all of em.  Timberline, while accurate, not interesting. Bogus, though, is fun.

How else can I make the joke about wanting real road work?

There's Trollhaugen, WI. Of course.  Craigleith, Craigieburn, and Cairngorms. Doesn't matter where they are, they sound legit. Granlibakken, Tawatinaw Valley, Rotarun, Skaneateles, Quoggy Jo, Cataloochee, Nakiska, Calabogie, Boogie Mountain, all just sound fun. Neither of us cares that Rotarun is a platter on the side of a small hill near Hailey, ID,

Some names just ring true, like SkiLand, or represent in a simple way, like Smuggler's Notch. Others are just fun, like Wild Mountain--Amy disagrees--Troll, Snow Snake, Mt Ski Gull, or Sky Tavern.

Some, however, make you wonder.  What is a Revelstoke? A Catamount? I learned recently that it's a real thing, just like a bearcat is real. It's a cougar, if you are wondering. Although it could be a lynx. Or a chupacabra. Taos, you ask? I don't know either.  Nor can Amy and I agree on how to actually pronounce it in the first place.  But it's memorable.

Many of these words and names are Indigenous words or names, some of which likely mean "Snowy Mountain".  That's fine.  They sound nice, enticing, descriptive, many things.  Certainly better than naming a giant 4300 metre volcano after Boring Admiral Peter or a ridgeline with great views and conspicuously skiable pitches after a prostitute's profile.  (Thanks, Targhee.)

Can't ski on a nighthawk, but it's a rad bird just the same, and a good name, too, also

Nighthawk, Skeetawk, Kicking Horse, Steeplechase, and Hogadon, they just roll off the tongue.  Or Loup Loup and Batawa, which is not near Matawa, WA. Or Skamakowa, WA for that matter.  Saskadena Six is a rename, but a historic name, too, much better than the interloper, Suicide Six. Even without the comparison, I wanna go just hearing the name. Same with Massanutten, although the joke writes itself with this one.  I'm pretty sure there's a there there, although it could be a mass of nothing.  Some day we'll find out. 

Mt Eyak and Hyak. Speaking of poorly renamed places, there's the dreamy Moon Valley, which is now known as a mostly boring Titus Mountain.  Hyak, if you don't know, is now "Summit East", being east of Snoqualmie Summit.  Sheesh.  No, Boyne, it just isn't.  IT'S F(*&#$)(*& HYAK AND Y'ALL CAN TAKE A LONG WALK OFF A DIVING BOARD INTO A HOT VAT OF ACID BAT TURDS.

Beartown, Owl's Head, Attitash, or as it was once, Attitash Bear, I don't know, there's just something about the words.  Jiminy Peak, Chicopea, Treble Cone.  I like ambition, too, like The Remarkables, or Big Snow American Dream.  Anyway, some food for thought.

Stone Ham, QC. Not just a pretty face.  Also hungry-making. Like Mt Packing Ham.

- -

- Joke's on you.  I know it's Stoneham.  And Pakenham.  Feigned ignorance is one of the best ways to push buttons.  I'm the youngest, so that's my job.  Pushing buttons, I mean.  Feigned ignorance is just a bonus.

- If you don't know Mitch, then you need to. Appliance Naming Department. Look it up, kids.  It, too, is on the internet.

Annual Resort Guide Brought to You by the 80s Audi Quattro and Their Oh-So-Reliable 5 Cylinder It's THE Ski Vehicle Don't Look at That Oil Puddle It's Fine

 With all "relevant"* ski rags gone, somebody's gotta take up the slack.  Challenge accepted.

Hayrick Butte is a tuya. Tuyas are formed when there's a volcanic blorp right up into an ice sheet or a glacier's business, such that that lava blorp cools quickly into this sorta flattop shape that's rad and if you'll notice, there's skiing right in front of you in this pic, which is not even a little coincidentally at Hoodoo.

Best of the West

1) Hoodoo.  I mean, really.  Volcanoes, volcanoes, volcanoes, volcanoes, volcanoes.  Did I mention the tuya? Have you SEEN a tuya?! Rad.  Oh, the skiing also happens to be really good. Well, not "happens", it just is.  Steep, deep, closer to the Valley than Bachelor, Cascady in all the ways, you got it.  No excuses.  Also, still got them Riblets, natch.  They didn't open in the Bad Year, but you could kayak up to the chairs a few times.

2) Brighton.  Yeah, sure, whatever, Big Bad Boyne, we don't care.  It's like Crystal in the 80s. Dank basements, funky chair alignments, and frickin awesome fall line schred monster skiing.  Seriously. Milly is, like, Big Sky except you don't gots ta deal with somebody correcting you on how to say BIG Sky.  BIG Sky, not Big Sky.  Grr.  Brighton is just, well, weird.  And that's how we like it.  Did I mention they got four hundred pow days last winter? No? They did. Plus nights, so that's like ten hundred pow days.

3) Discovery. You don't know where it is, and you don't know how big it is. It's big, and it's in the middle of nowhere.  Plus, skiing is rad, and also, it's big and in the middle of nowhere and trees and lotsa skiing and no detaches and maybe a little or a medium lot weird and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL

4) Beaver. Amy says it's number one, and she's right, but I already put Hoodoo there and I don't know how to work this thing. Anyway, Beaver is magical.  Marge Seeholzer is (from experience) a well-spoken, kind, observant woman.  The best sort of folk whom you always want to meet at a ski joint.  And her family has been running it since the beginning, with Marge's son Travis nominally at the helm, though they still say Marge is the boss.  The skiing is good, too, long cruisers, steep trees, legendary Utah pow, views of the Bear River Range, moguls when you want em, but it is simply being there that makes it.  There isn't any adequate description, and I think that's a pretty high compliment.  When you think Utah, think Beaver.  Seriously.  You will punch me for not telling you sooner.

5) Mt Baldy. Not that one, the other one.  No, not in Canada, in LA.  Seriously.  You think I'm joking, but you forget that a) skiing is rad wherever you do it and b) MOUNT FRICKIN SAN FRICKIN ANTONIO.  IT'S TEN MILLION FEET TALL. There's old lifts, weird terrain, funky locale, and the obvious advantage of being somewhere no one will believe you've skied.  There's interesting conifers, incredible views, funk, the sheer madness of skiing thirteen feet from your front door in Ontario, don't miss it.

6) Snow King. There's a really good Korean restaurant, the best just about anywhere, and they have these rice triangles that are wrapped in seaweed and you can get either vejies or spicy tuna and they're the perfect after skiing snack and there's like a playground and a hockey rink and the sun doesn't rise until April so you know it's steep AF and the runs are narrow and

Amy at the magickest joint in all of Idaho. Nevada, Washington, Texas, too.  Any state or region except Vermont.  Then we fightin.

Not the West

1) Buck Hill.  Just cos I grew up there.  And that's why.  And I have many fond memories.  Yeah, I mean, Lindsey Vonn, Paula Moltzan, Kristina Koznick. It's close to the Burnsville Mall, and you can watch ice fishing from all the runs.  It's just across the street. And there are fireflies, which Eino doesn't believe in cos he never seent em.  Amy claims "they aren't there in winter," which makes Eino even more suspicious.

