December 11-13, 2002, Bachelor Butte

After having my left foot rebuilt in January, it's been a long recovery waiting for the snow to return to the mtn. so I can see if the new foot works on skis again. Drove to Bachelor on 12/10 when the forecast looked encouraging. Arrived that evening in the campervan in a full whiteout and it wasn't fog. Woke to 4-6" new and still snowing. Walked to the lifts and bought a ticket and tried the foot-it worked ! Started barking and ripping powder. The lower mtn has been open since Thanksgiving and has a solid base so the new powder with 4 hi-speed quads made vertical accumalation easy. Stopped early, relaxed in the camper near the lifts.Woke to sunshine and a couple inches of new but unfortunately a rain crust from the warm front. The ski area groomed all their runs during the evening. Put on the randonee gear and started climbing outside the area. The foot felt comfortable climbing, although my heartrate wasn't in tune yet. Climbed near a trail and a father was explaining to his daughter that in the old days that's how you reached the top of the hill pointing towards me. The father looks at me in disbebief and says "Zap is that you - you're supposed to be out of commission". One of my ole Crystal ski buddies sure knows how to make me feel better. I climbed the edges then skied the groomed runs and avoided the rain crust off piste. It feels good to climb again and the foot feels fairly good-love those anti-inflam's. Another storm was approaching so I curled up in the camper, turned on the generator, cranked up the tunes and microwaved some day old pizza and enjoyed a chilled beer as the wind gusted over 30mph on the slopes. More new powder in the morning and my Crystal buddy and I chased each other for a couple hours and clicked-in over 16k vert's - love those quads.

The coverage on Bachelor Butte is excellent in the troughs but sparse on the ridges. This next storm will open the Nothwest area on the Butte plus Broken Top. The whole Butte is available for climbing as long as you stay off the runs on the uptrack. It's a 7 plus hour drive to Bachelor but with a base of 6300' you normally have a drier snowpack then in the Wa Cascades.