We were originally thinking about giving the Shuksan Sulphide route a go, but the guys needed to catch 7pm flight, one of whom needed to make it to a wedding the next day!

An outing I don’t mind repeating because the views are sooo good.

A nice walk essentially tracing the first bit of the Ptarmigan Traverse and looping around Hurry-Up Peak. This was my first time skiing at Cascade River Road not doing Eldorado and boy were the views mindblowing. I definitely need to make it out here more often!

It’s been fun to finally get around to checking out the spring opening of Washington Pass. I’ve joked that so much of the area seems same-y, but having snow on the mountains definitely adds some much needed character that I’ve come to expect from the Cascade Range.

Wallaby seems to be one of those unnotable sacrificial peaks with great views. Fun day flipping between lagging and scurrying to chase corn on east, south, and west aspects.

Just scoping out the Park and Coleman Glacier headwalls. I knew the latter wasn’t going to go, but the entire upper mountain was a bit rimier than I expected - I suppose I was too optimistic about the half inch of precipitation.

Booked it down to the lower eastside to nab a line I’ve been thinking about since 2022. For some reason or another, it’s never materialized in recent years for many in our group so we were very happy to get it while it was pretty good.

Scouted this line from Silver Star before I later identified it as the north couloir of Big Kangaroo. I wanted a shorter outing with potentially a big one the next day, so opted for this.

Flew from Virginia to SLC, then drove straight to WA Pass to catch the first opening week for cars.

Summitting the Wasatch’s prettiest peak with the first corn run of the season.

The tail end of skiing good snow, one more Wasatch classic.

Finishing the last of the 50 classic ski descents in the Wasatch region. Glad I em done, and I see the value in the them, but excited for the cooler lines in the region going forward.

A 50 ski classic ski descent that is much cooler to look at than ski down.

Chasing a storm to nowhere, Lamoille, NV.

For the second part of this trip we made our way to central Hokkaido. We stayed in Asahikawa which granted us the flexibility to check out the different zones in this area (at the expense of longer drive times of course).

After years of declining trips to Japan and regretting not going, I finally made it out there this season to decide for myself if it was worth the hype. The first stop was Niseko, the town and its namesake biggest/most famous ski resort in Hokkaido, and perhaps what comes to mind when one hears the word “Japow” (Japan + powder).

NFNWR is short for the north face of the northwest ridge on Mount Adams - what a mouthful to say. During the time I’ve been skiing in Washington, there’s been some opinions that this line might be less and less skiable as climate change impacts the mountain. With a fat high elevation snowpack and after seeing that some friends skied this line, I knew it was time to pounce.

I’ve done Ruth Mountain previously in the summer and I thought it had some of the best views in the North Cascades for the relatively easy level of effort. I couldn’t say no to the same views with even more snow, tagging Icy Peak this time around, and skiing back down the enticing slopes of Ruth.

As straightforward of an up and down on Mount Baker as you can get. Great to revisit this route, but man is it kind of a boring slog in the sense that the views don’t change that much. The conditions this weekend were a little uncertain to go for anything bigger and I certainly needed the confidence booster after last week’s debacle.

I’ve always wondered what kind of outing I’d be capable of off the couch, and on this day I really paid for it trying to attempt two classic steep ski lines on Mount Baker.