2) Mont Ripley. It's in the UP, which is the Napa of the Midwest, if Napa were actually a cool place and if it were cold and got hit with up to 400 inches in the best years and you go places on snowmachines as much as possible, and there's Michigan Tech, and Ripley is pretty darn steep, when it comes down to it.  Also, pasty.  Did you know there's a pasty trail? It's like a beer trail, except, you know, not boring. And good.  Pasty is good. Mont Ripley is good.  I seent it once. Gramma Linnea grew up just north of there.  Lake Laurium, Calumet, somewhere thereabouts.  By the Trap Rock. Also LAKE EFFECT IT DON'T GET NO HIPPER THAN LAKE EFFECT YEEEAAAAAAAHHHH SUCK ON IT REED TIMMER.

3) Trollhaugen.  They do it right in Wisco.  Or as they say it Utah, WESconsin.  It's cold when it's not not cold, except in summer, when it's always not cold.  At least Amy says so.  It's right near the river, not far from Wild Mountain. You can turn both ways and stop there, and like we said earlier, skiing is better than not skiing.  The separation is like if you live in Florida, that's not skiing, and if you went to Wisconsin, that's skiing.  That's how much better skiing is that not skiing, and Trollhaugen IS skiing.  Right to the core, don't ask questions, just go.  In fact, why aren't you already there? You do know they are one of the only 100% Borvig-lineage mountains that isn't Bluewood, don't you? 

4) Wild Mountain.  They are sometimes the first open in October.  Before A Basin, Kidneystones, The Beast, whatever.  Just upstream and across the La Croix River, that storied, bubbly, tasty, refreshing river that raises in the wilds of North Wisco, which Amy canoed on back in the day, into which she fell, possibly, which Louis Hennepin is said to have said they called le Rîvięrë Tombeaux, which is Frenchist for Le River Tombeaux. Hennepin was Belgianist, so who knows. Anyway, Wild Mountain is tucked away nicely upcountry from the Cities, on the west bank of the the La Croix, naturally essenced by the trees and at a slower pace.  Not all that coincidentally, as recently as last year, Wild was a 100% Borvig mountain, too, but they're building a new Skytrac, so, not quite as cool as they could be.  I still root for em every October. Giver, Wild! Rip that manmade! Skiing here is better than not skiing, and to be honest, give me the choice of Vail or Wild for the rest of my turns, you know which I'll choose. Vail can take a flying leap at a rolling nuclear doughnut.

5) Perfect North. They batted 1.000 when it came to Riblets, until this summer.  A quick drive from Cincinatti, they're almost Appalachian and almost midwest, and I dig me some edge-of-the-world bordertown shit. They are at the moment a well-run org, with at least one other small area in their portfolio, which sounds like a weird thing to put in a best-of list except that they are among the only independent joints in the Eastern Midwest, so I say GIVE EM HELL, MR PERFECT. Also, they have snow, and snow is fun, and skiing on snow is fun, and lifts are fun, and if you live nearby, then ring up an afternoon of turns and Riblets and you will never be disappointed.

This is a turkey. Right down the street from the house in Historic North End BoyCee, Idaho.

East of the Beast

1) Sugar. I mean, really.  There's turns, there's lifts, there's a big college with some rad football history, and one of the ugliest buildings in any mountains which you can hate and complain about or actually do something positive about, like firebombing.  Anyway, the skiing does get steep, and I totally know a guy who skied there in college. The summit is higher than any skiing in Vermont.  Which makes me laugh.  Everybody's like "skiing? When you list skiing, Vermont is like top ten." But yeah, Sugar's higher than Mansfield and all of Vermont--which literally means Green Mountain, so like Vermont the Green Mountain State is like Boise, City of trees, which is Trees, City of Trees--and within spittin elevation of Marcy and Katahdin, otherwise known as the tallest hills in Maine and New York, or something like that. Anyway, back in 2002, me and Brian Terwilliger of App State and Sugar Mountain agreed on a race cos he banged gates and I was a ski bum and he thought he'd be faster.  I tole im I'd race on any ski, and he could also choose the race, and he told me to grab whatever I thought was faster and we'd tuck from the top of 5 to the bottom; in good Baker fashion, we were turning for directional purposes only.  I've weighed north of 200 my entire adult life, and I had a pair of 197 Igneous givin er skis, and he was on his 165 cm slalom sticks, all 145 pounds with gear.  Somehow, I won.  Musta been skill.  Not physics, nope, not at all.

2) Yawgoons.  You just gotta.  If you don't this year, you'll be one year older when you do.  And if you can ski here, you can ski anywhere.  Also, there's some snowboarders there who done got some creativity like no other.  And a questionable obsession with corrugated pipe. Rhode Island, man, it's the future.

3) Saddleback.  It's frickin gorgeous, and it's frickin independent. And big, imposing, steep, varied, everything us snobby Westerners claim we are. They get all the Mainer weathers, the peak is exposed, and they ain't nut'n like it. I'd be more effusive, but it's unnecessary. When you think Beast Coast, if Saddleback isn't on your radar, you're wrong, and I don't know you. You probly drink apple juice that isn't from Washington and think Crystal Pepsi was a genius idear that just needed the right marketing touch.

4) Owl's Head.  It's named after a guy who looked like an owl. Not that the hill looks like an owl. It's in the Cantons de l'Est, which is Canadian Frenchist for Cantons de the East.  Picture yourself in France around the time of the Revolution.  Heads are rolling in the streets, there's barricades, Jean Valjean is singing to Penelope Cruz, things is happening. Anne Hathaway just got a haircut, and Jean Reno is driving a Renault. Y'know? Anyway, say you're on the Left Bank of the Seine, selling loose joints to tourists. These tourists don't know French Fries from French Toast, nor why those terms are both incorrect. Now, within this hallucination, sit down at a cafë, that one right there.  Close your eyes, and imagine all of this is gone and you're in the countryside, with spotty but impressive hills surrounding you at distances, and snow on the ground, and skiing. Now you're feelin it.  There's Jack Chirac over there, in a sweater and cap, Gauloise hanging jauntily from his lower lip like Andy Capp, skis slung over his shoulder. In the distance you can see Sylvain Soudan and Tessa Worley and Johan Clarey rippin the grooms under the Panorama quad, just layin them tracks like they was Leland Stanford scamming the US taxpayers.  Something like that.

5) The Jay Waterpark. Nothing says skiing like not skiing.

6) Titus.  This one is real.  I mean, I'd rather it was still called Moon Valley, but I ain't the one owning it.  Titus is upstate, basically in the Eastern Townships of QC, but not really cos it isn't l'Est enough.  Situated kinda like a farm where one farmer stitches together pasture from a few different plots and makes do with walking his cows across the street every so often cos that's just what you gotta do sometimes.  Spread across three knolls--with a gravel pit at one end å łã Number 4 in The Rockies Tee Em Terry Peak and the Wharf Mine--it takes a little imagination and perseverance to ski everything in one fell swoop.  It gets cold up north on the Salmon River, which, by the way, unlike that one out west, doesn't have sharks, and that's what skiing is for. Titus isn't huge, 200 acres, give or take, but they have 1200 or so vertical and a good variety of tree-lined runs, both cruising and gettin after it.  Lastly, and probly like third most importantly, there's an Owl's Head nearby.  That counts for something here in BoyCee, as does the maple syrup operation that serves up 5000 gallons every year, according to NY Ski Blog.  Pancakes, man. The best way to eat syrup.  Unless you count waffles.  Maybe doughnuts.  Anyway, get some.

Not skiing doesn't get you here.

The Lower Left

1) Somehow, people don't consider California to be the Southwest, even though they are the southest and westiest. So this'll be the "American Southwest", or, like, whatever we say it is.

2) Spider Mountain.  There's no skiing here, but there's a used Poma quad that came from the degens upcountry in Taos. You slap them berms on yer 180mm schredd sledd. The chair spacing is stupid close together, so you can, I don't know, toast yer buds.

