Tooth the Nightmare Before Christmas

The resort manager had barely finished extolling the virtues of our room -- "the best in the lodge," he promised -- before Kristin began what would be a brief obsession with the concierge, Floyd. He was taller than me. He was darker than me. And try as I might, I have to admit Floyd is even a much better listener. And we all know how important that is to the ladies. Lucky for me, Floyd also outweighed me by nearly two thousand pounds and was quite hairy. And dead. Floyd was a stuffed bison on display in the main lobby that, according to Kristin, was just oh-so-cute. Whether or not he performed concierge duties we don't know for sure. We never saw anyone at the desk adjacent him, yet the reservations were always well taken care of.

As for our room, it was every bit as fantastic as we were assured. We entered to the sound of classical music playing on a stereo, a ready-made wood fire waiting to be lit in the fireplace, and a view looking out to an endless winter snowscape every bit as pillowy as the down-clad bedding. The four and one-half hour drive went smoothly with clear roads over both mountain passes, yet we were anxious to commence with the relaxing. Armed with a couple bottles of pinot noir, a favorite single malt, some books and a backgammon board, we embraced the lack of a television in the room and set about putting the stress of the preceding weeks behind us. Back home in Snoqualmie I'm neck-deep in one of the most frustrating and difficult projects I've been a part of in years and Kristin, well, she just got laid off two weeks prior. But here at Sun Mountain Lodge, none of that mattered. All we had to remember was that our couples massage was scheduled for three o'clock on Friday and we had a dinner reservation for seven on Christmas day. It would be four days of blissful relaxation.

We settled into a pair of leather armchairs near one of the two massive fireplaces in the lobby, just feet from a towering two-story artificial Christmas tree, to do some reading while the local Cascadia Choral group filled the room with a harmonious hour of Christmas carols. Kristin sat working her way through one of my favorites, "The River of Doubt" by Candice Millard, while I read Colin Thubron's "Shadow of the Silk Road." The choir was explaining the finer points of miming along to the reindeer song as I came upon the following passage:

Snowshoeing at Mt. Rainier

View looking south from Mt. Rainier to the Tatoosh Range.

Had a great weekend out of doors this week. I spent Sunday doing a 53 mile mountain bike ride with friends and Kristin took the dogs snowshoeing back near Talapus Lake where we went last weekend, but the real treat was on Saturday. We woke up bright and early (actually it was still dark) and made the drive to the Paradise area at Mt. Rainier National Park. Neither of us hadn't ever been to the south side of Rainier before, but we really wanted to get some snowshoeing in there. Most of all, we just wanted to wander around where there weren't any trees and, if we were lucky, no people either.

Click to view all photos.

We were second in line at the park entrance when the ranger opened the gate and before long were walking around the parking lot at the Paradise Visitor Center trying to find the trail -- things that are very straightforward in the summer become a bit trickier in winter, especially when surrounded by walls of snow. We eventually found our way up out of the lot and headed off to the east towards Edith Creek. It was snowing lightly and we were in the clouds so visibility wasn't very good. But we didn't mind and just started hiking uphill through a half-foot of fresh snow.

Kristin enjoying the early-morning tranquility on Mt. Rainier.

Being unfamilliar with the terrain, I tried to commit the topo map to memory and go by what I felt like made sense. I pointed to a ridge and traced a loop in the air with my outstretched hand. I wanted to avoid the steeps for fear of avalanche and get up onto the ridge and loop around to the west from the top. It was a good plan and worked well, but Kristin was having a bit of trouble with the elevation and was moving a bit slower than normal. We weren't in a hurry though so I just continued on ahead, breaking trail, and taking photos. Once we got to the top of the first ridge I noticed that another pair of snowshoers were following our tracks.

Either I plotted a good route or they were even more clueless than us. Or they just wanted the comfort of following someone else's tracks... Probably a little of all three.

Visibility got laughably poor just below glacier vista and, for a brief moment, I wasn't sure whether my plan would find us a safe route down. I soon spotted a pair of backcountry skiers shoeing their way up the mountain about 100 yards away -- my route had an exit! Excellent. We thought about continuing the climb towards Panorama Point at about 6800 feet elevation (we started at roughly 5500) but between the poor visibility and Kristin's trouble with the altitude, we decided to descend. Next time, I'm packing my snowboard with me for the descent!

