Today most of us got the long anticipated email from Stevens Pass detailing our Motorhome parking privileges on the mountain. Didn’t get it? I will forward it to you, just ask. The details of the memo are listed below; I didn’t bother to convert the file from Adobe so I just made a verbatim copy here. I did add mild punctuation repairs to the original but no verbiage whatsoever was replaced, removed or otherwise touched.
As of publish, the website for the Mountain had not yet updated to reflect this new policy.

• RV Lot will stay in the current location with space for 70 RV’s.
• The Overflow/free lot will no longer be offered.
(If the situation arises where there are more than 70 RV’s we will accommodate on a temporary basis in a location determined by Stevens Pass Parking Manager.)
• RV lot will become 100% nightly parking on a first come first serve basis.
• Nightly fee will be $30 a night.
• 50 passes will be sold at $1,000 but will not guarantee a space.
(this pass is being offered as a payment convenience only, along the same lines as a season pass for skiing.)
• Current 2009/2010 pass holders will have priority for purchase between August 16th and September 30th, 2010.
• All other policies and procedures that have normally been in place will also exist.

Here are my thoughts:
While the Mountain blew the very deadline (4-2-10) they presented for resolution to their dilemma of the lower lot, I applaud them for a decision at the very least. I am beyond pleased that this is settled and buried once and for all. All the speculation is finally over, opinions no longer matter. Democracy, rather: Stevens Pass pithy attempt at it, has died….but out of its tired ashes has risen a new season of promise for all who choose to ski/ride out of our motorhomes, a new season of promise for all of us who choose to make Stevens Pass our home mountain; the place to teach our children, fellowship with our friends and families, spend our hard earned dollars upon and carve yet even more years of fond memories upon her slopes.
Now there is only one Lot, and anyone who has been to either, can easily ascertain that this one Lot, with her 70 stalls is not enough to host the multitudes. Its easy to see there will be issues with this new program but easier than that is just dismissing everything and leaving it to the mountain to figure out. At the end of the day (for parking) I don’t care if I plug in or not or: if I pay or not, although $30 a night is another fine way to support the mountain you ride; at any rate Ive got the resources to do both and all I really want is to ski in/ski out, sit around a fire at night sipping a little vodka and trading the days’ stories with my crew. Im a pretty happy pirate wherever I drop anchor, so long as its snowing and Ive got a chest full of ice and a cupboard full of cookies. There is no feasible way those 50 $1000.00 passes will last long enough to reach my slot on the list, but I would jump on it if I could, it’s a fantastic deal whether you ride/spend as many nights there as I do or not.

I have been an outspoken critic of the process for many months, and 3 weeks ago I went dark when opinions no longer mattered, when the decisions and its architects basked, forged in the fires of resolve; all that was left was to sit down, shut up and see where I would be spending my money next season. Im as satisfied as anyone can be with this; I’m keeping my hard earned dollars at Stevens’ Pass for 2k11, I want to see how this works. I’m not going to get killer front yards and open spaces for parties next Winter in the Upper Lot but that just means we will have to deal with it; at the end of the day we get less turns to our rigs if we come through the trees but we will have to deal with it. We still get to ride in/ride out.

Im looking forward to reading the forum-rats in the coming weeks but in the meantime to Joel Martinez and his snowy henchmen: Thanks for a decision, thanks for making it work for everyone as best you could and yeah, we totally grabbed Crystal Mountain’s sweet ass a few weeks ago, but we are still going home with you and really, that’s what counts.

The weekend was killer, our crew varied in size all day saturday, some times we took up 5 chairs and others it only took 2 to get us all to the top. I like riding like that, its mellow, sometimes slow, sometimes fast and always lots of stops to talk stories, plan different runs etc. Local ripper Bekah caught up with us on the backside early in the day and stuck it out with us for a huge session before we all split up to watch the Big Air competition late in the afternoon. The final seconds of this video, shot of the big air comp are awesome, the guy gnarls out a handplant, check it:

Sat night brought the rain and it stayed with us til deep into Sunday. Right now my buddies up there text in that its nuking up there but the website says its 34 degrees so Im not sure how good its going to be. I spent quite a bit of time in the upper lot last night and by the time I got back to my rig, I was rocked off my pegleg so this morning was more of a medical than anything. A couple guys ski-ed/rode this morning, (despite it raining hard) and came back with terrible reports; I didnt miss much by staying in and nursing a hangover. Last night after I got back to the lower lot, a small squad from the upper lot came down to hang out more, thus increasing the swill factor demonstrably. It was an absolutely damn good time, I love the snow community/winter people.
I downloaded a GPS based app tonight for Droid that tracks your speed and is built specifically for ski-ers, I havent used it yet but I cant wait to find out what a hard charge downhill equals. Last Winter my buddy tracked us on his device and we clocked in at 58mph i think.

