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Hello from a very much changed Seattle! Sunny days and warmer temperatures lead to bike rides and crowded streets. Everyone wants to be out in the sunshine up here in my little corner of the world. Speaking of clear skies, I took the above picture up at Alpental yesterday. While I was happy to be up snowboarding, I forgot what a challenge it is to snowboard in such heavy sticky snow. Rough! Anyway, just wanted to give you an update that I will be modifying my website a bit. I will now be posting a lot of my pictures up on Flickr. My idea is that I can have more generalized galleries on Powder Photo with only the best shot. Viewers who want to see more can just head over to Flickr to see a greater selection of my photographs.

April Showers Bring...Snow??

After what seemed like a terrible winter, Washington skiers and snowboarders are experiencing extreme amounts of snowfall in April. And I'm not talking just a few inches, it's about 7+ inches a day! I spent three days up at the mountain this week, and I can honestly say that they were some of the best all season. Tuesday was filled with high winds blowing around large amounts of snow up at Alpental. David, and his broken collar bone, decided to join me that day in hopes of catching some late season powder turns in the 17" of fresh. After sitting on the lift in 70 mph winds and taking one epic run from top to bottom, we found they had closed the lifts for at least an hour. The wind was blowing so hard it was catching my board and we could barely see the people sitting on the chair in front of us! Due to some partial clearing and lighter winds, Alpental re-opened and off we went.

The next day I had to work a double, and then close on Thursday, so snowboarding wasn't able to work itself into the agenda. But today, I didn't have to work until 8. So off to Alpental we went. After calling the snow line and hearing about the 14" of fresh, we couldn't wait to get to the mountain. And it was well worth it. What an amazing day! The snow was a bit heavy, but that's how it is up here in the Northwest. Since David had recently bought his avalanche transceiver, we decided to give the backcountry a try. Ducking into the vast wilderness of the backcountry at Alpental showed us the best runs of the season. The sun even came out for a while making for some beautiful views.

Being in the backcountry is one of the most peaceful places in the world. It's quiet, with only a faint whisper through the trees when the wind blows. You feel as if you have the whole place to yourself. It's exciting. You have to be quick, because you never know what is coming up next. A chute, a cliff, a gully? It could be anything and you have to be ready. But oh, is it worth it. Those huge sprays of powder, the floating, and the feeling of knowing that you are the only one out there. No gapers traversing in front of you, no lifts, no crowds, just you and the mountain in all it's glory. I am so lucky for being able to have this experience, and it's only one hour away home :)

Washington Pictures

Hello! Not surprising, I went up to Stevens Pass again today. The lighting wasn't great for pictures, and it was cold and windy. I've been looking at this view on the drive home of an old railroad bridge that crosses over a beautiful river. I finally decided to stop and take some photos! I also added a new section to my website of pictures that I think represent the amazing and beautiful state of Washington. Check it out at Powder Photo .

Family Vacation

Last week I met up with my family for a quick trip down to some warmer weather. We spent the first two days in Palm Desert at Desert Springs resort. It was pretty amazing. It had a huge atrium with a beautiful bar in the middle. One whole side of it was made of glass that looked out into the pool area that was back-dropped by a desert mountain vista. The trip was designated for a little much needed R&R, so I took full advantage. Ordering tropical drinks and soaking up 85 degree sunshine, what could be better? The hotel was also surrounded by golf courses, not surprising of course. If I was any good at golfing, I bet it would be pretty fun!

After Palm Desert, we drove to Vegas. It was my first time that I was actually old enough to gamble in Vegas, so I was pretty stoked. Needless to say, I lost all of the money that I gambled. At least I still had a good time though! I loved looking at all of the beautiful hotels and the lavish lifestyle that is portrayed in Vegas. My big splurge was a trip to Jean-Philippe's Patisserie in the Bellagio Hotel. Who wouldn't want to go here?

A Powder Day at Alpental

All racked up.

It's pretty hard to believe that it's March right now. Yesterday I woke up to snow on the ground before I left for work and today's been pretty blustery with intermittent rain showers. Out of the six years I've lived in Seattle, it's only snowed maybe once a year in the city...if that. Unfortunately, those Seattle snowfalls have only barely begun to scratch the surface of what should be amazing snow in the mountains. It's been a bit of a slow winter up at Stevens Pass and Alpental, and all I can say about the last couple weeks is - it's about damn time!! So here I am to write about a pretty sick day that David and I had up at Alpental on March 6.

David drops a cliff under Chair 2.

It started out early, as I had to be back to work at 4 o'clock. We rushed out of the city to find ourselves in a winter wonderland just an hour later. Arriving at 8:30 a.m., we quickly put our boots on only to see that the chairlifts were already loading! Once we reached the top of Chair 2, we had to stop for a moment to stare out at the beauty of the Cascades. Bright blue skies, sub-20 degrees, and 12 inches of pow! Nothing could ruin this day. We headed over to Edelweiss Bowl and rode a few powdery bowls, face shots all the way down. Beautiful...until we reached the bottom of Chair 2. A line??? It's Friday, don't you people have to work? Needless to say, the powder was too good to get discouraged. Everyone was all smiles and even the little old man that plays the flute on the ride up was there. You all know who he is. Pieces of colorful wood protrude from his helmet like the horn of a unicorn. I guess every local mountain has it's characters.