3) Mt Lemmon.  They have a stuffed bear secured to a chair that the internet mistook for a real bear.  Also, the southern-most lift-served in the Lower 48. Also named after a delicious summer beverage that is best when accompanied by raspberries.

4) Lee Canyon.  It's basically in downtown Vegas, except you'd never know it cos there's ridiculous cool mountains and big canyons and it's steep and it snows and unfortunately, it gets hit by hurricanes from time to time. I think Kimberly-Clark would call that "unique complexities", but then, real skiers aren't corporate asshats who take their kleenex and leave the entire country of Canada to rub snot off on their sleeves. If you are a corporate asshat and also happen to ski, then you probly aren't who acquaintance of the blog and powder pontiff (powntiff?!) Jackson Hogan is speaking to.  Next time you're thinking of throwing your money away gambling, plan it for winter, bring yer gear, and forget the slots.  Once again, skiing in one of the least likely places to ski is worth its weight in kruppsu.

5) Cloudcroft. Named after a local town, the name of which I can't remember, it's a joint Peter Landsman calls "small but mighty". It's the southernmost ski area in the Lower 48 that isn't Mt Lemmon, it's got a single, steep Von Roll double, and it's near White Sands, which is, like, a Mad River Glen for crazies. Cloudcroft is pretty high, and also it's up there in elevation. (Huh huh. That's a joke, cos like, hippie lettuce is legal in NM.) There's some pine, some aspen, which you can tell because of the way that it is, and meadows that look like they'd make nice pasture land for Angus and Hereford. Just remember, if you can ski here, you can ski anywhere.

6) Brian Head. The name strikes fear into paranoiacs and LSD lifers alike.  I mean, what is a Brian Head? Is it a human dude? Does he work for the NSA?! HOW DO I GET AWAY FROM THE MICROWAVES!!!! There's some rad skiing, not as close to Vegas as Lee Charleston, but a doable day trip. Giant Steps should attract them mythical "experts", with its complex references to Coltrane and Sting when they were on Apollo 11 with Michael Collins.

7) Hesperus.  It's the Smallest Skiing in ColoRADo tee em. Unless somewhere else is, like maybe Kendall. You can see it from the highway into Durango when your Subaru is Death Rattling its way along, sounding like a fireplace poker in a steel tube, which, not coincidentally, is basically what is actually going on. Built to Last will slam a new engine in there for you if you ask nicely, but it'll cost a bunch. Plus, you'll probly need a clutch, cos that's buried between the engine and the transmission (go figure, right?) in an inaccessible way such that no matter what, you gots to yank one or the other to get to it, and like, your "warranty" won't cover it cos you changed your own oil, and you'll just be stuck in town, too scared to ask the neighbourhood bike joints if you can build bikes for cash so you don't have to take the Greyhound home, which, just so we're clear, takes about 34 hours and is super boring, and there's ex-cons in some of the seats but they got good stories and seem harmless which hopefully they are, and one rodeo cowboy from Ontario, and when you switch busses in Stanfield, near the melon places, it ain't in some fancy bus stop like it was in Salt Lake, it's literally the side lot of a Pilot next to Interstate 84, comfortable as a burnt sticky bun in a Finnish sauna, and the only seat is yer backpack, and there's STILL eight or nine hours to go.

Large pumpkin the size of a small pumpkin.  Some pumpkin farmers in Enumclaw and Sumner would like a word.

The Best Ones We Didn't Put Elsewhere

1) Mauna Kea. You know you dream of flying to the subtropics on a whim to hitchhike with Science Hippies up to the Observatory to get thirteen mediocre turns before the snow melts. Wait. That is exactly what I want right the heck now, more than just about anything besides kruppsu with lingonberry and gravlax on the side.  Bring on the tradewinds!!!!

2) Hilltop. It's in Anchorage, which is like, almost BC, so get to it.  You fly into Ted Stevens--don't ask me how, cos he's dead, but that's what they claim; Alaskans are weird--and then start yelling YO WHERE HILLTOP AT and eventually you'll be skiing in a nice urban park. There are huge mountains in Alaska, and tons of snow, and Hilltop is skiing on neither of those, but it's skiing and we all know that skiing is absolutely frickin worth it, every time.

3) Sundown Mountain, Iowa. Like many good Midwesty ski houses, there's an ambitious name, some fun groomers, a little history, trees, and it's situated on a big river bank.  In this case, it's the Little Maquoketa River. Bring your slalom sticks, and make lots of turns.  They'll be fun, you'll be skiing, and you'll probly more than a little smug about it.

You probly like weird sports, too.

* Ski Journal is still around, still doing good stuff, at least as of {checks the Instabox} 31W ago. It's just not as popular as Ski/Skiing or Powder were.

The turkey stared me down, got me to back up and take another street.  Urban wild turkeys got no fs to give, man, I swear to Tyler Childers.

I guess you just know

 

Lowest maxima is 94 degrees American.  And it's 100 degrees at 9.20pm, by the way.  AND WE DON'T LIVE IN !!@*!!(U(&#$ ARIZONA ARRRRRGGGGHHH.

Anyway.  Time was I'd count the short weeks until the gear guides started filling up whatever random slots on the magazine rack the magazine lady chose that year.  I can still see her form, her ghost.  Mags aren't around anymore.  I'd say we're worse off, but there's so much waste in this world that it's a small price to pay for less landfill.  I doubt I was alone in this.  I'd memorise sidecut dimensions, topsheets, who'd stopped making a good ski in favour of a less good ski.  I catalogued as much as I could, and never skied anything in the pages unless I could scam a demo out of one of the hillside shops, which was rare.  Sometimes I'd pony up for a paid day, with whatever was left that week from the third (very part time) job at the gas station before Jeff closed it, or with what should have been overtime except the State ain't care if your OT is overage at two jobs.

Opening Day skis.  A long way from today.

The King County Fair ran for a few days in July.  Some years, it was pretty good.  Saw the Kentucky Headhunters there.  Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  Pam Tillis, although I admit that was more cos it was some lady on the radio than a show I actually wanted to see.  Then, in what was usually the hottest time of year, The Highland Games.  I never knew what went on in there, growing up.  By the time I was in high school, we got recruited to march around in front of the Gathering of the Clans.  If you are wondering, it's not a scary race war cult, it's big Sottish families, going back to the old country.  Lots of tartan, kilts, double-snared drums, sooooo many pipes.  Piper John McBride, if I remember correctly, would tune up during the Massed Bands, before our tiny drum and bugle and flute band would lead the clans.  I think his sister was some muckity muck with the Games or like knew Secretary of State Ralph Munro, so he was like a really big deal.  And no, he was not in tune.  Not once.  I mean, bagpipes.  That's pretty much their thing.  

One year, I borrowed a kilt from my friend Peter, who was much taller, plus I got them short Sámi femurs, so I had to hitch all 8 yards of Shetland wool way above the traditional just-higher-than-normal-trousers waistline in order to not be wearing a dowdy old lady skirt.  Wool is hot, even if there's an opening for the breeze that never comes.  

The first time I marched with that scrappy little band of teenaged nerds, I was between 8th and 9th grades.  I played the bass drum that year, and Judy the Director brought along the big one.  Holy crap, I couldn't even see over it.  I went from being the starting varsity centre the previous October to tripping over a Doug fir root by the fairgrounds admin office.  Good thing Peter hadn't loaned me the kilt that year.

