157 days in a row!!! Jan-July 2004, PNW

Posted for a friend:<br><br>157 DAYS IN A ROW!!!<br>January 30 - July 4th 2004.  Washington, Oregon, and California<br><br> <br> <br>After living in North Carolina for almost 2 years and not having skied in almost 2 and a half years, it felt great to be back on skis.  They do have mountains in NC but nothing like here.  Our foothills are more exciting than their mountains.  I believe the hardest run in NC is in Ski Beach Ski Area and it's named Tom's Run, the equivalent of skiing what used to be Thunder Bird at Summit West at Snoqualmie.  After skiing most of December I headed back to NC for 3 weeks, missing most of January.  On my return I was at once excited to be on skis and my first day back for good was greeted by making some turns and catching some air with my friend Danny who has skied more months in a row than I'll probably ever do!   The following day it was pissing rain so I decided not to ski.  It was the next day before I got back on skis and that's when it all began.<br> <br>January 30th 2004 marks the first day of what would be 157 days of skiing straight with no skipped days with 77 of them being after the lifts closed for the season.  A total of 88 days out of 157 were by means of hiking, climbing, or skinning to get the turns in.  The rest of them were by using ski lifts, yes I guess that would be cheating to some. Most of my days spent skiing using the lifts were at Alpental.  However I did venture to Crystal Mountain and Kirkwood California to do some freesking competitions.  I ended up doing only the Crystal Mountain competition.  Conditions at Kirkwood were really icy and snowpack was thin, so my friend JD and I decided to back out.  I figure my skiing form was not up to par at the time.  Normally I'm all for crud and low snowpack conditions for competing.  I was still trying to get back on form after missing 2 years.  Other than those two trips, the rest of the Season was spent hitting the Jumps at Central or skiing the BC at Alpental.  It's when the season ends that I really begin to get excited about things.  No lifts, crowds, ropes, patrol, scenes, skier rage, etc, I can do what ever I please. <br> <br>It's April 19th and I currently had 80 days straight within the last 2 weeks 10 of them were hiking up Alpental all the way up to weather station on three of my outings.  It's now the Monday after the final day skiing lifts, my goal was to get at least 20 more days in skiing.  I managed to do that by hiking and skinning around areas that were further out in the Alpental BC.  Other days were spent skiing Alpental proper, however it feels like I'm skiing a different area without all the ropes and closed signs.  Each day the terrain seemed to change due to snowmelt.  I'd say I had more fun skiing Alpental and surrounding areas from mid April to mid May then I've had skiing the area while it's open my entire life of skiing up there.  Each day I'd do something a little different to break up the monotony of skiing the same thing.  I even managed to shovel some snow using a barbeque lid on top of the unloading area of chair 2 and proceeded to jump off the platform facing the highway (around a 28 foot drop on a relatively flat landing) yeah, I know it sounds foolish but I like to abuse my body at times. I then would sometimes proceed to jump some of the rocks into Kyte Bowl and then hike back out.  I normally ski in such a manner whether I'm with someone or not.  I turn to skiing to let out my frustrations caused within the city due to stress such as dealing with work and bosses you can't please no matter how hard you try.   Each day I would progressively push myself harder and ski a bit faster and go bigger each day.  I basically followed this routine all the way up to day 100.<br> <br>Once I reached the century mark, I decided it could be awhile before I have any chance of seeing how many days in a row I can ski.  My next goal was to outdo some patroller who had done 120 days straight during the main season (lifts only).  Day 101-133 included days in which I did more vertical and ventured beyond Snoqualmie Pass.  One day in particular was an outing to Mt. Stuart with Sky, the Hummels, and Josh K.  It was a 17 hour day in which it felt like I was doing intermittent sprints trying to keep up with others.  Me being in my alpine ski boots I would always lag when coming across any obstacle then would sprint to catch the others or at least keep them in sight.  Once on snow I felt back at home and enjoyed skiing terrain I've never been on.  I experienced some to the finest corn I've been on ever on that trip and managed around a 1500 vertical foot straight-line that made the day.  Some of my other outings included trips to Granite Mountain, Silver Peak, Mt. Rainier and Snow Lake.  My goal during this time was to get at least a 1000 vertical feet of skiing in a day.  I did that by 2000 feet averaging around 2800-3000 vertical feet per day.  Day 134-157 saw a slight bend in the rules.  <br> <br>It was Friday June 11th and Corey, Cryil, Sky, Scott, and I headed down to Hood to do the Cooper Spur route.  I figure I'd get some turns in during the evening so I decided not to ski to Snow Lake during the day.  I didn't want to keep the others waiting.  It turned out that it was a few hours after our intended departure time that I would be scrambling to get some turns in before midnight!   Once at Mt. Hood we approached a gate that kept us from going any further up.  I didn't see any snow.  I began to panic.  It was around 10:30pm and basically ended up begging Sky if I could borrow his car to drive to Timberline so that I could get at least 10 turns in before midnight.  I made it to Timberline with 10 minutes to spare and got my turns in for the day!!!   I'm sure Sky was annoyed by my irrational exuberance and may never want to go on a ski outing with me ever again.  I hope that's not the case.  I do know I'd like to return the favor somehow.  So thanks to Sky the streak lived on to 157.  Now the snow patch at Summit West became my outlet to making turns on days in which I was too busy to go on any serious outing.  I made up those pathetically short days with long days such doing the summit of Rainier in one day on 2 occasions, 2 Mt. Hood Summits, a couple of long ski tours with some fellow skiers I met on the TAY website. And to wrap things up I summited Adams with Justin A. on July 4th after doing Hood the day before.  <br> <br>From days with as little as 200 vertical feet of hiking and 20 vertical of skiing with squeezing as many as 10-18 turns on a snow patch to climbing over 10,000 vertical feet with over 8,000 vertical of skiing.  During the final 11 weeks of my ski fest I managed to calculate my total vertical climbed and total vertical skied.  These were the 77 days after the season said farewell at Alpental.  My total vertical of climbing and hiking was over 200,000 vertical feet, with over 170,000 vertical feet in skiing.  Averaging over 2500 feet a day in hiking and 2200 feet in skiing for 77 days straight.  Not the best thing if I'm trying to gain weight.  It was all worth it.  From mellow ski days to days in which I try to break 65mph ( fastest my GPS read on one occasion was 74mph), or days I would see how big I can go on not powder snow, all in all I'd have to say the last 100 of my days have been some of the best I've had ever.  Rain, sleet, snow, wind, or sun I made it a point to get out there and make turns for as long as I could until the snow ran out.  I guess now it's mostly volcano skiing for now.  Over the last 157 days I've learned that there is no other sport other than skiing in which I have such desire to go out and do it when I really don't feel like doing anything else.  To me skiing is like expressing my feelings.  Where there's snow there's turns to be had!!!!!!!    Thanks to all those who were and are willing to keep me company despite what may be to some, my annoying speed and air antics and "look ma no hands" feats.  It's been an awesome privilege to ski and climb with the people I toured with over the last 5 months!!<br> <br> <br>Donnelly<br>donnellymiller&lt;at&gt;yahoo&lt;.&gt;com<br>

