powder magazine
For years I wrote department pieces and feature articles for Powder, “The Skier’s Magazine.” Writing for Powder was a lifelong dream that started when I was a kid, when I would tear out pages from the magazine and tape them onto my bedroom walls. Skiing has always been a major force in my life, and writing for Powder married my love of the mountains with my love of journalism and feature writing.
Here’s a small sampling of the many stories I've published in the magazine and on its website over the years.
Matterhorn of the Midwest
By Kristopher Kaiyala
Volume 36, Number 3
“You brought those, here?” asked the perky sales clerk from behind the green-and-white rental-car counter. It was the second time in 20 minutes I’d been asked that question (the first was on the shuttle bus that brought me from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport) and by the looks on the faces of my inquisitors you’d have thought that I brought golf clubs to Mt. Everest or scuba gear to the Gobi Desert. She typed quickly into her computer and mumbled “Mmm hmm, okey dokey,” to herself, and soon a shiny black Dodge Magnum, long as a hearse and wide as a Cadillac, pulled into the closest parking spot. Not exactly the Blues Brothers cop car, or POWDER’s Joaquin, but it would do.
“Where ya goin’, anyway?” she asked, easily sliding my ski bag through the Magnum’s open hatch and up and over the back seat as a jet flew loud and low overhead. Indeed, this was the question I’d pondered ever since accepting this assignment. Being a nearly life-long resident of the West Coast, I wasn't sure what to expect on the frozen tundra of America's great northern plains. Despite briefly living in Chicago a decade ago, what I knew of the Midwest, and Wisconsin in particular, was mostly based on clichés. Cheeseheads. Badgers. Ice fishing. Dairy farms. Lutefisk. Beer helmets. Hunting lodges frequented by grizzled men in red-and-black plaid wool jackets. I admit it wasn’t much to go on, but like most clichés I figured there was some truth in them. I certainly didn't expect to find much in the way of downhill skiing, and yet here I was in the driver's seat about to embark on one of the strangest skiing road trips of my life.
In answer, I pointed vaguely toward Brett Favre. “I’m heading up north,” I said, “to do some skiing. You oughtta try it some time.” “No thanks,” the clerk replied, her face turning green like her polo shirt, “I’m afraid of heights”—an amusing answer considering the ski area I was about to shred for two days sports a whopping 230 vertical feet. I guess when it comes to skyscrapers, the people of the prairie love their tall buildings. When it comes to natural elevation, however, most seem happy with their feet on the ground.
If you were transported to Wilmot, Wisconsin from another planet—which is how I felt behind the wheel of the Magnum searching for anything, and I mean anything, resembling a mountain—you might well wonder if skiers here are permanently brain damaged from all the Old Milwaukee. And yet, on wintry weekends, Wilmot Mountain boasts a palpable ski vibe. It’s not unusual to see a line of cars with ski racks or buses full of excited kids heading west on Wisconsin Highway C from Interstate 94, passing each other (and probably a few tractors and trucks with gun racks, too) in hopes of scoring one of the few remaining spots in the crowded ski area parking lot.
It was late on a Saturday afternoon when I finally spotted the turnoff sign. As I steered the Magnum down the Wilmot Mountain access road, I fought the urge to pull over and catch my breath. For there, on a miniature hoagie roll of a hill, I beheld more chairlift towers and skiers than I ever thought possible crammed onto one stunted piste. Only this wasn't a ski area. It felt to me like a Dairy Queen commercial brought to life. The one with the chocolate Eiger and the whipped-cream glaciers and the diced peanuts and marshmallows that crash down into the butterscotch lake. Either that or somebody took an already small ski area and shrunk it in a dryer. Badly.
I inched forward, genuinely wondering what I’d gotten myself into. If there was one bright spot it was the snow. The slope was crystal white from a recent storm, standing in stark contrast to the brown foliage surrounding it. Remarkably, there were 20 or more people lined up at the base of each lift. Lycra-clad racers sped down a well-rutted race course from summit to base, 10 gates at best. Music was blaring from somewhere near the boxy lodge. Skiers and snowboarders wearing everything from Packers and Badgers jackets to one-pieces to baggy Oakley pants and parkas milled about in the 4 o'clock light. More than a few concerned-looking parents waited on the edge of the parking lot, scanning the hill for their apparently overdue offspring.
I parked and reluctantly dressed, fortifying my body with a few extra layers against the bitterly cold night ahead. Grabbing my gear—although it was tempting to just go sledding—I headed for the hill but then stopped, suddenly seized by the image of another commercial: the 1970s Diehard battery ad set in Lambeau Field’s dark, frozen lot where only one car has the juice to start. How far away was Green Bay, anyway? Wasn’t the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald somewhere nearby? Panicking briefly, I patted the hood of the Magnum, hoping it was up to the task.
When I got to the lodge, there was 4FRNT Skis founder and one-time Wilmot local Matt Sterbenz waiting outside the Pizza Barn. He’d brought reinforcements—high-school buddies, all now in their mid to late 20s, who’d reunited for the weekend to session the molehill of their youth. Following quick introductions, Matt pointed toward Exhibition, the steepest face on the hill with the biggest chairlift (about 10 towers, half of which didn’t appear necessary), and said, “You ready?” Halogen lights attached to poles faintly illuminated the firm, shiny snow. “I dunno,” I feigned, “I might need a few warm-up runs first.”
“Warm up runs?” countered Matt, zipping up his collar and skating excitedly toward the base of “X” in the crisp arctic air, “warming up is all we do around here.”
