Second ski of the season
Headed up to Crystal again this weekend, this time solo by riding on the express bus. The temperature was bitter cold — in the high teens — and it kept snowing the whole time the mountain was open. These conditions mean a few things: a) the visibility will be questionable, b) the crowds on the mountain will drop off as people get too cold and c) there will be a fresh layer of powder the whole time you’re on the mountain.
True to form, all three came to pass. Since this was my second trip I thought I would step it up a notch (the first trip up of the season is really to get my ski legs back). I looked for the blue runs I haven’t been on before or the runs that i thought looked good from a chairlift. From there, I would really focus on speed and technique and go to town on the mountain. This time up I found a whole set of runs that I’ve never been on before (the Green River Valley runs). The whole area had at least 12 inches of sticky powder everywhere, and since the crowds were low, nothing was tracked to pieces.
I was having such a good time that I decided to step it up a notch even further. I saw a face off to the right of the Green River Valley chair with only a single person and absolutely pristine snow. From the chairlift this looked like a great place to be, the only problem was you had to traverse off the beaten path to get to it. Now, in skiing when you go off the beaten path this either means you’re in the “backcountry” or “off piste.” (Things sound so much better when they’re in a different language, no?) Well, this face was definitely off piste.
Way off piste in point of fact. Of course one could only discover the full breadth of its off-pisteness once you were staring down the face. To be clear, staring down the steep tree-packed face to your front and with a sheer rock cliff behind you. A cliff festooned with safety flags and warning orange signs saying: “EXTREME DANGER — CLIFF FACE.” Understatement is really a fine art when it comes to warning signage, in my humble opinion. The signs would be most noticeable by someone plummeting past them on their way down to make a cruel introduction to the boulders below.
Now the ski face was more extreme than I had realized. There were a number of trees in basically every ley down the mountain, and because it had never been groomed, falling over or sitting down meant you sank a good three feet into powder. I sat, snapped some pictures just in case I needed to prove an insurance claim (always thinking ahead here) and made a very slow descent. All in all, it was really a great ride but following that I opted to be far more boring for the rest of the day… and, when in doubt, not ever go off piste evah, evah again.
Pictures from the day:
The furniture fiasco
Anything that can go wrong …
If you work in or are connected to the sales profession, you know that the start of the new year generally coincides with performance bonus season. This just so happens to be right around the time that most sale-y folks go out and start going household upgrades. We’re no exception to this rule.
For the past few months Bill has been antsy about replacing our living room furniture. We bought a big sectional from Room & Board in Chicago around the autumn of 1999. Set us back a few thousand dollars at the time, but we were having a friend of ours do a major design renovation of our house in Chicago so we sprung for it. In the intervening 7+ years, that sectional hasn’t fared too well with three major moves: Chicago->West Coast storage, West Coast storage->Lower Queen Anne Seattle, Lower Queen Anne Seattle->Magnolia, Seattle. The topper was when the chaise lounge fabric started become threadbare and developed a 14-inch tear right where your feet would rest. The sectional had to go. We’ve also been sleeping on a bare mattress for about the same time, so it made sense to buy an official bed set at the same time.
Personally I hate shopping for furniture — actually I hate spending large amounts of yet-to-be-deposited money — so Bill did all the research and running around. He likes that kind of stuff. He picked things out, I didn’t particularly hate any of the selections he made, so just this morning he set out to buy the new furniture while I ran around town doing some errands. Fast forward to noon.
Bill (on cellphone): “Omigod. I can get the new living room furniture today from Dania. It’s a total coup! They have the furniture in the warehouse and we can get it today. They wanted to charge us $150 to deliver the furniture (can you believe that!) but we can do it now with the rental truck.”
Me: “Rental truck?”
Bill: “But we can get the furniture tooodaaaaay.”
Me: “Uhhhh”
Bill: “And, at the same time, we can get the bedroom set at Far Fetched. They wanted to charge us by the stair to deliver!”
Me: “Well, does that mean I have to lift heavy furniture today?”
Bill: “I’ll be home in 5 minutes.”
Rental truck in hand we made our way up to the Lynnwood Dania where the helpful warehouse staff picked the new living room set (couch, loveseat and chair) carted it out with a dolly and loaded it into the U-haul. We then drove down to Seattle to the Far Fetched warehouse where they also helpfully picked the bedroom set out and loaded it into the now completely full U-haul. We drove home, it’s now around 4pm.
