February 26, 2011 – Cold Fresh Smoke

Andrew was visiting from Hawaii, and I had patrol duty on Saturday, so we headed up to the Pass for a few runs prior to our trip into Tam McArthur Rim.  After a quick stop at McDonald’s in Oakridge (for old time’s sake) we pulled into the parking lot at the pass and it was cold, with a base temperature of -2 degrees.  We had our morning meeting, then I headed out to open the hill.  The first run down Eagle’s Flight was excellent, and I knew we’d be in for a good day.  There wasn’t tons of untracked powder around, but there were some stashes to be had and the groomers were screamin’ fast.  At 9:00, I met up with Andrew, after making a few runs on the backside, and we enjoyed several runs on the front side.

Around 10:00 or so, we met up with Andy, who had come up for the day and was on his snow blades.  Andrew found a few little play features in the trees between High Lead and Timbur, and Andy grabbed the camera to take a few shots of us making turns.  It wasn’t difficult to really make the smoke fly – just one hard turn and the snow was suspended above our heads for several seconds…..

I went in for a quick breakfast while Andy and Andrew made a few more runs, checking out the terrain park off of George.  The temperature by mid-day had warmed a bit, to a balmy 14 degrees or so.  Here’s a shot Andy took of Andrew in the terrain park…..

After a few more runs, we took a break in the patrol room for lunch, then headed out to the back side, making numerous runs in the trees around June’s and Destiny.

We did some looking around the Dragon’s Back, but there wasn’t quite enough snow to ride the Gravity Chute.  Here’s a picture of Andrew on the rocks below the meadow at Dragon’s Back….

We were able to find a nice drop off the small cliff between lower June’s Run and Down Under, and hit that feature several times over the course of the next hour or so.  Andrew thought it would be cool to take some pictures of himself and Andy reflecting in my goggles on the lift ride up.  The results are shown below:

The shot below is a reflection of Andrew and Andy, with Maiden Peak also making an appearance in the background of my goggle lens….

After the fun on the backside, I went to sit bump at EPA from 2:00 – 3:00, while Andrew and Andy made runs on RTS and in SDN.  At the end of the bump shift, we made a few more runs on the backside and Andy bid us farewell to head back to town.  Andrew helped patrol sweep the hill, and we closed Destiny.  The run was clear, so while we were waiting, I snapped a few photos of the trees in the relative silence after everyone else had headed off the mountain…..

When Peak 2 sweep was over, we hiked to the EPA for closing of the upper mountain.  Andrew and closed High Lead to the glades, and I finished sweeping that run while he made one last lap in the terrain park.  Back in the patrol room, we had our evening meeting, cracked some excellent tasting Oakshire beers, and then headed for home, after an excellent day of skiing and riding at the Pass.