The last time I marched around in front of all the clans, I was helping my older brother Eli.  He somehow got saddled with directing the band even though he didn't have credentials or a degree or whatever it is you need to walk in a rectangle with 20 or so fellow nerds following you.  I'd skipped work at the hill, to my boss' eternal dismay.  Seriously, I bet he hadn't forgiven me when he got fired by Alterra whenever that was.  He had probly forgot long ago, but still hadn't forgiven.  He and I never got along, which, well, who knows how that shit goes.  I know I had a big hand in that, but he was a terrible boss, irresponsible, lazy, drunk, the works.  Any time somebody defends him, I remind myself of stepping into the work chair at the top of 4, first day I ever did line work.  He gestured toward a lanyard--not that I knew what it was--thrown down on the ramp, and said "There's a lanyard if you want."  No harness, no instruction, not even so much as a smartass "Hopefully your belt loop will hold you."  I was a 19 year old kid, scared as shit, wondering just how much it hurts to fall off an angled Riblet tower from 30 feet up.  I got real competent at holding myself up with my right foot hooked behind my left, my thighs squeezing the cross arm.  I'm still surprised I didn't end up with a broken back in the grass on Quicksilver.

Anyway, Eli'd asked if I could march with the snare, not a double, unfortunately, just the same beat-up high school drum I played Junior and Senior year after Mercer graduated and I got the good snare.  The boss claimed they were rigging for a resplice on new Chair 3.  Supposedly it was all hands on deck, which should have included Peter Case, who was one of the hill's only halfway decent big machine operators.  When I saw Peter at the Games, he just said "we were never gonna get that done this weekend."  The boss fired me, and that was that.  Maybe I didn't need to follow my brother John into that career, but I still haven't forgiven him.  I have never since been able to stay in the mountains long-term, and he had a direct hand in that.  He kept me from getting a Patrol job, kept me from any sort of year-round work at the hill. 22 years later, I'm still bitter about that.  I still don't like working inside, don't like working in town.

It's that time of year, now, isn't it?

Back in them days, y'know, with the magazines, I don't know, I had fun arguing with the resort guides.  Still do.  I mean, the pages had to stand in during these arguments for the writers, those privileged jerks who got paid to ski at this joint or that, who lived in exotic places like Jay or Truckee or, like, Ogden.  They always seemed to hold the keys to the kingdom, and they got it wrong every time.  I mean, Vail?! Really? Vail sucks.  As does Sun Valley.  The skiing's aight, I guess, but weren't they always arguing that skiing was only part of the equation?  If that's the case, then Vail sucks.  The town is a pile of corporate-owned schlock.  There's no there there.  You want a nice place, try Bethel, Maine.  Gibbonsville, Idaho.  Duluth.  Calumet.  Banner Elk.  You know the places; not really accessible in any real sense, not somewhere you could live, and yet, just maybe.  An actual dream, rather than uniformity and upwardly mobile bullshit.  You can argue all you want that the value is at a place like Deer Valley, where the beer flows like wine.  Or Aspen, where skiers flock like carp to an electric boat.  The vertical, the detaches, the groomers, the, well, the wine and cheese and allegedly-Norwegian sweaters.  I can't be clear enough, though.  They are flat wrong.

Not Beaver Creek, not Whistler, not Stowe, not Big Sky.  And if you turn around, there's a giant stratovolcano looking on.

Those resort guides, with their hackneyed pseudoscientific rankings and pretty people schussing for the camera.  The same rankings every year.  For some, even the ever hallowed Alta would rank like 45th in the Rockies, and that high only because of something ephemeral like "history" or the Goldminer's Daughter.  I'd sit there at the kitchen table, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Labour Day sales, wondering what the heck these turd farmers were getting paid for.  Not journalism, not really.  I'd say "how can you miss Maverick?" Or "What do you mean Stowe is empirically better than Smuggs?"

None of these things matter, of course, and it was an exercise in internalising futility.  And, if I am completely honest, given a stack of cash and a guaranteed byline, I, too, would probly find a way to talk about how The Place That Shall Not Be Named is a good value cos, I don't know, no hotels?  The Shoot'n Star?  It never ceased to get me going, the Resort Guide.  Didn't matter what rag, whose byline, what shimmering imagery.  I'd get riled up, think about how I knew better even when I hadn't yet traveled far or wide even.  I'd get so wound up, it'd be 2 in the mornin' and I'd be firing off letters in my head to Rob Story or Jackson Hogen (I met that guy once, crazy, interesting, a little weird, and above all, a phenomenal skier I could not keep up with, his age be damned) or whoever it was.

The legendariest burger in all the land: Star Burger, Shoot'n Star, Huntsville, Utah.  Take off, all you hosers who ruined Utah for us.  This is what I miss the most.  Certainly more than the Greatestest Snow On All Of The Earth Tee Em.  That, in particular, was a disappointment on the order of Californication, or, I don't know, Atomic shrinking the Big Daddy.

It's an easy and silly thought experiment, this.  It's August, the Resort Guides of yore long lost to the dustbins of corporate earnings reports and ad revenue charts.  There's nobody to argue with.  Leslie Anthony is probly off throwing rocks at telewhackers.  The Shoot'n Star is still there, but so are many folks I want nothing to do with.  The Elk sold to some hipster hotel magnate.  Skiing is far off, both in time and in space.  I could hoof it off to T-line, or hope there's still a strip up some northeasterly coulee in the Sawteeth.  Neither is really possible with my split weekend and minimal ambition.  Everything is hypothetical.

It's here that I'd usually fire off some utterly off-the-cuff list of esoteric joints with explanations of why they--say, Magic Mountain down south of Twin, or Beaver out east of Logan, or Giant's Ridge up northwest of Duluth--were the pinnacle.  Anthony Lakes on a sunny Friday after a midweek dump, cos, y'know, they're only open weekends.  You know the drill, though.  Nothing's really new, and that's totally fine.  Good, even.  I crave routine, even if I feel trapped by it.  I enjoy a new song by a familiar artist, and a new turn on a familiar pitch.

Familiar places, familiar faces.  Huh huh.  That's funny cos the pitch facing us (HA!) is called The Face.

For a couple summers, I can't think now how many, but too many, I worked in the Enumclaw Safeway.  I pushed carts for way longer than I should have.  When I finally got a checker job, it was temporary, cos by winter they'd scaled me back to one four hour shift a week.  When I got the promotion, I dove in head first.  Memorised like fortyleven produce codes.  Got my average items per bag up to like eleventeen.  When I was in the express lane, my line would never get past three people.  It didn't matter.  Winter comes for us all, for good and ill.  Mostly good.  Here' hoping the next one is above average.

Saddleback, Maine.  Seriously.  How can you not?!

- -

Indulge me here:

Tyler Mahan Coe has an incredible podcast about country music.  Find it here.  Don't recognise his name?  I bet you do if you think hard enough.  I bring this up because he likes to add liner notes, named after all the stuff artists or labels or management types would add to albums in order to enhance the experience, or educate you, or simply (Radiohead and Tool, here's to you) confuse the shit out of you.  Following are some of my own.

- Powder Magazine isn't fully gone, but having a website and emailing ad copy does not a magazine make.  Time was, it was the best.  It was specifically Powder I'd wait for, right at the beginning of August.  I don't remember if the first episode always came out then, but close to it.  Maybe the 10th or the 15th.  It didn't matter, cos I would go by the Safeway every chance I got to see if the Magazine Lady had updated her display.  Seriously, there's only so much Orange-Carrot Sobe one can buy before folks get suspicious.

