Kathryn Louise

February 16, 2019August 4, 2019

Adventures: Ski-N The New Year – Blewett Pass

After a three year hiatus, Daryl and I revived our tradition of Ski-N The New Year™, this time with Daryl’s brother Mike.
(Previous Ski-N The New Year™ trips: Mt. Hood Meadows 2010, Mt. St. Helens 2011, Lost Trail 2012, Mt. St. Helens 2013 and 2014)

My beautiful new ski set up: DPS Zelda 106s, G3 Ion 12s (no brakes), Black Diamond Ascension skins, and Scott Celeste III ski boots (not shown)

We tossed around a lot of ideas for our NYE trip: Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Baker, Steven’s Pass. Unfortunately, the avalanche danger was really high and the snow was really unstable all over the Cascades, so we opted for much tamer terrain: Blewett Pass.

Since Daryl and Mike planned on skipulk-ing gear in, we of course decided to go big with food. I prepped bibimbap (my favorite camping meal) (though admittedly it does take too many steps to really be an efficient camping meal) for dinner and veggies for a morning scramble.
One major upside to moving 19 times is my ability to tetris a lot of things into not a lot of space – all of our food fit into The Boss, including ice packs!

We got to the Sno-Park around 2:30pm and snagged the very last spot in the lot (lots of families sledding and snow mobilers). After spending a record short amount of time at the 4Runner, we got on our skis and started heading up hill.

We skied up the road for about an hour before popping into the woods and finding a campsite on a saddle in the woods. After dropping our stuff at camp, we skinned up to the lower of the two summits for sunset.

When we got back to camp, the guys started collecting firewood (Riley helped) while I stomped down the snow for our tent. After camp was set and the fire started, I got down to [the] business of dranking vodka and making dinner.

I’m so glad I sold my old car and bought these new skis

The conditions were definitely not ideal for skiing, so we didn’t do any touring in the morning like we had hoped.
After packing up camp and navigating how to get the sleds back down to the road on the icy, crunchy snow we got into our skis and started heading back to the car. We skied the road the whole way down, passing two groups on snow shoes heading up.

As the year turned from 2018 to 2019 I declared my intention for the year: more adventures. There’s a lot of other things I want for the year, but they pretty much all circle back to More Adventures.

Today’s adventure took place on land stolen from the Yakama and Wenatchi.

June 29, 2018June 29, 2018

North Cascades Ski – May 20, 2018

A week after our recon trip to the North Cascades, we went back and got some real skiing in.

We drove up on Saturday and hiked our backpacks and gear into the woods to set up camp. We just got a brand new tent (a Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2) and this was it’s inaugural trip out. While hanging out in camp we heard an avalanche!

We got up on Sunday, secured camp, took our food to the car, and then started up hill. This was our first real backcountry trip in our new gear and it felt really good to be out using it.

While skinning through the woods we heard two more avalanches! We stay away from avalanche terrain whenever we’re in the mountains, but it was a good reminder to be aware of your surroundings.

After traversing across some pretty steep slopes for a bit, my knee had had it. We skinned up to a rock I could hang out on, then Daryl and Riley headed up hill a bit longer.

I took a mid-mountain nap and woke up feeling great. I love being in the mountains so much. The North Cascades is such wild nature. Mountains are so beautiful, so scary, so wild. I never mind when Daryl wants to ski a longer line than me, because I get to just sit in be.

Always flashing mountains.

I love skiing with my puppy!

There were a couple sketchy spots on our way down, navigating around the creek, but once we got to the skiable snow, it was all fun and games!

After two weeks of having loaner cars while mine was at the dealership, it is very wonderful to have Betsey back!

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018

North Cascades Recon – May 12-13, 2018

This weekend we visited a new National Park – North Cascades National Park. I love collecting new sign photos. This is our first with Riley!

Our Crosstrek was at the dealership for two weeks and I got some fancy loaner cars. First I had a 2017 Impreza Sport hatchback, then I had a 2018 Impreza Sport sedan. Then I called and told them if my car wasn’t ready by Friday I was going to need a higher clearance vehicle so we could go camping. With zero hesitation they handed me the keys to a 2018 Crosstrek! Thanks, Carter Subaru!

Before we left I prepped all the ingrediants for a HelloFresh meal. Hello Fresh? More like Hello Camping Bibimbap!

Camping with Riley is great because he can cuddle in bed with us!

Left over bibimbap with a fried egg for breakfast. YUM!

They opened the North Cascades Highway on Friday and on Saturday we drove to Washington Pass and camped just behind the road closed sign. There were three other parties camped here, as well as a couple of photographers who walked down to the observation point to camp. We just upgraded our backpacking tent to a Big Agnes Copper Spur and this was our first trip out. It’s the perfect size for the three of us! And only 3lbs!

I really love that my favorite summer time activity is skiing.

After touring around in the woods we meandered our way through the park on the way home. Colonial Peak and Pyramid Peak in the background above Diablo Lake.