Slot Couloir

I flew back to Seattle March 20th to prepare for our first demo at the Mt. Baker SplitFest.  My flight came in around 7 pm and I went straight to the shop to finish building up my bindings with the production changes coming from input from our beta testers.  We didn't change much, only combining a couple parts to shave more weight and reduce hardware.  True to Kloster form, Tyler and I finished machining and building the bindings around 1:00 am.

We woke up around 6:00 am and threw our gear in the car and picked up Aaron by 6:30.  We were up in the Alpental parking lot around 7:00 am and it was pissing rain.  We almost aborted and went to the Pancake House for breakfast, but decided since we were up we should just go for it. The tour up was interesting because of the low snow pack.  The usual route up past the lower cliff band was pretty exposed and icy. 

 It finally started snowing about 2/3 the way up Mt. Snoqualmie.  We made it to the Slot and it looked good.  We dropped in one by one working from safe point to safe point.

 The snow was a nice wind packed powder with a cream cheesy consistency.   At the choke point of the couloir it was a bit icy from our sluffs ripping through and wiping out all the new snow.

At the bottom of the Slot we had a brief window of sun and then it fogged up and rained on us the rest of the way.  There's nothing like ripping northwest mashed potatoes...

Despite the rain below 4,000 ft or so the tour was great.  We got back to the car and we were completely soaked.

Alpental Vertfest 2010

I wasn't able to get back to Seattle for the Vertfest, but Tyler got his first go at it.  The race is mainly AT guys, but there were still 10 splitboarders.  For those familiar with Alpental, the race went up under Armstrong Express to Chair 2, then up the Fan with a booter section and then up Rollen with another booter section with the up finishing at the entrance to International.  The riding portion went down International, Snakedance and finished at the bottom of Sessel.  Here is another write up with some pictures of the event: http://www.wildsnow.com/2721/vertfest-2010-race-recap/.  This guy only focuses on the AT contingent.  I think Tyler could have shaved some time if he used one of their awesome lycra suits.  Tyler finished in 4th place and one of our testers Ruaraidh Stenson finished in first.

Flagstaff, Days Fork, Toledo Chute

Snow conditions finally started to stabilize, so I was feeling good about riding some steeper lines with my friend Manuel and some of his friends from Chile.  The snow in upper Days Fork was nice on the north facing aspects.  Here is Manuel dropping into upper Days.

The weather was perfect, so I skinned up to the Reed and Benson Ridgeline to take some pictures of Cardiac Bowl on my way to Toledo Chute.

I skied down Cardiff pass in split mode and then skinned up to Toledo Chute.  Here is Adolfo on skiers right of Toledo Chute.  The snow was fresh hidden under a thin breakable crust.

Here is a shot of Toledo Chute from the parking lot.