David and I took a few more magical runs, but had to call it a day due to the annoying lines. We stayed and had some lunch, enjoying the sunshine and good vibe, then headed back to the city. Was it worth the drive for the few runs of pow? Hell yes. Enjoy the photos, and don't forget to stop by my photography site, www.powderphoto.com if you haven't seen it yet!

Board Insiders

Hello! I just got back from a two day stay up at Stevens Pass where I was testing boards for boardinsiders.com. Awesome. Basically a select group of riders gets to demo a bunch of boards, get video footage and interviews, and rate the boards. I think it's going to be a really helpful website for people who aren't sure what board to buy because you get to know the riders and their style and you can choose your board that way.

I really can't even put into words the epic-ness of the powder. Might I add, it hasn't even snowed in Washington like this so far this year, so it was due time for some serious pow-pow. I started out riding the Forum Craft 152. This, I discovered, is a flexible park board. Being that it was a 152, I can't say that it was too bad in powder either! It was the most flexible board I've ridden, and I loved the pop off of basically anything. Kickers, jumps, bumps, whatever. It was super fast and fun! I'd have to say another one of my favorites was the GNU B-Pro 152. I'm partial to the boards above 150, so this was an awesome board. Banana and Magne-traction technology. The Magne-traction is awesome! I found that I was holding an edge really well, especially on those annoying traverses, but it's also a ripper in the pow! I had some of the best runs of my life on the backside today, even throwing in a little cliff drop :) I would totally pick up one of those boards if I had the mooney.

So overall, it was a great way to spend a few days off. Oh yah, I forgot to mention that we got to stay in a cabin in Bering, about 20 miles west of Stevens Pass. Hot tub, chill people, and a little Vitamin R ;) I need to get myself one of those someday...

Jackson Hole!

David and I just got back from spending three full days of snowboarding in the most wonderful place in the world - Jackson Hole! I got to stay with my friend Anne in Wilson. After chillin in Wilson for four nights, I think that I grew pretty fond of it. It's closer to Teton Village than the town of Jackson, and since I'm not super into partying hard every single night, I don't mind being away from the bars. They do have one cool spot called the Stagecoach, but it doesn't have the same offerings as the town of Jackson. Anyway, the first day we went up to the hill, we woke up to a crisp clear day...not a cloud in the sky! It was beautiful. David and I hopped on the tram with some local friends and off we went. The quality of the snow wasn't the greatest, but I'll take it since we've had a lack of snow in Washington these days. We rode around with our friends until they had to work, hitting up Bivouac Woods off of Sublette and Paintbrush-Toilet Bowl off of Thunder. David found a pretty good size cliff to drop near mammoth drop they call "Hollywood". The landing of Hollywood was a little sketch, so he avoided that one.

I'd say overall, it was an amazing day. We spent the afternoon at Nick's Cowboy Cafe and then went home for some beacon practice in the backyard. Anne offered to take us for a hike up Mount Glory on Tuesday and I was super stoked! It would be my first real Jackson Hole backcountry experience.

We woke up the next morning, ate breakfast and made coffee, packed up and headed out for Teton Pass around 10 am. Our friend Laura met up with us too. Mount Glory is on the north side of the pass. It takes about an hour to hike up the bootpack and it was pretty grueling. I like to blame it on the altitude, but I was so tired! Once we got to the top we enjoyed an endless view of the Tetons and other surrounding mountain ranges, along with a plethora of lines to ski! We decided to take a safe route since Jackson's had a pretty bad avy year and went down Twin Slides. It's basically adjacent to the bootpack and takes you right back to your car.

Wow, what an amazing day. We ended up hanging out at the Mangy Moose for a while after taking a few runs at the village and then headed home for some R & R. Wednesday was our last day, so we made it out to the village fairly early to get in a full day of riding. We started up with a hike up "The Stairway" to the top of Casper Bowl. It's steeper than the Headwall hike, but it's shorter too.

We played around at the top for a while and then decided on a line over on the northside of the bowl on a south facing slope. We thought that since the sun had been on it, it would be fine but it turned out to be a pretty rough ride. I feel like if we had waited about two hours to do the hike it would have been perfect, but oh well. When we reached the bottom of the bowl, we decided it was time for lunch. Lunch turned into a couple beers and a margarita, and we got pretty sloppy. The sun was out and the vibe was great. We went and took a few runs with Anne over on Thunder where she was hosting. We topped off our trip with a ride up Sublette, taking Peppi's Ridge down some challenging terrain and then racing down Slalom to hit up the Moose for some more brews.

The trip turned out to be one of the best ever! Fun, friends, snow, sun, beer, and backcounty. I'm so excited to move back next year, but this time with David. See ya in November, Jackson Hole!