Wilmot Mountain demands respect. Not because of any striking natural feature but because it exists at all. To understand Wilmot Mountain's history is to understand the Midwestern skier psyche and the concept of making the best out of what you have.
There are smaller ski areas nearby. Villa Olivia in the Chicago Suburbs has a quad and a vertical drop of 180 feet. Grand Geneva in southern Wisconsin has three double chairs on its 211 feet. The latter, the former location of the Playboy Club, even has a chi-chi name befitting a Colorado mega-destination: The Mountain Top at Grand Geneva Resort.
You'll find no such pretension at Wilmot Mountain. According to Charles C. Roberts in his book “Matterhorn” of the Midwest, one of Wilmot Mountain's earliest struggles was keeping farmer Pagel’s abundant cow pies off the slopes. That was in 1938, when Pagel agreed to lease a hillside section of his dairy ranch to an enterprising Chicago architect named Walter Stopa. Stopa, a Polish born immigrant, then set up a single rope tow powered by a 1920s Fordson tractor. The rope tow was about a thousand feet long and rose 200 vertical feet to the top of an ancient glacial moraine. An existing structure with a coal-fired cook stove served as the tiny warming hut at the base. On opening day, some 300 skiers lined up for the lift. The following weekend, 500 skiers showed up. Wilmot Hills Ski Area, as it was called then, was an instant hit.
Several decades and many improvements later, Wilmot Mountain still has little problem drawing customers when conditions are decent. Moreover, the same can be said of the nearly 100 Midwestern ski areas spread over 10 states. From the Dakotas to Michigan, Missouri to Minnesota, Iowa to Ohio and beyond (including some 30 downhill areas in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario), North America’s northern flatlanders are way more ski savvy than they're given credit for.
The National Ski Areas Association estimates that Midwestern US resorts received nearly 7.5 million skier/boarder visits in 2007. Of those, 79.1% were day visits. A 2005/06 season study concluded that Midwesterners skied or snowboarded 68% of the time at areas in their backyards, while only 23.8% of their ski/snowboard days were spent in the Rockies. A large part of the local patronage comes from thriving after-school programs and youth racing leagues. And while the terrain isn’t exactly staggering (the Midwest’s tallest ski area, Lutsen Mountains in Minnesota, rises 825 feet from base to summit; several resorts in Michigan top out at over 600 vertical feet), around here it’s the thought that counts. “Obviously we don’t compete with the big areas out west," says MSAA's Chris Stoddard, "but we do compliment them. We keep building them for generations. Our guests need to dream of skiing deep powder on big mountains. So it’s a relationship that works for us all.”
As we ascended the Exhibition Chair, Matt pointed down to a tiny lip above a mini headwall. “Kicker,” he said, and within seconds we were standing above the lip as friends Kyle, Feezor, and Gabe used their skis to build a mound. It was a stealthy act, and it looked well practiced. “One time, when we were kids, the patrol did a sting operation and wrecked all kinds of little airs we had built up,” Matt remarked. “They stole all the shovels we had hidden in the trees and everything. We said screw it and a few of my friends started skiing down naked.”
I quickly got the feeling that the Wilmot Rat Pack had several such ski patrol run-ins over the years, and might get one tonight. Looking around, I realized it was mostly kids on the hill. Parents either retreated to the lodge or split to return later. The modest terrain park was crowded with prepubescent snow gangstas. Patrollers roamed the hill in packs of three or four. The lights of Wilmot and other small towns dotted the darkening countryside. A power plant belched steam way off in the distance near Lake Michigan. It was stunning how big the view was from the top of our little bump.
We spent the next few hours sampling the terrain off all eight chairlifts, with average descents taking approximately nine seconds. Kyle and Matt hit the kicker bigger and bigger with each run, and at some point during the night Feezor lost a bet and had to ski down with his shirt off. We traversed the long snow ribbon on Wilmot’s “backside” only to emerge on a run that looked like all the others—pathetically short and flat.
With temperatures dipping into the single digits, we headed inside for some antifreeze at the bar. No longer a primitive warming hut, Wilmot Mountain's lodge is now a sprawling, multi-floor complex with several restaurants and bars, a rental shop, ski shop, video arcade (with a notably high quotient of hunting games), a huge fireplace, lockers, administrative offices, a mini ski-museum display, and much more. An entire wing beneath the Pizza Barn is dedicated to the 150-plus member ski patrol, which has won numerous national awards for ski safety training (and, oddly, for avalanche training in the '80s) over the decades, testaments to the operation's enduring regional influence. The ski school is massive, too, and prestigious. Its former and long-time director, Helmut Teichner, is a member of the National Ski Hall of Fame. Teichner was instrumental in developing Wilmot Mountain from its infancy alongside Walter Stopa.
As a classic-rock cover band churned out hits in the corner of the crowded, smoky bar, I began to understand a key component of Wilmot Mountain's success. While an outsider like myself might chuckle at the absurdity of downhill skiing on what once was Bessie the Cow’s gentle grazing grounds, people from around here don’t see anything odd or wrong with it. So what if there are no real mountains for hundreds of miles. This is what they do.
“We are addicts,” shared patroller Rob Jarr, who spends every Sunday night sweeping Wilmot Mountain’s icy slopes for road kill. “We're drawn to the sport by some unexplainable need. We don’t have powder days to look forward to. The best we can hope for is that the wind chill is above zero and that the park isn’t hard as a rock. At Wilmot it’s about the passion of the skiers. It's a place where kids ski every day regardless of the conditions or the temps.”