First things first at home, we have to get the old furniture out. We move all the intervening furniture (two tables, a tall glass curio cabinet brimming with tchotchkies, three heavy granite end tables) and stow the kitties. Takes about an hour. Just outside, it starts to rain and the temperature drops. We pickup and move all the old sectional pieces one at a time down the hallway and into the garage, getting rained on the whole time. After that’s done, Bill calls up one of his employees and sells her the old furniture sight-unseen (he’s a good salesman, that Bill). It’s now about 5pm.
I back the rental truck up to the garage as much as I can and we go about unloading. Only the helpful warehouse staff have managed to successfully wedge all the furniture into a perfectly interlocking puzzle of sofa dimensions. Highway jiggling haven’t helped matters either. We pull, pry and push the bedroom set out of the mix. About 15 minutes to get that one piece out. It’s huge, unwieldy and heavy as hell. We opt to slide it into the garage rather than carry it in the house. It’s still raining.
Right about now, something my best friend Chris calls “a boy fight” starts to brew. It’s cold, it’s dark, we’re getting rained on and we’re moving huge, unwieldy and heavy as hell furniture about. The bickering starts.
We move on to the living room set, which is carefully wrapped in layers of protective plastic and pale blue padding foam. Protective plastic, which, when wet, provides next to zero gripping to move the furniture. It continues to rain. These pieces are curiously heavier and bulkier than we thought they would be, but we continue undaunted. With breaks every 10 feet or so, we carry the furniture up the two flights of stairs and into the house. It’s now about 5:45 and we’re fairly soaked, grimy from warehouse dirt and tired from hefting furniture around.
Triumphantly, Bill starts to unwrap. I start to clean the layers of sticky warehouse dust which now cover me. I hear Bill shout from the living room. The reason our furniture was bulkier and heavier than we had thought: it’s not our furniture. Expecting to find a modern cream leather set, we’re surprised to discover instead a taupe overstuffed microfiber arrangement. The kind you might expect to see in the Brady’s living room. Very retro stuff.
Dania closes at 6pm Saturdays, so Bill immediately calls the store:
Bill: “Hi, we were just in the store and bought the cream leather living room set, but when we opened it at home it’s the wrong furniture.”
Dania guy: “Oh, we delivered the wrong set to you.”
Bill: “No, no … we picked this up from the warehouse a few hours ago.”
Dania guy: “Oh, we must have given your furniture to someone else.”
Bill: “No … the warehouse guys were very specific with the furniture they got for us. They double checked and everything.”
Dania guy: “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”
Bill: “How’s about giving me the furniture I wanted?”
Dania guy: “Hmmm. I can get someone out there in a week from today. Please keep the furniture clean and don’t unwrap anymore until we’re there.”
Bill: “Wait a second, that’s ludicrous. Give me the store manager.”
Dania guy: “I am the store manager.”
Bill: “Well then give me the sales lady who just sold me the wrong furniture.”
Dania guy: “She’s busy serving another customer.”
Right about now is when Bill — metaphorically now — loses his mind. A switch gets thrown, a gasket blows, ballistic things happen, the whole kit-n-caboodle.
Now living room furniture-less, we still have to get the old sectional from the garage and to SeaTac where Bill’s employee is at home waiting for us to drop it off. We have until around 9pm to return the rental truck to U-haul. Once more into the rain, we load the old furniture into the truck and drive off. Along the way, we stop to pick up Bill’s car from a lot where we parked it earlier in the day before all the furniture moving. I get into his car since I’m going to follow the rental truck to SeaTac. As Bill pulls away, I notice that we’ve now been driving the rental truck — packed with the the furniture we’ve sold to someone else — with the back door wide open. I lay on the carhorn to make Bill stop before he pulls onto the highway. A quick check later and it looks like we have lost a cushion. I now race off in Bill’s car madly looking for a sectional cushion that is on the highway, in the rain, in the dark on the opposite side of the road.
I run the whole drive path, flashing unfortunate oncoming cars with my brights to find a cushion lost in the darkness. No luck. I get back to the lot where Bill is waiting and tell him the cushion is gone for good. “Oh” he says, “I was going to call your cellphone but you didn’t have it. I miscounted.” Boy fight number two erupts.
First Ski of the Season
Yesterday my friend Lars and I hit the slopes of Crystal Mountain for our first (albeit late) ski of the season. Crystal’s been having an amazing year snow-wise, in the last two weeks, they’ve received nearly 10 feet of snow; since opening day the measure is over 240″ inches of the white stuff.
