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September 11, 2004, Eastern Washington

9/11/04
WA elsewhere
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Posted by cascadesfreak on 9/12/04 5:12am


;D

where is that?  I've been dying to try sand skiing. I figured that ones options were limited to the Oregon Coast dunes around Florence or the Bruneau (sp?) Dunes out in Idaho...
very cool!

It looks like the junction of Routes 26 and 243, just southeast of the I-90 bridge near Vantage. But I don't remember if there is a sand dune there. Am I right?

Oops, maybe I just blew somebody's secret "stash".  ;)

It looks like the junction of Routes 26 and 243, just southeast of the I-90 bridge near Vantage. But I don't remember if there is a sand dune there. Am I right?

Oops, maybe I just blew somebody's secret "stash".  ;)


;)  Yup that's the place;  Wanapum Lake (Columbia River) and Routes 26 and 243 are in the photo background beyond Skip and the sand slope.  This sand slope (~150 vert. feet) is visible from Interstate 90 when crossing the bridge at Vantage, so is hardly secret, maybe just often overlooked  ;)


Coo! So you can combine sport climbing at Frenchmans Coulee with a little skiing in the afternoon. Who knew?

You're right again Lowell ;) After skiing we spent the rest of the day sport climbing / camping at Frenchmans Coulee, a mere ~10 minute drive away from the sand slope  8)

more photos: photo 1">photo 2">photo 3">

i'll post the rest soon...  -kam

Sweet.  Although....it doesn't appear that any actual turns are being made.  

Sweet.  Although....it doesn't appear that any actual turns are being made.  


examples: right turnleft turn ;D

Note the skin track in Kam's recent photos - it was much easier than booting up.  I was, however, using too cold a wax; it was great for the ups, but a bit sticky on the downs.  Next time I'm going with the 75-F glide wax.

Nice job boys!

Yes.
Very nice.
So did you skin up "skinless"?

Note the skin track in Kam's recent photos - it was much easier than booting up.


You used Snake Skins of course, I presume.  ;)

In my vast sand skiing experience (one time last October ;)), we found that skins of any type were not at all necessary.  In fact, the sand alone creates a very thin film that sticks to your base on the way up and acts as the "glide" surface on the descent.  
TR from last year:  

Yeah - we didn't use skins.  I use the term skinning loosely here.  Now if I didn't need skins for the uphill on snow, that's something I'm interested in...



You used Snake Skins of course, I presume.  ;)



For some reason those rattlers seem to get angry when you try to latch them to your ski bases  ;)  

yeah, no climbing skins were needed...also, I found gaitors worked quite well for keeping most of the blowing sand out of my ski boots.  

Fortunately we didn't find any rattlesnakes in the sagebrush at the bottom of the run  ;)


Skip ran into one in the bushes, see...

hmm... one year I tried very hard to find out if there was any reasonable sand-skiing in Washington, and concluded there wasn't.... somehow I overlooked this one!  I knew there were some dunes around there, but all the pics I could find made it look flat - but that actually looks nice...

Great photos! I had no idea that you could just "skin" up sand. How steeply can you ascend without slipping?

Great photos! I had no idea that you could just "skin" up sand. How steeply can you ascend without slipping?


I guess I wasn't paying real close attention to the slope or "skinning" angles...the dune slope is probably at/near its "angle of repose" (approximately 30 degrees); we were unable to ascend straight up the dune without sliding back, but lower angle (maybe 15 degrees??) "switchbacking" across the slope seemed to work quite well.  

This "sand stash" was shown to me by a Western Washington University Geology professor while on a  Geology field trip passing through Vantage many years ago  ;)  [Didn't have skis on that trip, but "barefoot skiing" down the dune seemed to work pretty good too  ;D].

I wondered about those sand hills off of 26 the first time I went to Pullman in 94.  Going to and from college my friends and I would slide the hill on anything we could find and or drag up.  I can recall going down some fun chutes on my skateboard (minus the trucks/wheels).  I even dragged my surfboard up there as well as my boogieboard on a number of occasions.  There's even some cool dunes to run and jump off of.  Fun times.  From the pics it appears to have less sand than I remember.  I remember sand starting from the top.  I must be thinking of another spot or it's just a bad sand year. ;D

... I remember sand starting from the top.  I must be thinking of another spot or it's just a bad sand year.


no, it's a reasonable sand year. coverage appears to be a bit slim in places, but i was able to ski to the truck..., see ;D

and for those interested, here are more photos....

That's a beautiful sight!  I drive past this area on my way to an account in world famous Royal City and have wondered if skiing the dunes were possible.

Now I know!  

I have heard rumors of other sand dunes somewhere farther east near Hwy 26, but not as high as the dune slope near Vantage...maybe those rumors were referring to the small dunes out in the Potholes Reservoir vicinity; perhaps there are some other worthy "sand stashes" out in the Columbia Basin!?  ;)  

One thing is for sure...that sure beats the 10+ hour drive out to Bruneau, ID!  There's more vert. to be had in ID, but you can just do a few more laps at the Gorge to get your vertical mile. 8)

Yup.... and bruneau is 3 times the vert - but 5 times the drive!!!
Let's see, for a vertical mile you'd need to ski these dunes 35 times....

Ok, so now we have our annual "Crystal Mt. ski fest", ;D and The "Slush Cup"  ;D do I see an up coming annual "Sand Fest" in the works??  :D

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september-11-2004-eastern-washington
cascadesfreak
2004-09-12 12:12:53