SkiSickness

There is no snow in California which is why my good friend JD is up in Washington - he bailed from his home on Tahoe's south shore to search for whiter pastures. He and I have spent a lot of time skiing together in and around freeride competitions, but we haven't done much freeriding in the truer sense of the word. So I was psyched when we spent Saturday and Sunday this week shredding around Crystal Mountain where we found surprisingly fun conditions. With Monday forecasted as perhaps the last day of this unbelievable high pressure that has been trapped over the PNW, I told him it was imperative that he visit the real mountains because such a chance may never come again. Cascade River Road here we come.

We parked at the Eldo Creek outhouse, our goal being the CJ Couloir. Taking into account snow conditions, the terrain, and the gear we had at our disposal we opted for a simplistic approach to the line. No skins, touring boots or bindings, shovel beacon or probe. Crampons were our only trapping of traditional climbing. Wearing hiking boots, we walked the two miles of road to the base of the couloir on supportable snow. There we changed to our alpine boots, strapped our regular in-bounds skis to our packs, and cramponed up the impressively foreshortened couloir. From the start the upper slope floats temptingly close despite the fact it is actually 3,500' above the creek at the bottom. Climbing conditions were great until the super steep upper slope where some weird breakable ice crusts over older, now rotten unconsolidated granular snow similar to what we found on Spider last week caused for exhausting and nerve-racking climbing in the last section.

The sun and the views greeted us on top and we ate PB&Js on top of the CJ. The shadows move fast this time of year, and soon our sunny perch was threatened by advancing shade. It was a great feeling to click solid boots into regular alpine bindings on top of such a line. We dropped in and found the upper slope in incredible, rippable condition. What an incredibly steep face! But utmost caution was required as these good sections would instantly change to scoured and firm sections of the slope and a fall would certainly be almost impossible to arrest on such a sustained pitch. Thankfully, these firm sections would soon change back to creamy depositions and we skied most of the couloir in good snow. Upon exiting the final choke, we were able to traverse right and regain the road without a single extra step. Crossing the creek is no problem thanks to this year's snowpack building on top of snowbridges left over from last year's epic snow totals.

Skiing that line in powder would be __________.

Give it to me, daddy. All hail the champ!

I love the shot at the col for the background and personal reasons. You're ticking all the Cascade Pass modern classics -- go get it.

You should title this "Courting J-berg" as I imagine you and it are going to have quite the love affair in the coming year(s). Nice job Drew.

I commend your impeccable freeride ethics. That line is sSOo sick.

the blank = short-soiling.
i like the approach. speaking of which, is the road more melted out since 9 days ago, or did you have something > mini-van?
well done, punk.

Correct, Doctor Professor Doctor: when Jason and I skied it in the days of yore with lotsa pow it truly was short-soiling.

which side got soiled?

Soiled on all sides, even accounting for ample presoil due to poor hygiene.

I always take a shower before I go up the CRR. If I get wacked I at least want to look and smell good.

Nice job! Is that Josh Daiek with you?

Erik - Yeah that's Josh. So funny, he called to tell me you knew each other while I was standing in the Pro Ski parking lot after work drinking a beer with Dan. Connected.