Wilmot holds strange powers over its progeny, even after extended stays out west. “It’s the simplicity," said Matt, who now runs his business out of Salt Lake City and travels the world. "I love how back then we’d occupy ourselves 100 days a year with a mountain that was only 200 feet tall. Wilmot is so ingrained in me that no matter how bad it might be here, it’s always a treat.”
Kyle, who grew up in Fox Lake, Illinois (about 20 minutes from Wilmot Mountain), now lives in Truckee, California. He moved west after high school and eventually competed in the 1998 Winter X Games Big Air contest at Crested Butte. His mother currently lives 10 minutes from Wilmot Mountain in a house he built for her, and he visits often. “Going out west was definitely an eye-opener, but I still feel that Midwest ski areas open doors for kids to become great skiers.” Midwest kids like Brant Moles, Gordy Pfeiffer, Jamie Pierre, and up-and-coming telemarker J.T. Robinson, who can count on two hands the number of family members who've worked at Wilmot Mountain over the years, to name but a few.
“Just look around," continued Matt. "I know for a fact that Midwest skiers are the passion drivers in each and every ski town out west. We're so jacked to have finally moved from hills like Wilmot to Baker or Squaw that it’s electric and we couldn’t care less if it’s raining, snowing, sleeting, whatever." Matt watched as his friends laughed and joked as if it were the old days, as if nothing had changed, as if the temperature outside wasn't solidifying battery acid and the snow wasn’t tough as Great Lakes Steel. "I mean, the worst day out west is like heaven on a bun back home.”
Just before closing we headed out for a few more spread eagles off the kicker. It was well past midnight when we left the parking lot and thankfully the Magnum started right up. We slept in late the next morning and gathered for Sunday brunch at a nearby hunting lodge. When Matt started negotiating with the proprietor we knew we were in trouble. He came back to the table smiling. "Tomorrow," he said to Gabe, Nate, and me, "we go shooting."
Later that night, under a gloomy-black overcast sky, we rode the same eight chairlifts and skied the same nine-second descents over and over again—for hours. As meat was repeatedly hucked over the “X” headwall, somehow Wilmot Mountain started to feel a little less cold and flat, and a lot more fun. But about a half hour before closing came the dreaded confrontation with the Rat Pack’s old nemesis, the Wilmot Mountain Ski Patrol.
At the top of Exhibition, a Chinese Downhill-like lineup formed as Feezor, Kyle, and Eddie egged on the reluctant group of red coats. Some "Yeah, I remember you guys" sideways stares issued from the old guard, but it was 10 o'clock and the hill was empty. No one seemed worried about lawsuits or stolen-shovel retribution for the time being, and in a moment of relaxed protocol, the patrollers gladly joined in.
The first of several challenges issued was a straightline sprint to the base of “X.” Next came a Can-Can style sideways ski-off. It all culminated in a massively synchronized Wilmot Wiggle—a spastic, sit-back, tail-turning, mock bump-off. For an encore, Kyle and Feezor took one last run to see who could ski from the summit all the way down and across the parking lot to the frozen pond on the other side.
We retired to the bar one last time, and soon our group was joined by others who knew Matt and his friends from the old days, and stories were swapped about parents, aunts, uncles, old girlfriends, former schoolmates turned convicted felons. Then the bartender busted out the “Shot Ski” and things started to get wild. A middle-aged man in snowmobile pants got up and danced to “Free Bird.” Patrollers and instructors drew from the same beer pitchers. Laughs and high fives and flash bulbs ensued.
As billed, we shot clay pigeons at the hunting lodge in the morning with an old guy named Elmer. Turns out I'm pretty good with a shotgun. But no one could compete with Matt’s cousin Eric, a strapping local fireman, who went 10 for 10 on several rounds using Grandpa Sterbenz's old shotgun. Matt and Eric began reminiscing their youths and Grandpa's poor diet in his final days, and I couldn't help but think that if nothing else, for all these guys who've come and gone and come back again, Wilmot is about family. It’s about coming home.
Things like jobs, divorces, good health, global warming, playoff games, terrible snow years—these may come and go, but something tells me if Wilmot Mountain can outlast farmer Pagel’s cow pies, it’ll figure out the future too.
Forward Slash
By Kristopher Kaiyala
Volume 33, Number 2
The deal was sealed at Simba’s, a late-night cantina at the base of Las Leñas Resort known for its Andes beer and Super Pancho hot dogs. It was 2002 and American Stephan Drake, a ski guide and Colorado-based avalanche instructor, and Swiss-born Cyrille Boinay, a big-mountain rider for Volkl snowboards who was pining for his skiing roots, were basking in the good vibes of yet another “summer” of South American skiing, their third in a row together.
Cyrille was a successful partner in a Swiss consulting firm, but was itching for something more creative. Stephan had just finished developing a touring binding plate for a major manufacturer, and was pondering his next move. Perhaps it was the giddy powder-glow that night, or maybe what happened was the logical conclusion of a season’s worth of ski industry rants and personal conversations about life and endless winters and grabbing el toro by the horns. In the smoky environs of a Las Leñas après ski bar, an idea was born, a relationship cemented, and a revolutionary new ski company took shape to serve the wired generation: DrakeBoinay Ltd.
“It was such an innocent moment, really…” types Drake, his words appearing in the tiny instant messaging text box. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last few weeks, it’s that Drake, 28, and Boinay, 31, are men on the go. It’s what you’d expect from a company based on three continents—operations in Switzerland; design and manufacturing in the U.S.; graphic design in Argentina. Tired of exchanging email and voicemail, and with little chance of meeting in person as Drake heads across the pond for meetings in Engelberg, we settle on IM as a convenient way to communicate in real time. But then, embracing and adapting to new technology is de rigueur for an Internet-based ski company.