The weather couldn’t have been better for the trip. Crystal (if you’ll pardon the overuse) blue skies, relatively short lines and great snow made for a fantastic trip. One down, 9 more to go!
American Ridge Lodge Snowshoeing
We just got back from the winter camping from the regular crew. This year’s trip was a return to the American Ridge Lodge; the group had visited a few times prior (this was our first) and so they knew what to expect. I just got the eVite saying essentially: 1) it’s going to be cold, 2) everything is pack-in / pack-out, 3) you have to bring snowshoes or you’re doomed and 4) no electricity, no running water, a twenty seater pit toilet and single pane glass windows.
I packed up our backpacks as best I could, rented a pair of Denali snowshoes from REI and we headed out Friday in the very early afternoon.
Getting There
The American Ridge Lodge is located on the northern edge of the Mt. Rainier national forest. Usually one could get there from Seattle by heading south on I-5, turning left on the connecting highway headed up to the mountain and making the connection over Chinook Pass. Note I said “usually”. That plan doesn’t work in winter, when snow drifts regularly top 20 feet at times, and especially when late year storms take out large swaths of road from overflowing rivers. Such is the case in wintertime.
No, to get up to the lodge in the winter requires you to drive east through Cle Elum to Ellensburg, then head south to Yakima. When you get to Yakima, you take the first off road and proceed to drive 60 miles towards the mountain passes. When the road has turned to a sheet of ice, you haven’t seen another soul in 30 minutes and you’ve approached the opposite end of the Chinook Pass, you’re there. In the summer it’ll take you about 2 hours. In the winter, around 4.
Once you’ve arrived, it’s now time to strap on your snowshoes, gear-up the backpacks and start climbing. Getting up to the Lodge is a little short of a mile hike up a slight grade in the snow. Not bad if it’s just you and your snowshoes. Marginally more complicated when it’s you, firewood, drinking water, food, an inflatable air mattress with battery operated compressor (a requirement), a 0-degree F rated sleeping bag, a bottle of 18 year McCallen scotch and snowshoes. Take your time. Better yet, take your time and do it in the dark with a light drizzle of sleet falling on you. (In all honesty, it’s not that bad.)
About the Lodge
Back around 1905 the early settlers of the region used to come out to this area of the American Ridge to do some downhill skiing. Given what I’ve seen from making the drive and the current weather, I can only assume that the early settlers of this region were batshit crazy. Over time the area grew in popularity when by the early 40s locals had erected a set of small warming huts. Now, bear in mind, they didn’t erect a chairlift system to cart skiers up the hill with their hardwood carved skis and cast iron poles. You had to carry those up hill yourself. But, when you finally made it down hill, you could at least get yourself warm.
During the Great Depression the CCC tore down the makeshift warming huts and replaced it with the lodge as it stands today, around 1948. The ski area only lasted for another few years following that, as better and larger areas opened up in surrounding areas. By the late 50s the lodge had been abandoned and fell into disuse. Ownership of the lodge reverted back to the Forestry Service and in the mid-70s the local school district used it as a sort of nature classroom, taking school children up to the area for classes. Amazingly the lodge didn’t burn down, get vandalized into nothingness or even just rot away. During the 80s a restoration / renovation project brought it back into a more serviceable status, but in doing so they took out the stove, the bar and furnace. Now the Lodge is used by campers by reservation and the fees go to conservation.
Despite the fact that the lodge is as old as it is, and spent a good time of its existence abandoned, the structure is in very good shape.
Around the Cabin
You want pristine? You want silent? You want starry sky and the milky way? You get it in spades. The whole surrounding area basically drips with Hallmark Christmas card goodness. The ski runs are still around for the most part, the smaller runs have all since been reforested naturally. However the main run and the next smaller run are quite easily seen.
Out in the Snow
The hiking in the area was great. From what I could tell, any other group that had been there didn’t make many tracks in the snow. So, we had the range wide open to us — and maybe it’s a primal childhood thing for me — but I just can’t stand seeing pure snow go un-walkedin.
Bill and I started out wanting to head to the top of the main ski run and then make our way across that ridge and finally head down. If we found anything particularly cool, we’d go out after it. Not wanting to be an afterschool special, I had my GPS unit on tracking our movements so that I could backtrack us if I had to. Of course, in hindsight, I could have just followed our deep tracks in the snow. Eh. I got to play with my GPS receiver anyway.
