It's late, it's been a long week, I have to get up early; I'm going to make this short. My wife's folks have been in town all week so there's been much enjoyment of food and wine. Tonight was no exception. Except for the cold, cloudy, windy days over the weekend, they've had pretty good weather with great conditions. Always nice to have them here. My Father-in-Law gives me grief every year because it usually snows feet while they are here and I keep him busy with the snow blower. He was pleased to have clear, sunny days. Anyway, on to the main purpose of this post:
We hiked up Pinecone last week to shoot the upper end before opening all of Scott's Bowl. We were able to release some large slides that ran all the way to our rope lines in the Scott's run-out (if you've ever wondered why those ropes are there, take a look at these pictures).
Then today, thanks to Christian and his groomers, we were able to get back up to Pinecone to evaluate the area for opening. We did extensive shooting in Homelite and the lower Moons (and some skiing of course) and liked what we found. The cover is thin, the natural avalanche cycle we had over the last few weeks cleaned out most the major paths, but the skiing wasn't too bad. Slightly re-crystallized slightly crusty "loud powder"....a fun alternative to the groomers, moguls, and crud we've had lately. Tomorrow morning we'll be up on the ridge at sunrise (one of my favorite parts of this job) with a strong crew. We'll finish shooting, evaluate the snowpack, get the area set up and HOPEFULLY get the entire area open by mid-day. If we find something unexpected, we may delay until Friday, but we would love to get it open while we have this window of high pressure (dry sunny days). Keep an eye on the Jupiter signboard and our gates in Scott's Pass over the next day or two and be ready to make the first Pinecone hike of the year. As I said, it's honestly pretty good up there.
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