This weekend my friend Skyler and I took a trip up to Winchester Fire Lookout, an historic fire lookout north of Mt. Baker highway on top of Winchester mountain up here in Washington State (see map below). I hadn’t gotten to go skiing in a few weeks and I was itching to get out, even if the conditions looked a little iffy due to warm weather and tons of new, unconsolidated snow (and I don’t mean powder).
weather
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Warm weather shirts reviewed for spring and summer backcountry skiing adventures
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News items about backcountry skiing, including an avalanche, Colorado items, and skiing the fourteeners, opinions about ski touring issues.
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Grieskogel is a medium sized ski peak in the western Stubai Alps, in the Larstiger mountains between Sellrain and Hochstubai. You reach it for backcountry skiing via the usual network of roads you find in this area, in this case reminding me of spring skiing on Independence Pass back in Colorado. I’d hooked up for today’s trip with Manfred Barthel, the Austrian alpinist elder I’ve come to know over the past few years. Manfred continues to amaze me with his skill and endurance, not to mention his amazing knowledge of the Alps. He seems to have a sixth sense of where the snow is good, the avy danger lower, or the
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(Note, I’ve got a few more trip reports to file from the latest EU trip, but this is the last of the Silvretta posts. To step through the Silvretta trip reports, start here.) Six days straight of nearly 100% bluebird…
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The storm over Marble, Colorado cleared out Saturday night, leaving us with the bluebird day for Sunday backcountry skiing of the type you read about in the magazines. Puffy clouds here and there for effect, but mostly a deep azure sky and enough heat on the snow to dissolve any crust and make for two big laps of creamed semi-corn that was totally skiable.
