Splitboarding (for powder this time)

A week ago Matt, Claire, and myself went into the backcountry at Stevens Pass. Avalanche danger was predicted to be considerable and increase with heavy snow loading expected from a storm arriving midday (a phantom storm that never really showed up), so we planned to stay in safer, treed terrain that wasn't very steep. I put my recent "Level 1" avalanche education to work with a test pit and found a couple weak layers in recent snow and deeper one on an older crust that took a bit of effort to initiate but the fracture did not propagate (yay!). We played it pretty safe in the upper portion of our runs above the trees, going one at a time and watching each other from safe locations. I also had my Avalung at the ready (thanks, mom and dad). Matt and I had fun with the fact that when you breathe through an Avalung it sounds like one swiss cow that has made many an appearance at the Swenson/Koryczan holiday tables (a recording of this is available on request, but I couldn't figure out how to post it here). The snow was pretty good higher up and on shaded aspects, and now my splitboard has finally seen some powder. Pictures are below.


Matt, Claire, and Matt's new illegitimate child (his new dyna-something who-knows-what skis he keeps telling me about).


Weather station on the way in.


Mountain-man pointing action.


My "skis" next to a filled in test pit.


Matt skiing on his babies.


Claire skiing on her skis.


We got another dump of snow this week, and now it's warming up, which has generally increased avalanche danger recently (but it's complicated - Note that at the end of every NWAC avalanche forecast it says: "Remember there are avalanche safe areas in the mountains during all levels of avalanche danger." You just have to know where (and when) these areas are). So yesterday I played it safe, stayed in bounds, and rode park with Steve and Natalie. It was a pretty good spring day with temps close to 50 degrees. As I was hiking the quarterpipe at Central, I heard an explosion go off and knew WSDOT must be doing avalanche control work along I-90. Then a second or two later I heard something I had never heard before. The closest comparison would be thunder, but it was the sound of an avalanche propagating and sliding from the discharge that was just set off. Everyone hiking stopped for a few seconds and thought or said "Holy [crap] that was a big one." We stopped riding at 2p, found out the pass was closed, and hung out at the tiny convenience store and corn dog stand for an hour and half. At least it was a nice day to be stuck in the mountains.


Hanging out during avalanche control.

Some guy we talked to said the bombs were setting off 10' to 12' crowns, and a natural slide had already gone before the control work started. Here's a video of some avalanche control work from Stevens Pass if you're curious what some of this looks like (note we were at Snoqualmie Pass yesterday).

We then started a slow crawl down the pass around 4p. There was probably a mile backup of four lanes of traffic plus two exits and then some of people trying to get back to Seattle that whittled down to one lane where the avalanche debris had pushed some concrete barriers onto the interstate. Atleast it was better than the 8-mile backup at the east end of the pass where they closed the pass. We finally got home around 630p.

And finally, the standard Nollie picture you've all been waiting for.

winder and swift

I just finished up a knitting project for a little someone-to-be. Right now it's blocking. It was a big project so I'm ready to start up something new.

Today I got out a couple of my Christmas presents and used them for the first time. Grams got me a ball winder and Steve got me a swift via a gift certificate to Weaving Works.


yarn


swift


balls

Catching Up

One blog at a time.

So I've been out of the blogging game for quite some time now. I blame work, snowboarding, and life in general. So now that I racked my back/hip (Back of my hips? It's a weird place to have a bruise.) riding the quarterpipe for the first time at Snoqualmie yesterday (unfortunately no superpipe for us this year due to the weak snow year), I have a Sunday morning to work on catching up (sorry for all the parentheticals (no seriously)). Steve has the video of me decking on my hip-back and bouncing back into the transition on my back-back (that one should be easy to figure out (oh, right (sorry))), so maybe it will get posted sometime here or on Weak in the Tweak.

Anyway, catching up, baby steps...

We became members of our local NPR station last fall. It's about time for me, since I've been a frequent listener of NPR since I was in grad school.


The most expensive coffee mug I'll ever own.

Phil Cordell

"It's like Old Man Winter was constipated and now the poo is flowing."
-Phil Cordell


The above quote was in reference to having a weak snow year up until March and then getting pooped on with about 7 feet of snow in a couple weeks.


Cell Phone Pics at Stevens Pass courtesy of Phil Cordell.


Rode out of this one but almost lost my knee on the same drop a few days and a few feet later (and a year older too, I suppose).


How's my face?