F'in a!<br><br>That is quite a streak.<br><br>Some of my Utard friends had skied big seasons, but I don't know anyone who managed 157 days in a row. Congradulations.

Great accomplishment Donnelly! That is really dedicated work! Unfortunately we all know that streaks come and go. I enjoyed reading your travels. Some seemed creative and others mundane. But you still pulled off dedication and passion. They are fun while they last.<br><br>Now, If you take those fat A@@ Atomic skis and see how far they glide across an ice cold glacier pond Sunday you may start a new streak!? <br>Hope to see you there!

Here's to you!  Quite a feat, maybe you should check with the folks at Guinness. Might be a world record!

Rad man.  I've had the good fortune of being able to ski a pretty reasonable number of days  but I've never even come close to 157 for a whole year, let alone in a row.  <br><br>I think it it certainly a Washington record, but it may not be a world record.  I feel like I may have read (on ttips probably?) that TOMSKI has actually skied all 365 days of the year before.  Could this be possible?  I'm kind of curious how many days in a row folks here have skied in a row.  Who is #2 among the TAY community?  Very doubtful that it is me, if I remember right the most I ever did was 9 or maybe 10 days.<br><br>  

Good going Donnelly! Although I'm part of the dark side (patrol) I've enjoyed watching you ski over the years at Alp.<br><br>Keep up the good work and look forward to seeing you next season.

If i can recall, I believe someone telling me the world record for ski days in a row is over 600. Maybe if I lived up on Camp Sherman at MRNP.

Simple Solution:  Just move to Mt. Hood during the Summer and Fall.