Temps in Oregon have been in the high 90's the last few days, which is hotter than any place in the world other than tropics and desert needs to be. Blue sky when we got to the parking lot had already allowed the sun to start baking the fresh pavement in the parking lot. Dressed in a shirt and board shorts, we hit the lift and cheated some vert to get to the good stuff.
My skinning setup is in absolute shambles. I only had a pair of Vicik's, mounted with PX demo's and Trekkers. The result (as I discovered when setting this all up in my apartment last night) puts me a good 1.5 - 2 inches off the snow. I have to have the smallest ascension peg lifted up, pitching my boots forward at all times, as the heel hits the dildo heelpiece otherwise. Skis had to be modified too... I think these originally fit some K2 Kreitlers... weren't really long enough, but hooray duct tape.
Looks all ready to go, hope theres no sidehill
Was beautiful up there. The parks here are absolutely redic btw, sooooo many features.
Jefferson in the distance
80's are back
Illumination Rock, off to the left as you look at the summit. The notch is our destination.
Looking uphill to the crater walls.
You would think that the slush would set up a little overnight. You would be wrong. Its damn hot. Sidehill was a bit terrifying considering the surface area skins did not cover, and the slush didnt help things, but we got to the notch in 2 hours.
Standing in the notch, Illumination Rock.
Looking uphill at the ridge I wanted to climb.
Looking past the notch to an area requiring gnarly boots.
At this point, we put skis on the packs and hiked up the ridge to see if we could get to some fun stuff. About halfway up, I dislodged a torso sized rock to my right. I was an absolute idiot, I fucking tried to catch it like I was the Hulk and wrench it back into place. It didnt go, and I almost fell down after it. Took about a 200 foot tumble down the steep aspect of the ridge before coming to a slow stop in the flats. Hair raising for sure.
The trail up the ridge. Sometimes postholing, sometimes on sheet ice, impossible to know how deep your foot would go on every step.
Yeah, so for the above italicized reasons, we got pretty far up and bailed. I took off the skins, duct tape and all. They held the entire time, surprisingly. Strapped in, hoisted the pack and started skiing!
So before I could perform my kick-ass-blaster trick, the slope pitched way steep. I cut one turn and tried to link another, but I got bitch slapped by 30 lbs of summer slush sluff. I had to continue a traverse to the side to get out of there, and the field I ended up in was littered with little suncups, each filled with a small sharp rock. Made it back to the notch near Illumination, then we traversed a little out and dove to the left again. This. Part. Rocked.
Linking up huge turns in untracked summer slush is mega fun, even with a pack filled with a lunch and water you forgot to eat. I had my skis mounted at recommended, but due to the sweet ass demo setup, I pegged the toepieces back at this point here on the run and set them back to around -9. Much improved the riding, hooooly crap. So easy to point it, and the rocker tips kept my turns solid, suncups didnt make them flutter a bit. Got down to the lift areas and skied in and around some rock piles out of bounds to the far skiers right of Palmer, then got in a lap on the salted public lanes. Choppy as shit, but the speed there is totally worth it. Cant complain about turns in July.
So yeah, thats it. Ran to the car, as it was about 100 degrees in the parking lot and I was in ski pants instead of shorts. Its taken me two hours to really cool down, our air conditioned office is like heaven. All in all, unlikely success with the setup, and a reminder that I need to get my shit together for a dedicated touring setup this year.