Drake continues. “Cyrille and I both wanted change. We were exploring how to balance work with travel, mountains, and the feeling of having time on your hands.” I ask Drake if, two years on as head of a global ski company, that feeling has materialized. There’s a long pause, and I wonder for the nth time if my DSL connection has crashed. Then I see that he’s typing. “No, not really,” comes the delayed transmission, followed by a smiley emoticon. “Just ask Cyrille's girlfriend. It’s a fulltime job for now, but it is so fun. We honestly love it.”
DrakeBoinay was conceived as an alternative to the megacorporations that dominate the ski industry—an industry many doomsayers say is shrinking faster than an alpine glacier beneath a global-warming sun. So why start a new company now?
The answer, according to Drake and Boinay, is about the powder lifestyle. “The numbers of skis manufactured each year is shrinking,” Boinay wrote to me in an earlier email, “but skiing itself, especially the powder subculture, is growing.” Drake followed up: “Powder skiing is now one of the most beautiful, dynamic sports on the planet. Powder skiing’s roots reach far deeper than trend, and every year the number of backpacks and big skis you see out there grows.”
Naturally, Drake and Boinay hope to see more and more db skis pushing the powder movement. But at more than $800 a pop for its three signature ski models—Tabla Rasa (powder/big mountain), Surreal (big mountain/mixed snow), and R (all mountain, terrain park)—the stakes are high, both for purchaser and for the self-described “boutique” manufacturer. From DrakeBoinay’s standpoint, their customers get what they pay for.
A soccer ball and beer mug pop into the display. I suspect it’s for my daughter’s benefit, who just climbed onto my lap and has taken over my keyboard. “That’s Cyrille saying hi, the extrovert, Taurus, favorite color olive green.” Based in Europe, Boinay is the business force behind db Skis. While Drake and Michigan-based production partner Dave Goode immerse themselves in sidecuts, materials, and manufacturing techniques, Boinay looks after his “babies,” as he calls the fat skis they produce, all the way into his customers’ hands. Boinay’s familial attachment is understandable given the individual nature of each pair of sticks that leave the company’s factory.
Certainly weight is a major selling point for db Skis—a unique carbon fiber construction makes them significantly lighter than most fat skis on the market, while maintaining high torsional strength and durability. But an even stronger selling point is ski customization. At www.dbskis.com, the only place db skis can be purchased (don’t bother looking for them in retail shops, at least not yet), buyers use an order form to select not only their desired ski model but also its length and one of two personal “pound” flex options. (A personal inscription, such as a name, may also be added.) Helpful online graphs show buyers how the flex of db skis in various shape and size combinations compare to each other, as well as to other manufacturers’ offerings.
I ask Drake if the Internet business model is working, and his reply is a resounding yes. “People trust the medium now. Also, we maintain a one-to-one relationship with all of our buyers.”
Then in somewhat-secretive I’d-be-more-specific-but-I’d-have-to-kill-you verbiage, Drake reveals that “this year we acquired some great engineering technology that allows us to add a ton of precision to various aspects of the ski—flex patterns, core profiles, top sheet durability. We are building our dream skis.”
Suddenly the IM screen blips. “Ha, Cyrille is spying on the Volkl team guys, checking out their ’05-’06 line….” Apparently they’re also living out of duffle bags in the same cheap Engelberg hotel. “One other thing, we’ll add a van tour with demo skis to help get the word out.”
Van tour, huh? That’ll have to be some rig to keep up with these guys, and cover all three continents.
Three Strange Days: Mazama Mia
By Kristopher Kaiyala
Volume 35, Number 2
A lot can happen in three days. There's that whole death and resurrection thing, for example. Jonah supposedly survived an elongated spa bath in stomach acid. In 1969, three days of Woodstock thrust America's counterculture into the mainstream. And that's all the time the Mopane moth gets to emerge from its cocoon, frantically mate, then die.
Three days can change lives or redirect history, but all we want at the moment is for the clouds to lift. There’s a perfectly good helicopter 50 yards away that’s barely visible through flour-sifter snowfall. In the morning light of a cozy, timber-frame heli-barn, we huddle around a table (covered with past issues of Powder, naturally) to confront our dwindling options. For this bird to fly, it looks like we’re gonna need a miracle.
Honestly, I’m beginning to think I’m my own weather jinx. Three major assignments in three years have gone to crap: rain and fog at Chinook Pass, a freak cloudbank at Great Basin National Park, and now this. It’s enough to make me want to un-invite myself, just to see if the sun comes out.
Before I can creep out the door, Larry Goldie, owner-operator of North Cascades Mountain Guides, slides over to our table, his winter beard neatly trimmed above the collar of a blue puffy jacket. His expression is bad-news-good-news. “The good news,” he says, getting to the point and, seeing our crestfallen faces, gesturing promisingly toward the window, “is we can use those instead.” Outside the frosted pane we spy three snowmobiles on two truck trailers, gassed and ready to run. Like the Mopane, our time is precious. We grab our jackets and scramble for the exit.
For Washington’s most remote skiing, you literally have to go to the end of the road. Which is why we’re in Mazama, a tiny community of skiers, climbers, and hospitality staff living at the edge of the void. Each fall the Washington DOT closes Highway 20 over the North Cascades, effectively shutting off thousands of square miles of remote alpine wilderness to all but the most creative forms of human travel. In the land of world-record snowfall, nothing—not even heli-skiing—comes easily.
As the northern spotted owl flies, Mazama appears tantalizingly close to Seattle. In reality, it’s a circuitous five hour drive during winter, making an extended stay desirable. Three days is ideal for skiers, especially given the mind-blowing alpine terrain and guided opportunities offered by Goldie and his staff.