- Some of the magazines, Ski in particular, really did get it all wrong.  Those pseudo-scientific listicles I mentioned were sheer dreck.  "Customer driven", or somesuch corporate nonsense, they called it.  They'd survey folks at the ski areas, then use the results to rank the contenders.  You can bet they didn't sit outside the Pioneer Lodge at Bogus asking Emmett lokes whether Brundage or Soldier was better if graded on scales regarding the quality of cutlery in the cafeteria or the symmetry of the tiller courds on the groomers.  They really added nothing to the conversation, just a circular handshake where Deer Valley would pay for copious ad space and Ski would use that money to go survey every single clueless New Yorker with money in the Stein Erickson Lodge and of course they'd say Deer Valley was the best cos they literally only skied at DV and wanted to use the platform to justify their expenditure, and besides, had no clue what else was out there, even in their own state, which has such incredible places as Titus, Plattekill, Gore, and Whiteface.  Not to mention the other twelveteen million ski areas in the state.  Seriously.  New York has the most ski areas of any state in the Union.  Suck on that, Colorado.  Deer Valley could then say in their ads "RANKED NUMBER ONE BY SKI MAGAZINE," and clueless tourists with money would keep flocking there like the Salmon of Capistrano. Vomit emoji. Poop emoji.

- Thing is, although I don't like to admit it, the skiing at DV and SV is real good.  Like, uff da.  Long, clean fall line, well planned, lifts where you hope they'd be, it's just, I don't know, still not enough. If I'm tryna fall asleep at night, it ain't the new Cold Springs lift I'm thinking of.  It's Chair 1 at Loveland. Or Chair 1 at Baker. Chair 1 at Lookout, Mt Spokane, Lost Trail, Bogus, Dodge Ridge, Donner Ski Ranch. Chair 1 at Hyak or White, if you wanna go that far back. Mission. Silver. 49 North. You get the drill.

- Herewith, just cos, a bunch of rad joints.  If there's a big name in a state, I offer these as counterpoints.  If there is not, then by all means, ski here or anywhere there:

- Eaglecrest. Mt Spokane. Kelly's. Hoodoo. Sky Tavern. Bear Valley. Sunrise Park. Nordic Valley. Snowy Range. Blacktail. Huff Hills. Terry Peak. Powderhorn. Pajarito. Mt Crescent. Mt Kato. Trollhaugen. Caberfae. Chestnut. Perfect North. Gatlinburg. Sugar. Wintergreen. Canaan. Snow Trails. Bear Creek. Kissing Bridge. Southington. Yawgoo Valley. Jiminy Peak. Saskadena. Cranmore. Bigrock. There's no option in Missouri cos Vail owns both joints. How that's not a monopoly, I do not know.

- Title from James McMurtry's Bad Enough.  It sounds good this time of year.  Most of his music does.

Best I Ever Had

Epic Friday pre-work turns on the most epic beginner hill this side of Mt Baker.  Chair 7 Extreme, Bogus Basin, ID. 

Did I mention it was late April? BURL SICK GNAR CORE BRO.

 

Unofficial Networks must be bored.  They have a list of places with some good powder skiing, pasted up there like some sorta divine revelation.  Real shocking list.  Japan, Revy, Japan, Alta.  I hope whoever done writ that shit made them big bills.  I mean, the journalism required.  Staggering.  Or if it's AI I hope they give up turn the whole shebang over to the robots.

I think this is what the kids useta call "powpow"? I mean, like, Snowboard Museum Guy's contrail is billowy and stuff. 

With little further ado, here's our list:

ANYWHERE THEY IS GOOD SNOW WHEN YOU SKIING IN THAT PLACE WITH THE GOOD GOOD POWDER SNOW THAT YOU ARE SKIING ON THAT MIGHT AT OTHER TIMES NOT BE GOOD BUT HEY RIGHT NOW ITS F@*()&$)*(&ńŻ(#(*%))(* YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAW

That's what I'm talkin abote. Suck it, Copper.

Just remember, if you don't do it this year, you'll be one year older when you do.  And if you can ski here, you can ski anywhere.

This cat knows.

Title from a song Gary Allan had a hit with in 2005 that was originally recorded by the late-90s epic AI-rock band Vertical Horizon. Don't think too too hard abote it.  It wasn't that good.

Shoot. I just realised that back in the day I made the same number of turns on the King on teles that I did on Chair 7 Extreme. Anybody got a time machine?

The pilgrimage has gained momentum.

By Eino Holm

Unofficial Networks, aka the Bestest Ski Blog Site in the Whole Woild, has a thumbtacked post, or whatever, on their blog currently.  Something about a hajj or, like, what y'alls is sposeta do as major skier broskis.  It's funny.  Like, who are you to tell ME what to do, Matt?! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!?! I AM THE BEST SKIER ON THE MOUNTAIN.

I check all the cornices.

Anyway, what makes me laugh about all of these listicles, along with the twin facts that some jackass made up a cutesy and annoying term for them and that they still somehow exist, is the confidence with which folks post them.  #1 is Corbet's, natch, cos, y'know, intermediate-skier folks should book a trip, waste thousands, just to stare down into a very steep, incredibly challenging chute with a SORRY I KNOW IT'S A COOOL-WAHR mandatory air and realise they were lied to.  That skiing just isn't that easy, and that maybe, just maybe, some dud dude on the internet isn't really all that knowledgeable.

The list continues, with some random chair out east, a junk show in Tahoe, my least favourite ski area in Utah, and Alyeska.  Honourable Mention is Baker, which, well, maybe? But also maybe not, for the same reasons as Corbet's.  Baker can kill you.  (More so than most places can, not like when somebody does a routine crash and happens into a tree, which can happen anywhere, but like when a person makes a misguided but innocent left at the bottom of the Chair 5 side of Hemispheres and falls off a 200 footer and isn't seen until August.)  Let's be honest.  Most of us just want to ski.  I can speak for precisely nobody else, but since everybody does, I'll try anyway:  if I'm spending money, it's not to ride a chair folks claim is from the 40s (spoiler: it has been updated to the point where it's real dern challenging to claim it's older than my father) or to get all confused when tryna figure out Olympic Valley's crazy Spaghetti Bowl of chairs and trams and--wut?!?!--funitels and base areas and mid-mountain lodges just to get hosed by another northeast Pacific cyclone that comes in hot, but just a wee bit too far north and closes all the legit terrain with some righteous Pineapple Expressery.  If I'm spending money to ski, especially if it's at the end of a hajj, it ain't gonna be shit people do all the time.

The Back Bowls at Vail.  Supposed quiet and solitude.  People pay for this, and travel cross country.  Wut.

Here's my top 10, cos I'm too cool for just 5, with a predictable-for-me amount of uncertainty and unwillingness to say one is better than another:

- Shasta.  Seriously.  Squallywood is just up I-80 from SF, and there's like lots of houses rich folk use at least 10 days a year and there's like a lake and lots of fancy lights over on the Nevada side and basically Palisades is fine if you are looking to fulfill someone else's dream, but let's be honest: you are not Shane, and you are not Ingrid, and you are not Jonny.  Neither am I.  Save yer money, and Drive North.  (Your choice, John Hiatt or Suzy Boguss.)  Mt Shasta City is funky, weird, cool, foreign, dirty, in the trees, and, simply, not annoying like Tahoe.  Tahoe would be rad without, well, being Tahoe.  Plus, there's Pinus attenuata and Abies x shastensis on them hills. Weird is better, believe me. Also, too, as well, you just might be the best skier on the mountain, and you absolutely will not be on KT. And did you hear they built a new chair and people think it's hard to access cos you have to--gasp--ski there? Seriously.  You should read the Instagram comments.  "BUILD ME A BUS OUT OF A SNOWCAT AND PUT CARPET ON THE FLOOR AND A FEATHER BED SO I CAN GO SKI GREY BUTTE."  "I WANT A TOW ON A SLED BUT LIKE, WITH EXTRA SPECIAL SNOW PROTECTION AND MAYBE A GLASS OF PORT AND A DOG TO CUDDLE WITH COS I WANNA SKI GREY BUTTE." It's funny, but I don't get it.  Last time I was there, one simply ducked off the back side of Coyote and skied fall line to the bottom of the butte, where the chair is now.  Hm.