We meandered back down the mountain, across the snowplay area, and over to the Nisqually Vista trail. We followed the trail for a while but then went off exploring in some untracked snow just in time for the sun to pop out. A fine time to stomp down the snow and take a rest. Snowshoeing is pretty exhausting and we ended up doing 1100 feet of climbing through fresh snow. It's not a lot of climbing, but we're still getting used to these things so it was a lot for us. We eventually shoe'd our way back down to the large UFO-shaped monument and walked the road a short way back to the truck and called it a day.

Highlight of the day: Breaking fresh trail with Kristin early in the morning when virtually nobody else was out on the mountain.

Lowpoint of the day: Paying $3.92 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline in Elbe on the way home.

Click here for photo slideshow.

The Snowy Wonders of Topography

This is our fourth winter living in Snoqualmie, but it ceases to amaze me just how dramatic the affect topography plays on snowfall accumulation here. At the extreme local level, we live on a ridge at an elevation of 900 feet above sea level. Off the ridge, less than two miles away, the elevation is roughly 450 feet. We routinely get snow at our house and can literally drive down the hill to where there's not a trace of snow. Turn around to face the ridge and you can see the snow-line just feet from where you stand. Everything above a certain height is snow, everything below is rain.

This sounds rather obvious, but growing up in the northeast you kind of get used to the "snow-line" not having anything to do with elevation, but rather latitude. Everything north of Philadelphia gets snow, points further south gets rain.

I'll admit the change in snow accumulation between my development and the town itself is only a matter of 14 inches and 6 inches (cumulative for the year) and that it's not very dramatic. What is dramatic is the difference between the accumulation at our house and that at the mountain pass, 27 miles up the road.

Like I said, I figure we received a grand-total of 14 inches of snow at our house so far this year (elevation 900 feet). Maybe an inch or two more.

Snoqualmie Pass lies 27 miles to the east and is rapidly closing in on 30 feet of total snow accumulation for the year. The pass lies at 3,200 feet above sea level. And it's only February 1st.

From the Associated Press:

Gov. Chris Gregoire declared a state of emergency Thursday for 15 counties, mostly in snowbound Eastern Washington, which has been nearly cut off from the state’s west side by mountain avalanches and paralyzed by inability to get all the snow off streets and highways.

"The snowfall this month has been relentless and this proclamation will help counties with response efforts,” Gregoire said in a statement.Long shutdowns of Interstate 90 over Snoqualmie Pass, the main east-west route across the Cascade Mountains, have increasingly disrupted the state’s economy, the governor said. Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond said 7,000 trucks cross the pass each day, about one quarter of total traffic on the pass.

The pass remained closed a second day with no estimated time for reopening after an avalanche about 150 feet wide buried the eastbound lanes about 2 a.m. Friday, department spokeswoman Erin Bogenschutz said. More than five feet of snow has fallen this week and the National Weather Service predicted another 4 to 10 inches by 4 p.m.

The pass was closed for 28 hours ending Wednesday morning because of heavy snow and avalanches. Less than six hours later, another slide hit two cars and the freeway was closed again. No one was injured.

An avalanche 150 feet wide? People struggle to escape avalanche on skis. You can't even dodge that one in a car!

Snoqualmie Pass received 172 inches of snow in December. According to WSDOT the pass has received 317 inches of snow this season as of noon on Wednesday. It's dumped another two feet since then (and nobody has been able to play in it since the Interstate has been closed).

It's hard to believe that just two winters ago several ski resorts in the area never even opened for more than a couple of days due to an utter lack of snow. And now, this? I've pretty much lost interest in sliding down mountains on boards and skis, but damn if this doesn't make me want to lace up the boots and get out there soon. Then again, part of the reason I lost interest is that my snowboard sucks in the powder and I don't feel like buying another snowboard.

Oh well, the snowshoeing will be good... once the avalanche hazard drops to acceptable levels. My guess is that it will be safe to go back out there sometime in June.