Using the upper Methow Valley and the jagged-peaked Okanogan National Forest as its classroom, NCMG specializes in teaching everything from touring techniques to ice climbing to ski mountaineering. Especially popular is its Level 1 avalanche course, offered several times a season and usually taught by Goldie himself, an AIARE-trained instructor.
The two-day course begins with interactive classroom work—watching videos, pouring over take-home manuals, analyzing case studies—and wraps up with hands-on beacon practice. Day two is spent on skis, putting knowledge to practical use. While pits and Rutschblock tests are covered, Goldie’s primary focus is on risk reduction, or using your brain and your senses to stay out of danger. "You can't control the elements," he says, "but you can control the terrain you choose. That's what I try to teach people."
Our plan for day three was guided heli-touring on nearby 8,876-foot Silver Star Mountain. Instead we find ourselves throttling two-stroke electronic bulls into the wilderness. We follow Goldie atop Highway 20’s massive snowpack for 11 miles to a new destination—the Cutthroat Lake trailhead, where, after a brief hot chocolate break courtesy of our guide, we don our gear and travel upward on skins, step by step, at the steady pace of drip coffee.
For the next few hours we ascend into the belly of the leviathan. Some miracles are like that. Snowfall increases as we leave the quiet conifer forest and climb into First Bowl. Goldie spends every day in these mountains, so we trust him when he says the views are magnificent. We see hints of a gigantic cliff above us. The apron of a tight chute coming from somewhere up above. A steep, rocky face extending into the cloud on our right. So many lines, so little visibility.
Then a brief rent in the clouds. We’re beneath a ridge. From the summit we’d be able to gaze into the heart of North Cascades National Park, home to the most glaciated range in the lower 48. But just like that the light fades to grey, and we decide to stop climbing and drop into the long gully below—airing off of small drops, slaloming down a steep treed section, arcing billowy turns to a gentle run-out. We do this twice, content with the knowledge there are no other humans for many miles around.
At the end of the day, after a long sled and slog back to town, we head for dinner and drinks—like moths to the flame.
Battling the Basin
By Kristopher Kaiyala
Volume 34, Number 5
Rob Ewing wasn’t making things easy for us. Freshly scrambled eggs, griddled bacon, homemade jam on toast. Whatever impulse we felt for an early morning start melted with each generous refill of steaming black coffee. More, more, more. Outside, the once-beckoning snowy aspect of Jeff Davis Peak, and beyond it and out of sight our main objective, 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak, became casually abstract. With each swath of butter and syrup, our trek seemed less an urgent assignment and more a roadblock to taking a nap.
A cage-rattling breeze shook the windows, sending a poignant chill through the trailer. As the ranger in charge of backcountry operations at Great Basin National Park, Rob Ewing, a stocky ex-military man, and his wife, Susie, felt compelled to provide such unsolicited top-notch hospitality because they know their anfractuous peak playground can dish out brutal whippings. Indeed, soon after Ewing and his wife bid our party of five farewell at the Upper Lehman Creek Campground at 7,800 feet, our benevolent hosts’ abundant stash of comfort food proved to be the proverbial calm before the storm.
There are no certainties at elevation, no guarantees of that beguiling soaring sensation brought on by fair days in the mountains. You can do the research, bring every navigational gadget known to man, even plan for the worst, and still find yourself lost in a fog. The higher we skinned up Lehman Creek drainage, the farther we plunged into the dark heart of the only cloud bank in eastern Nevada.
As part of his daily patrol routine, Ewing planned to accompany us to a private, strictly on-loan ranger shelter at 10,000 feet, which would serve as our base camp. But job demands took him elsewhere, and we set off with maps, GPS, and verbal directions. It was mid-May at the trailhead; sagebrush-covered foothills every shade of espresso baked beneath a blistering sun. But halfway into what should have been an easy four-mile approach, we entered January’s fury.
By now we would have seen Wheeler cirque’s signature features—immense alpine confectionaries that drew us here in the first place: the sheer cliff wall of Wheeler’s pyramidal northeast face, flanked by steep zipper chutes and narrow couloirs; spiky rock needles and gendarmes heralding harrowing starting zones; the lone glacier skirting Wheeler’s massif; the long, wide-open twin bowls of Jeff Davis’ gentler north slope.
We planned to hit all of these over the next two days, conditions permitting, plus a handful of other tantalizing fruits ripe for the plucking. Now, amidst swirling snowflakes and near zero visibility, we pondered the unthinkable: turning around and calling it quits.
Though a handful of hardy locals ski Great Basin (and the surrounding Snake Range) all winter long, most visitors choose to wait until late spring when the park finishes plowing the 12-mile Wheeler Peak Drive. The upside is you can avoid the Lehman Creek approach and advance by car directly to a mostly snow-free Wheeler campground, the ideal staging area for frequent summits and touring among sparkling alpine lakes and ancient bristlecone pines.
The downside, of course, is that by the time the road opens, many desirable aspects have completely melted. During months of trip planning we hedged bets on an early arrival to ensure good skiing, hoping the road would be plowed a little earlier than usual. Unfortunately we picked the wrong year—a near-record snow year (264% of normal, in fact)—to be optimistic.
Just as things looked their worst, someone spotted the roof of a camp bathroom poking out of the snow. We contemplated a cold night on the ladies’ room floor, and pressed on. It was another hour and a half—15 worrisome minutes before our hastily agreed upon turn-around time—and a bit of luck before we finally found the shelter, buried in about 15 feet of Nevada’s frozen finest. After digging out the door we hunkered down to dinner, sadly done for the day—a day we planned to fill with a major summit or two—hoping our freak cloudbank would dissipate overnight.
