I grew up skiing at Anthony Lakes in NE Oregon. It is a small mountain by any standard. Growing up it was one double-lift and a poma (platter surface lift). Sixteen runs. 800′ vertical. Open Thurs-Sun. But if you could ski everything at A Lakes you could ski anything anywhere. The terrain is so varied: steeps, trees, cliffs, rocks, readily accessible backcountry, and, most importantly, POW! Sweet, beautiful powder that is sometimes light enough to inhale. With a base elevation of about 7200 feet – in the mountains after the Cascades have sucked most of the moisture out of the air – it has some of the lightest snow I’ve ever encountered. It was a great place to grow up skiing.
I don’t think I’ve skied there since about 2000 and Sara has only been there a couple times in the 1999-2000 winter. Unfortunately this has not been a great winter and they have been hurting for snow. The base now is barely what they would have had to open 30 years ago. The lift has been upgraded to a triple. They took out the hated poma and put in a rope tow. They have cut a few more runs and creatively named some others so they now boast 26 runs. With what appeared to be a decent storm on tap we made plans with a friend to meet up. The morning report said 7″ of fresh and 24 deg. Perfect.
The first run – Holiday to Chicken Out to Tumble Off – made me so happy to be back out west. The snow just felt right. It was not the lightest snow I’ve had there, but it was smooth and even and just enough to keep from bottoming out on the crust below every turn. We made a few runs on the main runs and then met up with our friend. Then we just started doing laps on Avalanche, which requires a few minutes hike up a cat track along a ridge. The face of Avalanche is probably only about 200′ vertical and 12 or so turns, but it was surfy pow and most of our runs were first tracks as we worked different areas on the ridge. Powder turns, runout, lift, powder turns, runout, lift. Rinse and repeat.
I will admit that on one run my season flashed in front of my eyes. As I turned through a narrow opening in the tree line there was a rock straight ahead. I managed to miss the exposed rock and thought I was in the clear to turn around the oncoming tree, but I clipped the shoulder of the rock and my board slipped straight out. I had enough time to realize that my legs were now flying horizontally at the tree below and I could just imagine a nice tib/fib fracture right above my boot, but the tree hit my left boot right at the binding so it was low enough on my legs that the impact was not enough to really hurt anything. My ankle felt a bit tweaked and it left some serious tree residue on the binding, but the season continues! As far as I know Sara had no such troubles, though more than once I had to wait a bit for her and when she appeared there was a little extra powder in her helmet and around her googles.
By the end of the day it was worth taking a few minutes for some pictures/video so we each stopped to get a few shots.
WOW!!!