In other news, I'm going to miss the annual discussion of water conservation due to "lower than expected snowpacks". I suspect many of the farmers in eastern Washington are considering abandoning their apple orchards and converting their fields to rice paddies as we speak. Or cranberries.

Hurricane Ridge Snowshoeing

Watch the weather. It's called Hurricane Ridge for a reason...

The anonymous commenter who made that remark on Friday couldn't have been more accurate. We knew the weather was going to turn on Saturday so we took the 7:10 ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula with the goal of being in the snow by 10am at the latest. The drive north on Highway 101 was beautiful -- the Olympic Mountains were visible from base to peak and the clouds were far off and high in the sky -- and we made the drive up the road from Port Angeles to Hurricane Ridge (elevation 5,240 feet) by 9:30.

It was very windy on the ridge and it the temps were in the low 20s, but the views were great. The plan was to snowshoe 3 miles to Hurricane Hill and beat feet back to the truck before the snowstorm arrived. We didn't want to just snowshoe on the side of the groomed x-c ski trail so we wandered back and forth through the woods and along the hillsides that paralleled the main path to the proper trailhead and when we did finally reach the start of the more rugged portion of the hike, roughly 1.5 miles from the car, the weather turned nasty.

We started up and over the first knob and the driving snow stopped us cold. Visibility was dropping by the minute, the wind was horrendous, and the snow was coming down in buckets. And we knew we had the most technical and most exposed portion of the trek still to come. Kristin and I were with friends and between the four of us, nobody had any real backcountry snowshoeing experience. Going on simply wasn't safe and we all knew it so we turned around and made our way back to the visitor center atop Hurricane Ridge. The tracks that we had left just 20 minutes earlier were already covered in fresh snow.

The storm rolled in a lot faster and earlier in the day than forecasted, so we only got 2 hours of snowshoeing and 3.1 miles of distance in, but the conditions were far too severe to take any foolish chances. To say the potential was there for this to have been a life or death decision wouldn't be an exaggeration.

I think the following two pictures sum up the experience rather well. They were taken at the same place (facing opposite directions) and were only taken two hours apart.

The four of us set out towards Hurricane Hill at roughly 10am.

Kristin struggling against the wind and snow just two hours later.

View all the photos from the day right here.

A View of Tomorrow, Today

Where we're headed to go snowshoeing tomorrow morning. It will be my first trip to Olympic National Park in the winter and I can't wait.

Click here for the Hurricane Ridge webcam.

Winter Wonderland: Mt. Teneriffe Bike n' Shoe

Note: Those who just want to see the full photos slideshow can do so right here.

I have a friend who is fond of saying that the Seattle weathermen should simply report the forecast in percentages of grey: Monday will be 50% grey with skies darkening on Tuesday to 80% grey. After all, while we all know Eskimos have dozens of words for snow, a lesser-known fact is that Seattlelites have dozens of synonyms for dreary. Naturally, those of us in the Pacific Northwest don't let any of the questionable weather stop us from playing outside, but that's not to say we don't love a bright blue cloudless day. A crisp winter day with bright sunshine and clear skies is not only something to smile at, it's something to cherish. And I'll remember yesterday for quite some time.

I'm not sure whether or not Thom expected anyone to actually do it, but when he taunted the BBTC Listserve with word that therocky forest road leading up Mt. Teneriffe had been plowed, it didn't take long for Ross and I to agree to do it. The weather was shaping up to be dry and cold throughout the early portion of the week so, after a number of emails on Sunday night, we decided to meet in North Bend on Tuesday morning with our bikes and snowshoes. Ross hadn't ever climbed Mt. Teneriffe before, nor had he done any prior snowshoeing, but he was game for renting a pair from REI and, well, I know he can climb like a mountain goat when he wants to. Nevertheless, when I sent him a detailed numerical description of how steep the path was -- it averages close to 850 feet of gain per mile -- he commented that his airplane doesn't even ascend that steeply. Yeah, climbing Mt. Teneriffe is no picnic.

