TR: Mission Ridge mashers

[cascadianwarrior]

Thad and I skinned up Mission yesterday morning hoping to cash in on the new snow. He had been up on Monday and knowing that the weather was headed for the pineapple we figured Tuesday might be the best bet (for the rest of this week at least). It was also Thad’s first day on his new split setup, a nice Burton with Spark binders, and he was dying to give it a spin.

So yeah, 6” in the past 24 hours, blah blah blah. It was warm, real warm; like mid to upper 30’s on the hill. Trees were dumping their snow, sometimes in a gentle trickle of drops, other times as a lumpy snow bomb. Snow was a little sticky on the skins but provided for excellent traction. We took a slightly more meandering route up, keeping the pitch low grade for really easy skinning. It is a little longer distance but I think it actually shaves off time overall. We opted to head out through Bathtub to get to Windy Ridge and Bowl 4. All in all, 2230’ up, 3 miles skin, 2 hours 25 minutes out to Bowl 4.

We weren’t expecting much from the snow based on what we were seeing on the way up but we did have a plate of untracked mashed potatoes before us. A quick ski cut didn’t really get a ‘slide’ but rather large pinwheels and gravity fed snowballs rolling down the hill. The snow had a ton of moisture content but wasn’t too sticky so if you kept a little speed it was actually really fun. We rode Bowl 4 and the remainder of Chair 4 out to the parking lot. Good times, sloppy snow.

Thad skinning


More skinning


Short shots above Bathtub


Change-over


Partner-in-crime Thad


Mellow mashers


More mashers


All smiles

[GeezerSteve]

Good call

[mtskier]

looks fun. sure wish it looked like that when i was there last feb.