August 5, 2006, Heliotrope Ridge
8/5/06
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
2610
1
August 5, 2006 Heliotrope Ridge
A delightful half-day on Heliotrope yesterday: uncrowded slopes (two other skiers seen in the distance and met in the parking lot); fine surface conditions (small suncups with soft, rounded edges, plus minimal crevasses); perfect weather (tank top skiing with occasional puffy clouds to prevent drastic overheating). The basic runs range from 25-40 degrees steepness, 1000-1200 vertical feet in length. Continuous snow from the hogsback camp, an hour and a half walk from the car. As of yesterday, I preferred this to the Coleman Pinnacle area, although a degree of comfort on moderate glaciers is necessary.
Higher on the Coleman looked perfectly reasonable, but a mysterious hitch in my skiing technique caused a couple of tumbles during my initial warmup run and convinced me to stick with mellow pitches for the day. For some reason, the toepiece of my 7tms is catching on the bellows of my opposite boot when I switch leadsjust often enough to interfere with my confidence. The two skiers I met in the parking lot said they'd dropped their skis before reaching the Coleman-Deming Saddle, and that conditions higher than that looked poor.
Here's a photo of my summer-favorite uphill traction system, followed by conditions from far and near:
A delightful half-day on Heliotrope yesterday: uncrowded slopes (two other skiers seen in the distance and met in the parking lot); fine surface conditions (small suncups with soft, rounded edges, plus minimal crevasses); perfect weather (tank top skiing with occasional puffy clouds to prevent drastic overheating). The basic runs range from 25-40 degrees steepness, 1000-1200 vertical feet in length. Continuous snow from the hogsback camp, an hour and a half walk from the car. As of yesterday, I preferred this to the Coleman Pinnacle area, although a degree of comfort on moderate glaciers is necessary.
Higher on the Coleman looked perfectly reasonable, but a mysterious hitch in my skiing technique caused a couple of tumbles during my initial warmup run and convinced me to stick with mellow pitches for the day. For some reason, the toepiece of my 7tms is catching on the bellows of my opposite boot when I switch leadsjust often enough to interfere with my confidence. The two skiers I met in the parking lot said they'd dropped their skis before reaching the Coleman-Deming Saddle, and that conditions higher than that looked poor.
Here's a photo of my summer-favorite uphill traction system, followed by conditions from far and near:
Those cleats on your sneakers look cool! I would have like to have had them yesterday on the Colemann Pinnacle. Where do you get them and how much are they? :D
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