Mayday, Mayday, We Have Powder! 5.1.10
(Last Updated On: May 6, 2010)
The last day of April ended with a bang, and the first day of May came in just as strong, with more snow and winter-like weather. Brittany and I were joined by usual suspects Rob Dickinson and Tom Runcie, plus Ron Pankey and Eric Freson. We considered a number of different areas, but in the end decided to check out a zone that Eric and Ron knew. While it isn’t the world’s most secretive zone, I tend to keep areas that people show me secret, therefore I’ll refer to this zone as “La Zona Rosa”, after the hip Mexico City neighborhood. It’s just fun to say “Zona Rosa”.
It was a bit difficult to get there at this time of year, and required some interesting snowmobiling (Eric):
There was a lot of enticing terrain to drool over and perhaps get to on another trip…
Lap 1, Tom:
Brittany:
Frank:
Ron:
With a tremendous looking “quarter slot” couloir above us, Eric, Rob, Tom, and I decided to head that way for our second run, while Ron and Brittany decided to take another quick lap. Looking down the slot:
I dropped in first, with slough chasing me down (photo Tom Runcie:)
Brittany got these shots of me exiting:
Rob (photos Tom):
Tom:
La Zona Rosa, muy bien, si?:
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“While it isn’t the world’s most secretive zone, I tend to keep areas that people show me secret”
Hard to keep anything secret when you post everything you ski on a blog and TGR! And worse your buddies have to post pictures of secret cabins and want to give everyone detailed directions to certain zones. Perhaps you are to blame for the county now wanting to regulate certain trail heads! Could you do me and the rest of the CB a favor and school your friends on posting etiquette?
Hey Ullr, you do realize it’s OK to use your actual name and email, rather than hiding, yes?
Perhaps you’re a newbie to the area, and can’t remember the days when snowmobiling out Gothic Road was allowed, and ALL that skiing out there was easily accessible. Hardly anyone used that access, so when they re-did the travel plan, there just weren’t enough people fighting the closure of a road that 1,000’s of people use every day in the summer. Perhaps if everyone knew about and used that resource, the Gothic closure never would have happened.
As for the county wanting to do something about the parking at Slate River, it’s a junk show out there– something should be done. The real problem will be if the Land Trust decides to make their tiny parcel non-motorized, which would effectively cut off access to Slate River. If more people know about the skiing out Slate because of this site, great!, more people to fight the potential closure.
Beyond that, I gotta tell you, I don’t see many people anywhere I go, whether I blog about it or not, outside of Heart Attack and the Anthracites, where I know I’ll see people anyway. People have always picked the low-hanging fruit and they always will– get a ladder and stop worrying about it.
yo ULLR, RELAX dooood.
Oh my god, the hordes are gonna come and ruin it! Better find a new zone Frank, the entire World Wide Web is stalking you and your “secret” terrain. While your at it, find a way to disable Google Earth and start a map burning campaign in your community.
I don’t understand the investment in being so butthurt about some pictures of people skiing pow on the internet. Usually it’s just bitter people that hate the world in general and do nothing but bitch about how they aren’t the only Rad Guy skiing pow anymore since fat skis were invented. Either that or they are kicking themselves for sitting around watching football half the winter instead of skiing pow.
Either way, all the people I know with that attitude are generally miserable to be around and especially to ski with. Frank and Brittney on the other hand are good people. You should ski with them sometime before your dreaded Internet Powder Frenzy Apocalypse hits! Until then enjoy being the internet powder police.