We met at the Mt. Si Trailhead at 11:30am and after a mile warmup on the road leading to Mt. Teneriffe, we hit the dirt and began our climb. The gate at the bottom of the Mt. Teneriffe road is at an elevation of 950 feet and our ultimate destination was at 4,788. The first half mile of the forest road was a bit icy, but otherwise not a problem and we pedaled quite easily for a while. It wasn't long before the dry patchy road grew snow-covered but the going was still quite easy thanks to the gradient being rather gentle and the frigid sub-zero temps creating a hard crusty layer of snow and ice that offered surprisingly good traction.

Our destination... Mount Teneriffe. As seen from Mt. Si Road.

Alas, as we pedaled past the 1900-foot mark, the road kicks up at an unrelenting angle. It's a challenge to pedal this section in dry times, but here the snow was not only getting deeper, but it was starting to soften in the sunlight... as snow has a habit of doing. So we spent the better part of the next two hours pushing our bikes. Oh, I'd throw a leg over it every now and then and pedal for a whopping 10 to 20 yards, but it was seldom worth the effort.

Ross was battling a pretty fierce chest and sinus infection over the past few weeks and eventually fell behind a bit. He says he was even close to turning around and heading back down the mountain but he didn't want to just ditch me so he kept on in hopes that I eventually stopped to wait for him. I did. At the 4,000 foot mark there was an absolutely fantastic viewpoint looking clear over the valley to Mt. Rainier. You could even see Rattlesnake Lake, Tiger Mountain and Puget Sound in the distance. The sky was an incredibly deep blue and the sun was high in the sky and basking me in warmth. Ross eventually caught up and wanted to turn around but I knew from the map that we were getting close and that the trail should level off shortly. I convinced him to keep on keepin' on for just a bit longer.

Sure enough we were able to actually ride a bit of the road for a while and eventually came to a flat point where the snow had simply gotten too deep to continue on with the bikes. Since we made it this far it wasn't hard to convince Ross to put those rented snowshoes of his to use. So we ditched the bikes -- there aren't many places I would consider leaving a $6k mountain bike unattended, but atop a snow-covered mountain is one of them -- and continued on foot. It was 3:00pm now and I wanted to be back on the bikes and heading down the mountain by 4pm (we had lights, but really didn't want to use them) so the decision was made to snowshoe till 3:30 then turn around.

My bike at 4,000 feet with a killer view of Mount Rainier.

We made quick work of the remainder of the forest road and eventually came to the trail that leads to the summit. Judging by the slight indentations in the snow, nobody had shoe'd there way through here since priot to the last snowfall several days earlier. I broke trail for the first quarter mile or so, then after taking some photos, gave way to Ross so he could feel how fun breaking trail in snowshoes is. There wasn't any time to push on to the summit, but we did make it to the saddle below the peak and had absolutely awe-inspiring views to Mt. Baker to the north on one side of the ridge and due south to Mt. Rainier from the other. The quiet solitude atop the snow-covered mountain, the beautiful vistas and bright blue skies made it all worth it. I can't say I enjoyed spending several hours pushing my bike up a snow-covered trail, but it was no doubt worth it in the end.

The trek back down to the bikes was over too quickly and we were back on the bikes and headed off the mountain before 4pm, just as I hoped we'd be. We each crashed once during the slip n' slide descent. Although I never actually hit the ground during my spill, I did unknowingly dislodge my camera from its holster and descend all the way down the mountain without it. Ross's spill left him with a bent wheel and dinged up bike rack, but he was none the worse for it.

Me snowshoeing back across the saddle on Mount Teneriffe.

The temperature plummeted during the descent as the sun dropped behind the western mountains and the cold from my bike's brake levers nearly froze my fingertips -- if I was to ever build a snow-bike I would be sure to wrap the brake levers in bar tape. We quickly racked the snow-covered bikes, got dressed, and headed to the Snoqualmie Taproom for an early dinner.

Ross must have enjoyed the scenery and/or the post-ride beer a good deal because he volunteered to drive back down from Everett the next day and hike back up the mountain with me to find my camera. Would you believe we found it? We did. We met at the trailhead at 10am and promptly started climbing. We found it at about the 3,600 foot mark, roughly 4.5 miles up the trail. And would you believe it still worked? Gotta hand it to the Canon Powershot A630 and rechargeable Sony AA batteries -- the camera spent the night in a pile of snow in sub-freezing temperatures and powered right up and worked fine the second I found it. Karma was on Ross's side though as he not only found the button that fell off his cycling boot the day earlier, but I bought him lunch at, you guessed it, the Snoqualmie Taproom.