Brief early-morning sun breaks cruelly raised our spirits, but the fog and snow redoubled. Feeling cooped up, we struck out for a nearby ridge, hoping to scope the summit touring route above Stella Lake and up Wheeler’s northwestern shoulder. Instead we were greeted with pelting ice and cotton-ball visibility. We were as blind in the clouds as the bats that frequent Lehman Caves, hollowed deep in the earth beneath us.
Unfortunately my time was up, and I sheepishly headed for the trailhead. A few days later I got a call: photographer Will Wissman and his posse managed a successful dawn-patrol ascent on Wheeler Peak on the third morning, before the clouds resettled. Conditions at the summit reportedly were perfect—a few inches of windblown fluff on firm base, beguiling sunshine, soaring views of Nevada’s epic basin-and-range country. Word was they would return, severely tempted by the lines they saw during their all-too-brief weather window.
Some trips you get the goods—steeps, great snow, ideal weather—and some trips you get the breakfast. This time, I got the breakfast.
Wellington Ghosts
By Kristopher Kaiyala
Volume 36, Number 5
The deadliest avalanche in U.S. history had nothing to do with skiing or snowboarding (or climbing or snowmobiling or any other sort of mountaineering ping-pong). Yet here we are—five two-plankers and one knuckledragger—standing in broken clouds atop a sprawling alpine ridge near Stevens Pass, Washington, trying to find some connection to the 96 men, women, and children who perished in a nearby deep canyon on a dark and stormy night almost a hundred years ago.
“The slide actually released from several points all around us,” shouts Tom Mattice, our guide for the day with Cascade Powder Cats, Washington’s only major snowcat operation. The space he includes in “all around us” is staggeringly large and our comprehension of the sheer scale of the snowpack event draws not ooohs and aaahs from his captive audience, but silence. In the distance a snowcat purrs and groans as it cautiously descends switchbacks to the yurt that serves as CPC’s home base.
What happened here in late February of 1910 is part Agatha Christie thriller, part docu-drama disaster flick. Two fully loaded Great Northern Railway trains became stuck on the tracks below Windy Mountain during a particularly nasty Pacific Northwest snowstorm. Despite round-the-clock rescue efforts, the trains wouldn't budge for six days. Passengers and crew began to panic as rescue efforts proved futile. Then on March 1 it started to rain, triggering a massive avalanche that swept the trains off the tracks, burying them in a gully. Less than a day’s journey from Seattle, where industrialists were busy heralding man’s dominance over the earth, Mother Nature delivered a brutal comeuppance.
The Wellington Disaster (so named for its proximity to Wellington Station, a former alpine railway depot) changed the standard for travel through these mountains. Soon after the tragedy, nine miles of snow sheds were erected over the tracks leading toward the Cascade Crest. By 1929 a new eight-mile tunnel (still the nation's longest) was dug out, which today is used by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad. Now the only vehicles to travel above ground during winter are cars and trucks—and snow cats.
The tragedy is part of CPC’s operational syllabus, for the climatological aspects of what happened in 1910 are parts of an old story in this rugged terrain, where massive snowfall and finicky freezing levels regularly conspire to create dangerous backcountry conditions. We’re not so wary of what lies beneath our ski bases after digging a pit down near the yurt. It’s been snowing in the Cascades for two weeks, with temperatures remaining cold for the entire cycle. The table is set for an epic powder feast of fresh, sparkling fluff. Still, the capacity for slides always exists in this complex environment, and the last thing we want is to do is become too well acquainted with the ghosts of the past.
Following Mattice, we descend through a grove of tight evergreens and exit onto a steep, cliffy face—the first of many for the day. Whistler’s Ian McIntosh is in a jumping mood, and as he and Ian Coble set up to shoot a photo-friendly 30-footer, I survey slopes that today feel as wild as any place in the Cascades despite being only a valley away from busy Stevens Pass ski area.
CPC operates on 1,800 acres of private land owned by Longview Fibre, and the terrain—a combination of clearcuts, natural bowls, slide paths, and big drops—is tantalizing. “Outside of obvious safety and environmental concerns, we don’t have a lot of restrictions on where we go and what we do up here,” says Mattice. “The terrain here caters to every kind of rider. It’s nice to look out and say, ‘Where should we go this time?’”
The phrase defines our agenda for the day. After McIntosh brushes the ozone, we descend the face and lace a dozen effortless turns through the lower glades to our meeting spot. We spend the next three runs scouting three separate cliffs in the main gully above the yurt. Each run yields about a thousand vertical and successively bigger air times.
After lunch we ditch the cat and borrow the owner’s snowmobile to scope a complex pillow line spotted from afar. Following a bit of recon, McIntosh and Matt Niederhauser descend a spiny ridge to find themselves perched above a series of stair-step marshmallows. The two take full advantage of the soft landings, sending mission after mission of bombing raids through the air.
With daylight running out, we ascend the summit ridge one last time as the sun pokes through the clouds, casting gold on the buffed-white peaks of the North Cascades. Our journey in these mountains ends not tragically, as it did for those fateful train passengers, but blithely and with the best and deepest run of the day. The only ghosts we leave are the lingering traces of our turns.
Frozen in Time
By Kristopher Kaiyala
Volume 35, Number 4
In the trunk is a small plastic cooler, and inside the cooler is a clear Mason jar, the kind used for preserving peaches or asparagus. We bought the jar in a Ketchum craft mart for a dollar, a bargain considering the symbolic purpose it was about to serve. As part of our mission on Leg 10 of Joaquin's coast-to-coast odyssey, we're reuniting a skiing icon with his legendary past—via a sacred substance that's literally frozen in time.
