Mt Ashland, OR 2/29/2016 (inc trip, month, season totals)

tseeb

Well-known member
After skiing Crystal Moutain, WA on Sunday, I drove just over 200 miles, with snow for the first 5 miles or so, then in very heavy rain at times, to my cousin's house E of Vancouver, WA. I got to see my soon-to-be 89 year-old uncle, but his wife of over 70! years (my mother's only sibling) was already in bed. On Monday morning , I was on the road not much after 7 and filled my tank with $1.73 regular. I ran into traffic getting on I-205 S and it continued on and off for most of the 30 miles until I got onto I-5 S as there were some accidents due to rain. On I-5, I went a little above the 55/60/65 mph speed limits and luckily for me all the Highway Patrol I saw were busy with other vehicles, except for one marked Collision Investigations that slowly passed me. I turned off for Mt. Ashland, 5 miles before the CA/OR border about 12:30. I was on the hill before 1, skiing my old Salomon Sandstorms as they had been base welded and tuned. I thought I may have needed the fresh wax as my other skis had been used 7 days including skiing to the very slushy Whistler base 4 times and early Ashland report said low was 32 and it would be sunny.

I bought my $32 weekday half-day, starts at noon, ticket (full day weekday is $39). Note that Ashland is usually closed Tues/Wed but this week will be open Wed as they are hosting Oregon high school alpine racers. Ashland also has Carload Mondays when, except for holidays, up to 7 legally-belted passenger in a vehicle ski for $99. The snow was firmer than expected and skis were a little squirrelly, but I just thought it was due to fresh wax and firm snow. I skied down to 750' vertical Windsor chair and rode it twice, skiing Winter, then Tempest where I cut over to 1,000'+ vertical Ariel chair which I would end up riding 12 times. I first skied intermediate Dream and Caliban finding decent groomed snow with some firmer spots. Next I went past the Bowl and looked at Cirque runs, but decided it was too firm. I skied the shoulder past the bowl and almost went too low to where I would have had a little hike out. I went skier's right in the bowl the next two runs, sharing the second runs with the only other person I saw in there all day. Snow was mostly firm, but by looking and skiing carefully some of my turns were in better edgeable snow.

Exiting the bowl, I was trying to get above a snowfence to get back to Caliban run and didn't see wind or grooming ridge and hit it hard and fast enough to lose a ski and go down and bounce up on very firm snow. It was a dramatic enough fall for me to wonder if I was OK and for a couple skiing above me to come check on me and bring me my ski. The good news from it was that my strained back seemed to be better, but the bad news is that I bruised the hip and side of ribs on the same side. I took one more run past the bowl skiing the a smooth steep face, then skied across the top and down a run to the car where I took some ibuprofen and a shot of tequila and swapped skis. The 186 cm Fischer Rangers had a lot more hold and more than enough glide on the firm snow. I found very good snow on Upper Tempest run which I repeated a couple of times. Before leaving I finally braved a steeper, longer pitch in the Cirque/Circe area and found as on most other places a mix of very firm and some more edgeable snow. Earlier in the day the snow may have been better as wind in PM was probably 20 mph and there were a few flakes and threatening clouds.

I quit a little before 4 with almost 15.7K. My drive home to San Jose was 6 1/2 hours with a stop for gas and snacks in Yreka, another stop for stickers for friend's new truck in Weed, CA, then for a 3X2 at In N' Out in Redding and a last gas stop in Dunnigan, CA where Pilot truck stop was $1.99 before 3 cents off for courtesy card. My trip mileage was 3,289.5. I skied 10 full days, plus a short day at Big White on Mustang pickup day and less than full days at Ashland and Crystal. I visited 8 new-to-me ski areas. In order, they were: Silver Star, Apex, Big White, Revelstoke, Sun Peaks, Whistler (3 days). Crystal and Ashland (where I planned to go more than 30 years ago, but after spending night in in town, the wind there discouraged us from driving up 5,000 feet to ski area). For the month, I skied 19 days; 6 in CO, 11 in BC (8 lift-served and 3 cat) plus one each in WA and OR. My season total is 35 days, which means I have a long way to go to get to goal of 50 while my season vertical is almost 850K so my goal of getting to 1 million should be easily reached.
 

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tseeb":3dmljavh said:
My season total is 35 days, which means I have a long way to go to get to goal of 50 while my season vertical is almost 850K so my goal of getting to 1 million should be easily reached.
I'm at 34 days but only 625K vertical. I'm unlikely to get 1 million vertical (which I've done the past 6 seasons) unless there's a summer trip. Japan was low on vertical per day but high on powder per day, a worthy tradeoff IMHO.
 
Thanks for sharing, its an area I've never been to.

Also for the stoke, I fly out at 6am tomorrow so am well past the excited stage!
 
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