The Washington coast is rad. We pretty much always have swell. Even when Cali is dead flat all summer there will be size up here. Usually…
Last Memorial Day weekend i headed out to the coast to meet up with these dudes. We bumped into a few of the guys at spot #1 and the first thing i did when i got out of the car was shoot my friend Travis in the face with one of my Airsoft guns (Im still awaiting clever retaliation for that one). Surf spot #1 was surprisingly fun for how small it was and given the size of my board and the fact that i forgot how to paddle. The water was crystal clear and the tide was probably the lowest i’ve ever seen it.
Gillis, JR and Wagner went log jibbing the other day. Get your mind out of the gutter, what i mean is they were jibbing a tree log with their snowboards. At Alpental.
At the run out of Trash Can there’s a large tree that mother nature decided would be a perfect jib for snowboarders. So she knocked it over and wedged it between two other trees. Good lookin out!
There were some pretty rad manuvers thrown down. 50-50 to front 3 out, Method/Sombrero removal combo, 15 foot-to-flat StompPad tea-baggers and of course some epic wrecks. On the gnarliness scale i’d give this maybe a 4.5. I mean it’s no 50footer or anything…but there was definetly some branches, twigs and other trees to get wrapped around if you botched it.
I wonder if they could get arrested for tearing apart a tree that was once old growth on USFS land? That would be funny.
Here’s a shot of Gillis.
Josh Becker took a bunch of pics. Ki took a bunch of pics.
Edit: Here’s the shot of N.B. loc Wagner hitting this a couple weeks ago (David Hastings Photo). Evidently on attempt #1 “Ol Dirty Wags” was dealt with by the tree branches over-hanging this drop. Dirty got his gear back together, hiked back up and nailed this stylish lean-indy over the falls, landed and then yelled ‘WHAT!’. Then he chopped off the head of a nearby backcountry skiier with his snowboard.
That is a lie. Tyler did not chop off anybodys head, but this shot is sic. And without googles. ??!! LOL.
Technically we’ve surpassed the official Winter season and have entered into Spring. Usually by late March we get hit with some epic warm sunny days perfect for slushy park sessions. Pretty much all last week it dumped up in the mountains–cold and snowy. It even dumped on Capitol Hill on Tuesday night (hipsters be trippin!).
The weekend opened with 12″ of new at Alpental on Saturday. Complete with an uphill skier race snaking the mountain from bottom to top back down Nash, through Snake Dance and back up to Piss Pass. All through thigh deep pow too. Pretty hardcore. Somehow i avoided colliding with one of these doods who were hiking right up the Fan.
The race resulted in the closure of Snake Dance almost all day, and the closure of the backcountry all day. Here we were, end of the season, not riding slushy park but riding thigh deep pow at Alpental (the best riding in Washington State) yet we couldn’t go in the BC but all these other manic ski doods could?! F that. F you.
Sunday was just as crowded with 9 more inches of even colder snow. Ride more pow? Sure why not. It seemed weird though…like something was off to be riding this much pow this time of year. The A-man made a rare Sunday appearance, Clem was nowhere to be found, Petersen rode two days in a row, Otter/Kopafeel both stayed home and i didn’t duck a rope once.
Ski Patrol finally legally opened BC around 1. They decided it would be a great idea to start posting a volunteer patroller at the gate. They actually asked to see my pass. Which i actually did have on my person. So i actually was able to get in while everyone else just went low around the patroller and got in anyways.
Needless to say, everything worked out. Everyone got tons of turns, snowballs were thrown, skiers were heckled, beer was drank and face shot were had.
Here are a few pics from last weekend.
Here’s a video of the sequence pic above. S.Petersen is filmer.
Alpental has been getting rocked the last few weeks. I’ve ridden there the last 4 days…it’s been so good. If you’ve been up there, you know.
I love that Alpental is such a short drive. The only problem is proximity to the city means big lift lines. The Chair 2 line the last few days has been so long…a good 1/2 hour trip to the top. That long of a wait makes navigating the Chair 2 line tricky–strategy required.
I find that the best way to power through the front is to take your board off and walk. I always keep my head down and just watch the Alpentalic skier in front of me. When he moves, i move. Pay attention to the dude decked out in fresh REI gear to the side–just make sure that when the Alpentalic moves forward you strategically place your foot in front REI guy’s skis straight up cock blocking him. Don’t hesitate, don’t look up, just keep stepping. People in Seattle are sissies, so they typically won’t say or do anything.
Ruthless, maybe. Aggressive, debatable. Dick-move, probably. But when dealing with a lift line on an Alpental weekend pow-day, strategy required.
I’ve been hitting Alpental the last few days and it’s been so sic. They’ve been getting rocked for the last 3 weeks from this storm cycle and luckily it’s been staying cold. The snow’s been pretty damn light for the NW and coming down non-stop.
It’s been a free-for-all. Almost no consequences…the snow is so deep you can pretty much boost off everything, land flat and ride away. And we’ve been doing just that.
Rode today with Becker…tore the shit out of The Fan, Breakover, Upper I, Snake Dance, etc. It’s rad right now, still early season so stuff hasn’t completely filled in yet…jumps everywhere, and hella pow to land in.
There’s also a lot of holes, creeks, bumps, woop sections and worst of all, flatness. There’s some sections of bottom chair Alpy that are brutally flat with thigh deep snow–and i hit all of them.
We had to bail before top chair ever opened. The bottom was toast in about 30 mins. There weren’t too many people but when everyone is confined to a couple runs…it gets blown out quick.
Glad i dropped 4-fif and got my pass though…it’s gonna be a mad-house up there this weekend in the pass line. Everything should be open by sat.
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