Remembering. Cues, reminders, artifacts of a winter way of living that will soon be upon us again…

I am in a Subaru Outback in a Starbucks parking lot across 1st Avenue South from the Outdoor Research flagship store and design headquarters. Imagining my amigos are inside getting a latté and a Gore-tex space suit, to go. And yes, we’ve got to GO! 28 inches of new at Crystal! So go the imaginings… I’m sure all you folks whose mountain is yet to open can relate, all amped for the season – strapping in and practicing carpet jibs. I did get a little skating in this morning at Marginal Way, Seattle’s d.i.y. skatepark – the cousin of Burnside. So that was soothing….

As I’m surfing the web, practicing google ollies, and drooling over Dave Ghan’s Mt. St. Elias photos in #8.2 – I send a little message out over the interweb. LET IT SNOW! Maybe it will transmit to the satellites to the clouds to the peaks. Yes.

In the meantime here are some photos of one of my favorite days last season. We got huge amounts of snow in Miracle March, as Byron Bagwell likes to call it. Sean Freyer, Byron and I hiked into the pit of Shuksan’s Arm. Sean getting a cleeean turn…

Here is Byron with a retro-blast off a natural little wind-lip.

We were eyeing some lines that we’d not ridden before. There was some hidden ice on the North West slope, but the North East slope was cash money. Byron on the right, myself on the left.

Then we have the aftermath of our Arm adventure, with a pristine wave I met at Crystal Mt.’s Southback.

A pillow line of my dreams at Crystal Mountain…

And finally, my favorite lunch while hiking. I’ve been experimenting with this one for a while. The double-decker = 3 slices of shape maintaining sprouted bread, mucho peanut/almond butter, raisins, cheese, and an apple. Yum.

Yes, these are the things I think of while I get ready for the snow to drop. In the last couple of hours I did hear from an O.R. employee that the snow level is going to drop to 500 feet on Friday?! I’ll keep on remembering!