Kristin and I will be going snowshoeing with friends this coming weekend, and this time I'm going to hold a bit tighter to my camera and leave the bike at home.

Link to photos.

Mt Teneriffe - Anybody See My Camera?

I'm going to hold off posting my write-up of today's relatively epic bike-n-shoe on Mt. Teneriffe on account of my camera leaping out of my holster for it during the descent. I'm going back to the mountain tomorrow morning to hike back up in search for it. It's somewhere between 1.5 and 4 miles from the trailhead.

I'd bring my bike again but, honestly, I don't deserve to have that much fun two days in a row.

In the meantime, Ross posted a couple pics of me during the trip today. Check them out here, here, and here.

Adults at Play: Snowshoeing!

Click to see the brief slideshow from our day in the snow.

"Well you guys are the first to hit it this season and we've got over 27 inches of fresh snow for you. You're going to have some fun out there," said one of the instructors at the Steven's Pass Nordic Center. Both he and the woman who sold us our passes ($10 each) were super friendly and very helpful. Kristin and I rented our snowshoes from the new REI in Issaquah the night before and they pointed us in the right direction, gave us a map, and told us to watch for the orange & black streamers and to stay off the cross-country ski trails.

We strapped into the MSR Denali snowshows, put on our Camelbacks, and started the trek into the wild white yonder. We rounded the corner as instructed, saw a pair of snowshoe tracks, and immediately started following them. The guy in the shop told us to be careful where we go since everyone would likely follow the trail we broke throughout the weekend. Well, wouldn't you know it, but a couple that started just minutes before us had already gone the wrong way.

And yes, we naturally followed them.

We rapidly caught a 50's-ish couple making slow progress through thigh-deep snow and took over trail-breaking duty. They were happy to see us pass them and after a few strides, I knew why. The going was slow, challenging, and I could most definitely "feel the burn" from this intense workout. Did I mention we never did this before? Did I mention the reason we specifically went to the Nordic Center was for an easy introduction to snowshoeing on tampered-down trails? This wasn't full-on backcountry (no avalanche concerns) but it was a lot more than we bargained for on our first outing.

And it was awesome.

The Nordic Center may have only received 27" of fresh snow in the past couple days, but that didn't keep me from sinking to my knees, thighs, and occasionally up to my waste (and higher) with every step. And I knew this would happen. Rented equipment is never foolproof and in our case the snowshoes were one-size-fits all. Kristin was getting plenty of float from her shoes, but I outweigh her by roughly 70 pounds and was sinking with every step. This was exhausting work.

"I haven't seen any of those orange and black ribbons yet," Kristin said as if reading my mind. We were supposed to come to a 4-way intersection with a trail sign almost immediately after starting out but following this other couple's tracks had us off target. We didn't know where we were in relation to the trails, but we knew we weren't on any particular routes. Not that there really are any "trails" in the woods in the winter -- you just sort of go where you want and follow the path of least resistance. The forest was absolutely beautiful and although it was cloudy and snowing hard (the mountains would get another 10" of snow today), I just kept post-holing and toe-kicking upwards towards the sound of a creek. I figured it didn't really matter where we were, as long as we stayed off the XC Ski trails.

Kristin and I paused every few minutes to catch our breath, take in the scenery, and strategize about the next direction to go. It was just us, an otherworldly blanket of snow, and a moderately dense forest of evergreens straining under a white fluffy burden. We eventually came to a red streamer tied to a tree, then another, and another and after a glance at the map we realized that we were on an unmarked trail following a creek up to Latham Lake. We finally, after an hour of beautiful but exhausting climbing, came out on an XC trail and made a plan. Kristin's altimeter revealed that we were at 3,300 ft elevation, about 800 feet below the elevation of the lake, so that was a no-go. We decided to push on down the XC trail (we stayed to the edge and there were no tracks) to meet up with a trail called Clickity-Clack, and take that over to the Steppin' Stoker trail. A great plan, albeit a bit ambitious given the conditions and our singular hour of experience.