David Moe, aka Captain Powder, lived in Sun Valley in 1972 when he and his brother, Jake, founded and published the first issue of the magazine you're cradling. (Go ahead and flush, we’ll wait.) Like most ski towns, Sun Valley was a different place 35 years ago. Poverty-line ski bums could more or less afford to live close to the chairlifts. It was in such a dwelling and on these slopes that the Moe brothers hatched the idea for Powder and set to work on that first cover that clairvoyantly placed skiing on another world.
Before leaving Sun Valley, we want to find a trace of Powder's birth. So we snoop around. A tip from a friendly camera store clerk sends us on a winding human trail that ends at the town newspaper where "Dizzy," an old acquaintance of the Moes, vaguely remembers a nearby address that Dave and Jake used for publishing. Unfortunately we soon discover, and Jake later confirms to me, the place is now a parking lot. That’s progress for you.
We snap a few pictures anyway and savor the long stares; by now Joaquin is quite a sight, though sadly the deer antlers are gone (reportedly stolen in Chicago). We make a quick stop near the Warm Springs lodge to scoop snow into the Mason jar, apply some stickers near the dent left by the traveling hockey team, grab a bite to eat at a crowded locals tavern, and begin our drive west on Highway 20.
With the cooler in the trunk, it feels like we're transporting someone's donated organ, so we endearingly nickname it Uncle Earl. Earl is taking the fast way to the Pacific. Without our police escort he'd patiently melt into the Big Wood River, which flows south past sagebrush-covered hills and trout anglers to Magic Reservoir and eventually into the meandering Snake River, which joins the forceful Columbia in Washington on its way to the sea. The natural way is rough and turbulent over ancient basalt, but here in The Car the ride is fast and smooth as ice—except for near 68 mph, when Joaquin’s wheel shakes just so.
My co-traveler is wearing mirrored cop sunglasses. She lowers them long enough to wink at me as we cross into Oregon on a blustery gray morning. We turn south in hot pursuit of rumored fresh turns at Anthony Lakes Ski Resort. It's snowing hard in the parking lot at 7,000 feet and we stuff the cooler with new snow to make sure Earl stays solid. At the top of the lone chairlift the clouds lift enough to show the prime touring potential of the surrounding Elkhorn Mountains. The following day we track out eight inches of steep, buttery pow at Mt. Hood Ski Bowl, following a night of off-duty debauchery in downtown Portland’s tony Pearl District.
In 1976 Powder was sold to Surfer Publications. The Moe brothers eventually settled in Seattle, staying involved in modest ways as the magazine grew and evolved. Despite all the changes, Powder still exudes the Sun Valley spirit of the early '70s. When I hand over Joaquin's keys to Tom Bie in a North Seattle parking lot, none other than The Captain is there to meet us. With skis and bags in hand, he smiles widely when he sees The Car, and stares knowingly at a simple Mason jar filled with corn snow.
You see, The Captain and Uncle Earl are old, old friends.
Skiers appeal Crystal Mountain boundary closure
By Kristopher Kaiyala
Powdermag.com
It was a cold and wet afternoon in the Seattle suburb of Renton, Washington—the kind of day that makes skiers dream about freezing levels and the coming freedom of snow-covered hills. But for the roughly 35 adults gathered inside the timber-frame Renton Community Center on Oct. 18, it was all business. Backcountry stashes were at stake. Pristine wilderness was being defended. And stuck in the middle was a rapidly growing ski area suddenly placed in the awkward position of policing forbidden slopes.
Representatives of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest organized the meeting to address four public appeals to its recent Record of Decision (ROD) for future expansion at Crystal Mountain Resort. The four appellants, who claimed to speak for hundreds of friends and fellow skiers, objected in varying degrees to the ROD’s new requirement that the boundary surrounding Crystal Mountain’s Special Use Permit (SUP) area be completely closed. In other words, day-ticket and season pass purchasers would now be barred from leaving the ski area to make turns on adjacent public lands.
The Forest Service, on whose land Crystal Mountain operates, released its ROD in August 2004 after six years of proposed alternatives, meticulous environmental impact studies, and sometimes heated public debate. The Forest Service settled on a scaled-down version of Crystal’s original Master Development Plan, one that it felt best addressed the environmental and heritage concerns of all interested parties. Only it didn’t count on a small but vocal group of skiers objecting to just a few paragraphs in the voluminous document.
Crystal Mountain’s SUP is almost completely bordered by Forest Service land, Wilderness areas, and Mt. Rainier National Park (MRNP). Historically the 11 mile-long SUP boundary has remained open to backcountry travel from the resort into these areas. But as Crystal Mountain sought to widen its lift-served terrain (though some proposed chairlifts, like East Peak and Silver King, didn’t make the final cut) within the existing SUP, concern over the adjacent pristine areas rose sharply. Even to the point of the ROD requiring that Crystal Mountain hire a snow ranger to patrol the boundary.
Monday’s two-hour public meeting in Renton was professional and at times confrontational, loaded with legal and philosophical arguments for and against the boundary closure. Crystal Mountain general manager John Kircher sat quietly at one end of the room, flanked by members of his staff. MRNP superintendent Dave Uberuaga and other park officials joined via speakerphone. Forest Service planners Chris Hansen-Murray and Larry Donovan opened the meeting as appellants and members of the general public sat or stood around conference tables, intently scribbling on notepads, awaiting their turns to speak.