- Woof Crick.  I mean, how, Matt, did you miss Col-o-RAD-o?!?!?!? Everybody knows, when you list skiing, Colorado is number 1.  And, natch, Woof Crick isn't in one of your fancy multiverses or even part of the Colorado ski area exchange.  One of the chairs is called Treasure Stoke, and aren't all skiers all about the stoke?  Seriously, though, Woof Crick isn't near anything.  CW McCall aside, nobody outside knows where Woof Crick Pass even is, even, and outside of ski mag nostalgists and nerds nobody cares if there's skiing outside of Telluride or Aaahspen or Vail or Summit or Steamboat.  Or Winter Park.  (Okay, so, CO is pretty well-known.)  Anyway, to get to Woof Crick, if you are the jetsetting type, you gotta fly into Farmington UT NM (KFMN) and start asking for rides.  If you just think "it's in Colorado" and book a seat in a giant wingèd tube bound for Stapleton, you'll then be looking through the rental catalogues hoping for an Escalade with good gas mileage, cos it's a loooong damn way to the other side of the hill. Hence, hajj.  You go through places like the real South Park, Gunbarrel Station, Saguache (important cos you probly can't say it correctly), and Poncha Springs.  You'll cross the Rubicon Rio Grande, be humming Woof Crick Pass, way up on the Great Divide, truckin on down the other side, except that you don't hafta truckin on down the other side cos Woof Crick is right there on the pass.  You'll get confused again cos, of course, you'll think you're in Canada.

- Bormio.  (Seriously, Matt, how did you not Europa?) It's near the Stelvio, and, like der Schweiz, and Österreich, and when you can fly into Milano, flounder about like a tourist, try to find a Stelvio to drive up way into the Ortlers on a road called STRADA DEL PASSO DELLO STELVIO HOW COOL IS THAT.  Anyway, I got lost.  Just go.  It takes forever, and people do pilgrimages, like the real kind, through Italia all the time.  You heard it here first.

Everyone knows you hafta drive an Alfa if you are a skier.  Or something like that.

- Okay, I'll admit it, Mad River Glen (MRG) is cooler than most places.  I'd like to go there.  There's probly at least a little bit of pilgrimage-type travel involved.  Still, if I gotta go all that way, the first place in Vermont I'm skiing is Owl's Head, QC.  I mean, it's named after a dude called Owl.  And it's in Canada.  That's like, if you're going to Vermont, but you forgot and just kept going and then some Sirens called out and you took the boat into shore, and then you woke up from your dream and found some real nice poutine and hopefully a Trois Pistoles.  Seriously.  Also, I've seen pictures of the view from that place.  And it's next to Lake Memphremagog, which is a pilgrimage just saying it and also, it's kinda like Gog and Magog, and that's all sorta connotations right there.

- Bigrock, Maine.  It's way up there.  A long way from anywhere except the NWS office in Caribou.  I think you can see Canadia from the top of the big Mueller double.  I know, I know, you can see Cannuckistan from lots of ski areas, like Baker, Bromont, Mont Bechervaise, Whistler, Lake Louise, Mount Saint Louis Moonstoone, Stoneham, et al.  But those places are all IN Canada.  Just ask the locals.

That one peak at the back is in Canada and that's all that's needed, thank you very much.

Photo credit: Peter Landsman, Lift Blog.

- Lofoten.  Just go.  Seriously.  Stop arguing with me.  Say hi to my family, too, if there are any of us left in Skutvik.  Skutvik's across the water, but there's a ferry.  My grandma's cousin Bodvar painted there, and, probly not coincidentally, that part of my family is the Skutvik part.  Like, that's literally our name.  If you don't believe me, then you can take a flying f

- Manning Park.  Before you ask "where's Manning Park?" just listen.  YOU CAN SEE HOZOMEEN FROM THERE AND THAT'S LIKE JACK FRICKIN KEROUAC AND SHIT AND GOOOOOOGLE MERTH SAYS IT'S 42,753 FEET AS THE RAVEN FLIES (seriously, why do we care how the crow flies when ravens are so much cooler?!) WHICH IS LIKE, I DON'T KNOW, SOME MILES.* AND, since we're talking about long walks drives, Manning Park is a Wet Side ski joint on the Dry side of the Cascades.  Think about THAT.  I bet you didn't even know there were Cascades in Canadia.  It's a bit of a drive, 160k from Abby, and is in the Similkameen drainage, which drains to the east and is like, International and stuff.  Also a cool name.  And even though this beautiful Murray-Latta is no more, the views are unstoppable.  Did I mention Keraouc?

That's more like it.  Manning Park, BC, and yes, Hozomeen.  The big one right there.  Next to the other big ones.  Keraouc sat in a really cool shed at the top of a small peak behind that one peak, actually more of a ridgeline, and wrote a real complainy book about being lonely even though it was his choice and he was like sposeta be seeing God or something? Anyway, he missed the point so that you can get the point.  Now, go take on the day.

- Discovery, Montana.  It's in the middle of nowhere.  It's the biggest joint in the country without a detach.  If it isn't, I don't care, it still is in my mind.

- Cannon.  I mean, the name, the history, the tram (I hate trams, but I'd get over myself), Lahout's, bad weather, big mountains, the funky layout, trees, cold, rain, rime, it's got all the things.  It's so far north, if it were in Washington it'd be in Coburg, OR, just north of Eugene.  It's between two places with such storied names as Bethlehem and Woodstock.  I mean, neither is the real one, but that's okay.  Also, interestingly, the western portion of Cannon is Mittersill, Blizzard is listed as their official ski, and wouldn't you know it, BLIZZARD'S FACTORY IS IN MITTERSILL, ÖSTERREICH HOLY SHIT MIND BLOWN.

You can tell this is Skutvik because of how it is.

- -

Just kidding, I know it's not Stapleton.  It's the new Illuminati Spaceport out in the desert into which you fly on hajj.  The one with all the secret tunnels.

*8, give or take.

Bonus:  Spaghetti Bowl in SLC.  Lookit a Palisades map if you don't believe me.

- Title from REM's Pilgrimage.  But you knew that.

1140, or Why You Can't Trust Numbers, So Here's a List of Numbers

By Eino Holm

The Pacific Northwest is a consistently misunderstood place.  It is home to cities with some of the lowest precipitation totals in the country: Yakima receives 8 inches in a year, Bend gets 11, Boise 12. It has vast arid regions, places bigger than some eastern states, where precip comes exactly as it does in the more famous deserts to the south.  Infrequent and mild winter snow, and periodic summer thunderstorms.  Monsoonal pushes don't happen this far north very often, and in summer, neither do Pacific systems.  Seattle, that northwestiest of Northwest places, is dry basically from the middle June to early October.  If you've ever lived there, or spent time there, you know it may not look like the dry of the desert, but little to no measurable precip falls in that time.  This year, it's the middle of October and I don't think it's rained more than a drip or two up there since June.

