incoming

May 4, 2011

Rites of Spring

The calendar reads May, and I'll have to grudgingly admit that spring is here.

With the changing of the seasons come a couple of traditions. I finished off the lift-served season Sunday at Alpental pretty much as the season had begun, taking mellow laps with Kevin and Francine. Mike and Broz, along with the Broznowski kids Sophie and Will, hooked up around mid-day, and Gracie joined the group for a few laps as well in the afternoon. The day was perfect, the snow turned to corn as ordered, and the BBQ's were a-smokin' in lot 4 to wind up what has been a great year.

Another May tradition that is snowfall-dependent and therefore doesn't happen every year is skiing the Nisqually Chutes to the bridge. Once this was a no-brainer, as the glacier reached nearly to the bridge, but in recent years the ice has retreated out of sight up and around the corner. Frank wanted to ski today, as it looked like perhaps the only nice day of the week, so we took two cars and left mine at the bridge parking lot. Surprisingly there were only a few cars at Paradise at 8:30 AM, as the day was crystal clear and there was a nice cushion of 6 inches of snow from the past two days. Frank had never skied the chutes so it was a treat to get it in perfect condition with no tracks . . .

Frank Neumann lays down tracks mid-Nisqually Chutes. It was untracked all the way to the bridge.

Previous Incoming Pages:

China: Wandering in the Middle Kingdom

"Incoming" covers developments that have personal interest to me (ie. gear I might consider acquiring, or events I feel may impact the sport of skiing) - it is by no means meant to be a comprehensive enumeration of gear or events in the ski world at large. Feel free to contact me via the randosaigai.com link below with news or images that may be of interest . . .