“Why should skiers who use lifts be banned from public lands?” posed Bruce McQuistan, one of three of the appellants who soon took the floor. McQuistan cited cooperation between other ski areas and public agencies, such as the open boundary between Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. “Nationwide, backcountry skiers have set a precedent for reasonable and responsible use of wilderness areas.”
“We believe that the Forest Service’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) actually supports our appeal,” stated Jason Paulsen, another appellant who objected specifically to the boundary closure to Mount Rainier National Park. He referenced a section of the FEIS that states that “backcountry use levels within the Crystal Mountain SUP have not been systematically monitored.” Another FEIS section that Paulsen cited (4-3-2, footnote 14) in his appeal seemed to justify a base-level number of skiers entering the park from Crystal Mountain daily. The closure, he said, simply isn’t based on "hard science."
An hour later, when it was Hansen-Murray’s turn to speak again, he surprised most in the room by revealing that the Forest Service would remove its boundary restrictions to Forest Service and non-park lands. The reconsideration, he said, was mostly due to an arrangement with Crystal Mountain. The ski area agreed to develop a comprehensive boundary management plan to meet its growing business.
It was clear, however, that for most attendees the fight was far from over. Crystal Mountain and MRNP share a dramatic, 4 mile-long, north-south ridgeline that runs along the crest of the ski area. On the resort side, steep, challenging bowls eventually flatten and funnel back to the base area. On the park side, long, empty pitches descend consistently through evergreens or avalanche chutes for more than 3,000 vertical feet to State Route 410 (closed during winter in MRNP). Other tours across the boundary are shorter but no less scenic. It’s no mystery why this terrain is so alluring to backcountry skiers.
Using a phrase he would repeat several times, MRNP Superintendent Uberuaga held firm, stating that he lacked the “authority to allow commercial activity to extend into park lands.” A follow-up phone call to Uberuaga revealed he was referring to Section 5.3 of Chapter 1 of Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which states that “Engaging in or soliciting any business in park areas, except in accordance with the provisions of a permit, contract, or other written agreement with the United States, except as such may be specifically authorized under special regulations applicable to a park area, is prohibited.”
MRNP asserts that ticketed skiers who enter MRNP from Crystal Mountain do so not as individuals, but as Crystal Mountain customers and therefore as an extension of Crystal’s business in the park.
Uberuaga also pointed to the expected increase in skier visits at Crystal Mountain as its master plan is executed. He concluded that regardless of any perceived lack of present data, statistically the numbers of skiers entering MRNP from the ski area will only increase, thus further extending Crystal’s business into the park. Combined with charges of observed “vegetation manipulation” and “the cutting of branches” on or near major chutes in the park, Uberuaga insisted that closing the boundary today was paramount to protecting the future of MRNP’s pristine wilderness.
Throughout the meeting, the Crystal Mountain cadre remained silent. Having just been granted approval for a summit tram, several new chairlifts, a hotel, a new summit restaurant, and upgraded parking lots, they were in a delicate political position to say the least. Don’t bite the hand that feeds. But after the meeting and during a later phone call, even Kircher admitted to being irked by the park’s hard-line stance during the meeting.
“The ‘commercial use’ card was new to us,” said Kircher, 46, who bought the resort in 1997. “There’s no economic advantage to us if people drop into the park. We’re in favor of access. For the spirit of the sport, the closure isn’t good. It’s backwards.”
In light of the successful Jackson Hole/Grand Teton National Park boundary opening in 1999, MRNP’s stance certainly seems anachronistic. (Uberuaga admitted during our phone conversation that his team didn’t research other national park case studies before arriving at a decision.) Some long-time Crystal skiers even whisper about conspiracy theories. Some feel that MRNP has long sought to ban skiers and has now found its loophole.
In a follow-up phone conversation with Paulsen, he applauded the Forest Service for its extensive research and progressive approach to the boundary issue, but chided its relationship with MRNP. The Forest Service, which has ultimate jurisdiction over the ROD, calls MRNP a “cooperating partner,” but to the appellants they’re anything but. Paulsen sees it this way: “In an attempt to be good folks, they’ve involved the park service in the process and inadvertently gotten suckered by the park service into doing its dirty work.”
For its part, Crystal Mountain is looking at ways to appease backcountry users without drawing the ire of the park. “We’ll look into applying for a commercial use permit,” said Kircher, “like how Rainier Mountaineering Inc. operates within the park.” (Rainier Mountaineering Inc. is a popular guide service that operates under a contract with the National Park Service.) “There’s no real commercial value for Crystal, but in the spirit of backcountry skiing, we like it. There’s a hardcore group here and it would be nice to make everybody happy.”
Presented with such a hypothetical situation, Uberuaga seemed intrigued. “That’s one scenario that may work,” he said, “if it is deemed a necessary and appropriate activity. It would have to be regulated in the same way as other park activities.”
Paulsen and others hope that the MRNP boundary closure will be reversed at least until a proper monitoring process is in place, one which gathers a body of data to scientifically measure impact. “As a backcountry user, I care about wilderness values,” said Paulsen. “If I believed there was evidence to show that skiing in that area was damaging, I would think twice about it. But until then, I’ll still ski the best line I can find to 410.”
And so the season of 2004-05 becomes the great test of wills. Will Crystal Mountain aggressively police its boundary, as the ROD requires? Will MRNP relent, or turn up the heat? Will the Forest Service take a hard stand against the MRNP closure? And will hundreds of agitated skiers like Paulsen and McQuistan risk their lift privileges to poach the freshies they so crave beyond the SUP boundary? One thing’s for certain: as the snow and the chips begin to fall, we will keep you posted.