Oregon, Washington, and North Idaho. - Brandt and Ryan (The Owner), the only exactly repeated answer.

Is it still the Northwest if you can actually see the volcano?

The general consensus, though, is one of consistently gray, mopey skies, and torrents of water.  If a movie or tv show is set in Seattle, say, or Portland, the rain is always heavy, aggressive, and very visible.  That is not the case.  Nor are the rains aggressive.  They often are unrelenting and destructive in the Wettest Season, 15 Oct to 15 Feb; it will be raining, maybe 5 inches in a cycle, and without the perspective or a puddle or the feel of the water on one's face, it is perfectly possible to think it had already stopped raining.

Oregon and Washington. - Dr J, "Reverend Doctor Super Genius"

Even the boundaries of the PNW are passive-aggressively controversial.  In informal personal polling of random folks (okay, friends, family, and coworkers) and in somewhat partially official research (wikipedia and the internet), the most consistent idea is "Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, except, y'know, not all of it."  I am fiercely (well, not fierce, I'm Norwegian fer heck's sake) of the PNW, and I have lived in its heart and on its periphery.  From the lower Salish Sea Basin and the upper drainages of two small but high-flow Salish rivers to the desert of southern Idaho, the Mediterranean oak savannah of southern Oregon, and Ogden, Utah, not really the northwest at all but good for perspective, and I think all of the ideas are defensible.

From Donny BoBo* to that one place in Alaska. - Dino Voulaj

The most codified of the boundaries seem to be the Pacific, and the 42nd parallel.  Even those aren't wholly rigid.  The 42nd is utterly arbitrary and unnecessarily unyielding.  The ocean is, well, have you been to Brookings during a vintage January Chetco Effect? 80 degrees, fire weather, a bit like Calabasas.  Not northwesty at all.

Washington, Oregon except the Great Basin, Idaho north of the Snake, west of US 93. - Brother John

Definitely PNW

It seems everyone is trying to put their interpretation of the phrase into a solid quasi-national entity. We are so used to and governed by boundaries that any notion of fluidity makes people uncomfortable. I have heard from folks who grew up back east that the PNW is just the strip of land from the Cascade Crest to the coast, either because they heard the PNW is wet and that's where the wet is, or because it's a solid, knowable boundary. As with all things, knowable is one thing, and solid is another entirely. Medford is west of the Oregon Cascade Crest, but averages just 18" of water a year. Kellogg, Idaho, is 300 or so miles east along a sometimes boring I-90 from the crest, and at above 30", averages only a Yakima's year shy of Seattle.

West of the Rockies, from Tahoe to the Bering Strait. - Crimski

In The Good Rain, Tim Egan describes the Northwest as the "reach of the Columbia." This, finally, sounds somewhat sensible.  The Columbia, after all, is a World River.  Not as well known as the Ganges or the Mekong, nor as big, but it drains significant portions of one Canadian province and four American states, and minor portions of three other states.  The bar at its mouth is dangerous and deadly and utterly humbling and beautiful.  The highest point along its crest is, understandably, Columbia Crest, the highest point on Tahoma.  The river drains the western slopes of the Canadian Rockies, vast and semi-obscure plains, giant spires of granite and anger from Valemount, BC (which is, like, WAAAAAY up there) to Nevada, northwesternmost Utah, and the Tetons. So, again, another solid boundary that is not so solid.  In fact, one of the furthest points in the entire basin from the Pacific is, naturally, the headwaters of Pacific Creek in the Teton Wilderness, well east of the Teton range itself, at a unique spot where one creek separates into two creeks that drain into different oceans.  This is Wyoming, obviously, which has for its eastern geography plains that are part of the Great Plains.  The Plains owe their arid existence to the Rockies, which are obvs east of the west which is OW MY HEAD.

West of where all the scrubby landscape begins. - Taylor

Are we looking out of the PNW into the Inland NW? (Screenshot of Mission Ridge's well-placed summit cam.)

This is my central problem with the idea of boundaries.  Vague and hard to defend.  Unnecessary, as we all came from the same ancestor, which to me suggests commonality of purpose and need, our perpetual and deadly desire to prove that wrong aside.

Cascadia.  - Dustin

The point? Other than truly enjoying good debate silly argument, it's skiing.  The American portion of the PNW has around 45 ski areas.  Some big, some little, some famous, some, well, most folks don't know Rotarun from Rotorua.  (I see you raising your hand in the back, New York.  You win. 52 ski areas, according to the NSAA.)  As we shift borders around for one reason or another, the number rises and falls.  Someone in passing mentioned Sun Valley isn't PNW, but Bogus is.  Trouble with that is that I can see the same peaks from the ridgelines of each mountain.  But then again, saying Bogus is a Rocky Mountain ski area kinda rattles my teeth a little, cos BoyCee just feels absolutely nothing like Albuquerque, and yet they'd be categorised together if we took everything literally.  Peakbagger says Brundage is in the Rockies, and Tamarack is in the Columbia Plateau, but you can see each ski area from the other on a clear day.  So, since categories are kinda silly, I'll just stick with the simplest answer: Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, and, like, one small part of California cos I want to and also volcanoes.  Major continental ranges and rivers are part of multiple regions.  Rather than solely defining the region, I'd say they simply play a part.  Definitely a big part, but they never tell the whole story.

As much as I'd like Southern Idaho to also be a part, I don't think it is. - Jake

Which finally brings me to a conclusion of sorts.  I was riding Chair 2 at Bogus the other day, Summer Only Riding Park Closing Day, with a remote-worker guy from some to-me-unknown place.  He was asking all sorta questions, and being me, I could not help but answer them honestly.  This is to say I hemmed and hawed and told him to define his terms more acutely.  "Does Bogus get many powder days?" begs for clarification; how much is a pow day? "Eight inches or more," he said, surprisingly confidently.  I mean, I've skied "powder" that was three inches overnight, and it outskied some ten inch days, but whatever, yeah, let's just pick a random number.  At Bogus, not many.  

All of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and Montana and Wyoming might be. - GMRII

Not just potatoes.

At any rate, he also asked if I could compare Bogus to Tamarack.  (Bigger, and smaller at the same time.  Like so many things.  Srsly, can you actually not figure these things out from just skiing? That's how I know these things, and I don't have the privilege of moving around at will while holding down a job.)  I took him at his word and said, simply, that they are different.  They require different skill sets, and if you've the money for new or the patience to buy used, different gear.  He tried to drill down on the exact size again, and when I said Bogus has over 1000 more skiable acres than Tamarack, he seemed surprised.  (He also had never heard of Baker, so maybe I'd set my bar too high.)  Bogus is bigger than Sun Valley, too, also, even with the new expansion.  I find this sorta underdog-punching-up scenario cool, and I relish the opportunity to share such things with folks who don't already know such things.  I don't know why, but it gives me some significant satisfaction to see a little brain-gear smoke out the ears when I say "Mt A has a higher base elevation than Bachelor." 