The going was terrifically easy on the side of the groomed XC trail. It was essentially a forest road with just 4 or 5 inches of snow on it and very compressed. We made great time down this section and were soon back in the woods, "breaking trail" en route to the creek shown in the picture above. The trail rose and fell wildly in short bursts and although the elevation change was seldom more than 20 feet at once, toe-kicking and stepping up what amounts to a 20-foot wall of snow is not easy. Coming down was a blast, but going up was actually kind of scary. At one point I stepped through the snow into a hole and sank all the way to my armpits in snow. I had to dig out my snowshoe and pull my left foot out with my hands because the weight of the snow on top of it was too much to budge. I had been in worse situations snowboarding off the groomers in a blizzard and didn't panic, but there is a distinct helplessness one feels when stuck in extremely deep snow. I imagine it's very much what falling into quicksand would feel like.

Kristin eventually insisted on taking the lead and breaking trail to give me a breather, but I had already post-holed over 2 miles and was ready to poach an XC trail back to the car. She'd lead just long enough to let me catch my breath and take a photo of her -- she was truly beaming with joy the entire 3+ hours we were snowshoeing -- then I'd take over. Much of our hiking was done in silence (aside from the plastic-slapping of the rented shoes) but when we did speak it was with a youthful exuberance that is often missing from our adult lives. Here we were playing in snow up to our waists! Falling over in it, sliding down hills in it, and laughing and smiling throughout it all. Our smiles persisted while our leg muscles screamed; they stayed put on our faces even when confused about the route or unsure of our location; and they even remained in place when a snow-covered log tried to steal the shoes off our feet.

As difficult and tiring as this was, I can't wait to go again. There's a serenity and a beauty to walking through the deep forest in the winter that simply can't be described. To see nothing but your tracks, those of a bobcat or snow hare, and the green and white of a snow-covered evergreen woods is a wonderful thing. And one of the best sights we came across was a singular strand of spider silk hanging down from a branch of a tree with dozens of perfectly-shaped individual snow flakes stuck to it in a row. If this wasn't the most delicate and strikingly beautiful thing in nature, then I want to hear what is.

Nearly 3 miles later, we got back to the car, changed into dry clothes, and realized we forgot jackets for the ride home. Oh well, time to head towards the Bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth for lunch. We positively nailed the clothing-component of our snowshoe foray and were plenty warm (but not too warm) while snowshoeing but now that we were done, we were cold and hungry. And without coats. Newbies! A hot bowl of winekraut soup and a cup of hot spiced cider provided a quick remedy and as we continued our clockwise tour of the Mountain Loop that connects Steven's Pass, Blewett Pass, and Snoqualmie Pass we continued to witness more and more great scenery. And as we drove through orchard country the sun broke free of the clouds and lit the snow-covered and gnarled pear trees just long enough to make these otherwise grotesque creations look positively beautiful against the mountain backdrop.

Tomorrow we return the rented snowshoes -- which we both felt were lacking in both form and function -- and will likely put a couple pair of Atlas snowshoes into Santa's bag of toys for a holiday trek with the dogs Tuesday morning.

Tomorrow: Something New

For one reason or another, Kristin and I have lost interest in downhill skiing and snowboarding and after taking a year off from winter sports (actually, I mountain biked nearly every day last winter), we've decided to finally give snowshoeing a try. So, tonight we head down to the new REI in Issaquah to pick up our rental shoes (MSR Denalis) and in the morning we're going to head to the Steven's Pass Nordic Center to give it a go on their maintained network of snowshoe trails.

If we enjoy it as much as we expect to then we'll likely hit a little bit of the backcountry on Tuesday morning and then maybe make the drive to Mt. Rainier on New Years Day. Considering the mountain passes around here have gotten over 47" of snow in the past week, we figure the prospects for a white Christmas in the Cascades will be 100%. Pictures will follow!

There's not a lot of snowshoe-specific trails,
but plenty for a couple newbies like us.