A weather system out of the Pacific has converted a drought stricken snowpack in Oregon’s Cascades into dry fluff! Depending on elevation, up to two feet fell in the past two days of desperately needed white stuff!
Here’s a nice video of the dumping in action on Wednesday!
I took a gamble Wednesday and headed up to Ski Bowl and found a paradise for skiers! On the trails, snow up to the top of my boots. Off trail calf high. Run after run of untracked powder could be had for anybody game enough to ignore the weather forecast and head up. Roads were no problem because the snow plows did such a great job.
Up to the boot tops!
If you have ever dreamed of skiing untracked powder run after run, Wednesday was such a day! I arrived late, about 1:30, and was in absolute DISBELIEF that runs, not backcountry, had NO TRACKS! OMG! In fact people were hiking to ski freshies and there was no reason, freshies could be had on some of the front side trails in the Upper Bowl!
As late as 4:00 p.m. I found lots of fresh, untracked snow on the front side of Upper Bowl!
My ski buddy Alex said he would try to get time off to come up Thursday and today he was able to get out early and we arrived at Ski Bowl about 9:30 a.m. to the lightest, featherlight snow the Cascades offer!
Though there were more people on the trails Thursday, the snow was so marvelous it didn’t matter. Plus the sun peeked out several times, making the entire day complete.
Another bonus both Wednesday and Thursday was that wind was NOT a factor! WOW. Just perfect, run after run of feather light snow!
When the sun poked out of the sky on Thursday it showed in stark relief how beautiful Planet Earth’s wonders are! HOLY COW the entire Cascade Range stood out in clear, pure, fantastic focus from far to near. All on a day when the weathermen predicted all kinds of trouble!
So, without further adieu, here is Alex making his way down Canyon!
I have experienced many day like this in my skiing career. But not always in the Cascades. So one of my goals has been to show Alex how amazing skiing can be when Mother Nature bestows her magic!
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