 Didn't you ask that last week? - Chris

When I got home, I looked for a published list of PNW ski areas by size, and did not find one.  Some other blog or mag from way back or other random collection of 1s and 0s might have something, but herewith is what I could find from surprisingly unverifiable Wikipedia articles and ski area website infos, with any ties alphabetised to pretend I'm not biased, and maybe a comment or two:

- Bachelor, 4600 skiable acres, when it's sunny.
- Schweitzer, 2900
- Bogus, 2600, on weekends and if you aren't afraid of a little willow-whipping in your pow-slash routine.  Seriously, just try it.  Almost all of it goes, and the parts I can think of that don't are right under Chair 6, so Patrol can find you and people can yell really helpful things from the chair like "That's a creek you're stuck in!" or "Hey! You're almost there!"
- Crystal, 2600
- Sun Valley, 2400, but that's after a very recent expansion and includes Dollar, which is a small bit of marketing shammery.
- 49 North, 2325
- Hood Meadows, 2150, and like Bachelor, that is only when it's sunny.  These Cascade volcanoes have a way of being stormy for days or weeks or months (1999) at a time.
- Mission Ridge, 2000
- Snoqualmie Pass, 1994, the combined total of 4 actual ski areas, one of which--Hyak--is rarely open, and which can only be fully connected by car or by paragliding off Denny.  Also, "Summit-at-Snoqualmie" is just artificially fancy.  East to west, it's Hyak, Ski Acres, Snoqualmie Pass, and Alpental. Regular-sized marketing spammery.
- Brundage, 1920
- Mt Spokane, 1704
- Timberline, 1685, but that's combined with the former Summit Pass Ski Area, which Timberline recently purchased but which is not yet connected without creative skiing, and which also is maybe never fully skiable because (according to a dude I talked to on Palmer who totally had an Employee Jacket and spoke with what felt like much authority) the Forest Circus doesn't allow them to run Jeff Flood while Palmer is also running.  Also, like, when them Pacific cycles is slamming the side of Wy'east, Palmer is buried, and when the Palmer chair itself is melted out and runnable, the lower mountain is melted out to dirt, mostly.  So, maybe a lot of marketing scammery.  The views from Palmer and the Magic Mile are downright righteous, though.  No marketing needed.
- Silver Mtn (Some still call it Jackass, cos, why not?), 1600
- White Pass, 1402
- Soldier, 1150
- Stevens, 1125
- Pebble Creek, 1100
- Tamarack, 1100.  This tie is an interesting one.  Both ski tall and narrow, with some real challenge in the woods when you know where to go.  Beyond that, they have almost nothing in common save that they are both, indeed, ski areas in Idaho.
- Lookout Pass, 1023, expanded this year and with plans (and, I think, the Okay from whomever or whatever) for more.
- Anthony Lakes, 1000
- Baker, 1000.  I'll pause here to let you decide whether or not you believe that one.  I love Anthony Lakes without any qualification, but in my mind, I can fit the entire place within the confines of the front side of Pan Dome at Baker. Then again, my entire point here is that definitions and numbers don't tell the whole story.

Views, a Riblet triple, Abies lasiocarpa, good snow, lesser-known mountain range? I'm in. (Anthony Lakes, photo by Snowsnapper, public domain.)

- Mt Hood Ski Bowl, 960
- Lost Trail, 900.  Hey.  It's got at least 13 turns in Idaho.  And besides, it's within the Reach of the Columbia.
- Hoodoo, 800
- Kelly Canyon, 640, sadly, no longer serviced by the legendary homemade Riblet lookalike they built from copied, possibly stolen, schematics.  Kelly's is now open Sundays, and according to my source, who like, knows the new owner cos bikes or maybe Rexburg is a small town; there might now exist within the creek drainage alcohol, which if one is so inclined, could be supped for the purposes of mild intoxication, known in many circles as "a good buzz".
- Mt Shasta, 635 as of this winter with the new Gray Butte chair.
- Willamette Pass, 555, with the additional claim (for now) of having the only 6 pack in Oregon, and with the dubious and maybe not measurable "steepest groomer in the US", RTS, which supposedly overtops 50 degrees. Might need to head there some day.  Or ask my niece at U of O for a report.  She's from Colorado, and as everybody knows, when you list skiing, Colorado is Number One.
- Loup Loup, 550.  I've ridden their chair, but never been to Loup Loup.  Think about that.
- Pomerelle, 500, with some rad orographic snow showers if the flow is right.
- Bluewood, 400.  I just have to point out here that I love literal names.  Bluewood is in the forests of the Blue Mountains.  Perfect.  I also love scientific binomials that are just double names--tautonyms, apparently--like Pica pica and Alces alces.
- Warner Canyon, 300.  Or 200, but as I pointed out above, it's surprisingly challenging to verify these numbers with my limited researching skills.
- Cottonwood Butte, 260, the largest (claimed) area without a chairlift.
- Hurricane Ridge, 250, but according to the kids I worked with at Baker who grew up in Port Angeles, it's like, totally not about the inbounds, man, it's like, endless and stuff.  One of those kids is, like, a big cheese at Baker now.
- Mt Ashland, 240, or 220, or, like, lots more cos the whole peak is skiable and accessible from either Windsor or Ariel and it only takes a little skate along FR20 or even just a quick walk back through the lot from the bottom of the Void.  This, then, brings up the whole challenge of understanding Skiable Acreage in the first place.  It feels like ski areas just guess and then try to defend either through repetition or a shoulder shrug.  We spent three winters at Mt A, and while I don't think it is a huge or even mid-size place, it felt bigger to me than Anthony Lakes does.  My perception is by no means perfect, I know.  Maybe some joints just count cut runs and others count every last feather of snow within sight?
- Spout Springs, 200, on pause while an operator is sought.  Fingers crossed.
- Ferguson Ridge, 170
- Bald Mountain, up near Pierce in 6C, not the one in 5B or the random pile of rock in NY, nor the totally awesome and totally not creepy at all piece by Mussorgsky, 140
- Magic Mountain, again, the one in 2T, not the one in VT, 120. There is an abandoned platter liftline across the road, which I don't think is included in the total, and rumours of replacing it with a used chair.  Or they might replace the carpet.  Who knows?  At any rate, Magic is cool and funky and up a long, very pretty draw with a nice Lodgepole right next to the top shack.  Not big, but that never matters. Also, this is not the smallest ski area in the PNW that has a chairlift.
- Sitzmark, 80; neither is this.
- Echo Valley, 70
- Cooper Spur, 50, home to the final Riblet installation ever.  That's worth something right there. Cooper is the smallest hill in the PNW with a chairlift, too, for good measure, too, also.
- Little Ski Hill, 50
- Snowhaven, 40

- Rotarun, 15
- Badger Mountain, 10
- Blizzard Mountain, some acres.  Can't find numbers.  It's a platter and one groomer. Guessing between 5 and 20, but like most folks, I do not know by looking what an acre actually is.

Boise, City of Trees. Tree City USA award recipient for 44 years.  That's a lot of trees, cos allegedly Boise! was the cry from Frenchist trappers back in the day, and like, "les bois" means trees, and so does PNW, so there.  Bogus Basin is the highest, furthest, most elevationary point in the photo. (Credit: Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce, via flickr.)

* Boise.  That's what Angel means when he says Donny BoBo.  It's, like, funny.


pps:
"With a base elevation of 6300', Mt Bachelor offers the highest base elevation in the Cascades. Paired with its location on the eastern side of the Cascade Crest, the result is consistently high quality snow not typically found in the Pacific Northwest. 462" of snow falls during an average year."

- Found on the internet. A good example of confusion seemingly based in the need for things to be cooler than they are. Bachelor has the highest base in the Cascades, yes, and the highest summit, too, and plenty of great skiing and is huge, but while it is east of the Crest in the riverine sense, weather doesn't care. I have skied my share of borderline mank at Bachelor, and through at least two full-on rain events there. Also, not for nothin', both Anthony Lakes and Mt A have higher bases, they're just not in the Cascades. Mt A is even the first peak west of the official reach of the Cascades, which doesn't really mean anything either, but again, it makes you, like, think, y'know?

Bison bison