On Thursday night of last week I tested for my Apiary cert with Wa. state and I passed; immediately afterwards I bought two unassembled bee-hives and a bunch of related tools for the building of them so Im looking forward to getting that going tomorrow. I am dropping a bunch of new stuff online to promote it: bloggo, twitter, facebook,flickr etc etc. Support your favorite pirate beekeeper and for gods sake people: next time you find a “hottest beekeeper contest” like Huffpost did last month, sign me up!

here is Biffy Clyro with Mountains.

thanks for reading and see you on the other side.
Hench…

Stevens Pass has started using a new forecasting model for thier website that details the forecast on a variety of levels; it is a major upgrade from the former standard. Kudos to them, find the link yourself by going to the website, clicking on the first left tab “Mountain” then “Forecast” and from there you will see the goods. Once youve made the jump, start snooping around and find the review section for the Stevens Pass. Or just click here and go straight there.
Take a moment and plug the Mountain, talk about your RV experience there, talk about the Hospitality youve recieved there, talk about anything you want. The more publicity, the better. You will see my comment listed and I hope to see many more beyond my own.
This is a big opportunity for not just Stevens Pass to hear our praises of the the Motorhome Parking, but the entire world.
Make your move and remember: there are only two weeks left before the final announcement is handed down from the Mountain regarding our ski/shred/motorhome future there. Until now we collectively have been denied a voice, all of that has changed with this.
Go now, keep it positive, clean and fun; keep in mind you represent the group.

Many Thanks!

the Arena!

Smooth Sailing

High and dry

Robots attack the Fridge

Another super short weekend in Stokeland, but a good one nonetheless, (mostly). Here’s the breakdown:
left Seattle at 5pm, got to the Brig at 7, pissed at the traffic. Switched out of the suit and into riding gear, fired up the ship and set sail…stopping at the Dutch as usual for a few minutes. Got to the Mtn at 8:30 pm and dropped anchor, discovered that my flag was busted and had a few beers with some buddies, then rode from 9 to 10. It was really cool riding alone at night, its been a long time since Ive done that, alone and late….ripping around in the dark by myself. On the way back to the Moho I picked up a ride with some bro’s that were headed down to the Lot to have a few drinks with us……and sat around til midnight talking stories and talking about jobs…
Saturday morning was harsh, really really harsh. I lost my ski pass, my favorite gloves, a knee brace and a set of skullcandys. Super lame and it had me in a bad mood. I didnt get out on the hill til 11am, trying to get it all sorted out. I started riding and stayed out all afternoon, but getting more and more irritated with idiots on chairlifts and mindless conversations so I decided to dump lift lines all together and start riding trees, then hiking back to the hill so thats just what I did. I had a huge 7 rip session in the trees above and around the lower moho lot, then would hike back to Chief and do it all over again. It was good and soon the Mountain was in my lungs and I began to feel more normal. There are alot of cool drops, kickers and slides back there that I really enjoy riding and the further back you go, the more you find. On the second to last sesh I was doing a Mike V through the brush and managed to put a hole in my treasured yellow pants but I guess I had it coming, riding like that……and at any rate, duct tape just makes everything cooler in the end.
I was pissed about losing my pass……I didnt think my days would roll over or that maybe some douchenozzle was rocking it, so the girls at the desk dialed me in and shut it down, then got me a new one. Its very obviously the end of Season out there and now we all get hard-ons about how many days weve notched so I was pleased to keep my number.
Since you asked: I have just under 40 days for the season. Yes Im proud.
It hasnt been the best of Winters, but its been better than no Winter and frankly Ive loved every second of this one, halfassed or however you may call it. We really didn’t get any objectives met this year, from the hiking to the hardcore backcountry but we did get killer days here and there that we will never forget because they werent so regular as we are used to, and we did have one hell of a time in Motorhome Country. None of it is over yet of course, but when your riding up Tye Chair, if you lean back just right………you can smell the undeniable beauty of Spring cracking her knuckles. Its a warm but formidable scent tinged with icicles, fir and the threat of rebirth.
Next year, if we are at Stevens Pass, I will ride Tunnel Creek and I will hike the Power Lines all the way back. Speaking of which, I wanted to mention how nice the girls were at the desk this weekend, they really made my day and it reminded me of how much I like this place, or why ive enjoyed it so much in the past. With the Motorhome Lot being treated like a Leper Colony on the edge of the village this year, it has been easily overlooked; the hospitality that has made this palce so great in years past. The core value of any Mountain should be Hospitality, and nothing less. The better they do with that, the more revenues they will rake in; Stevens overall has utterly failed at that this year, in our case at least. I laugh every weekend at the irony of the Lower lot, and the reasoning’s of making it a parking lot, or a lift accessed lot like Silver Fir…….because the only people that park back there are people who typically refuse to speak English and just want to sled, but have nowhere to go. Its a shit-show every weekend back there with the parking……but I digress.
My thoughts on this whole lower lot deal are well known, and also put to pen, but that day hasnt come yet…….

Saturday afternoon, within 30 minutes of the start of the big rainstorm, all of us mustered in the lower lot under awnings and canopies, passing flasks, cooking steaks and cracking beers…most of us laughing about my failure of a morning. Sunday morning I only had an hour to ride before I had to leave for Seattle so we made a blistering 13 run set off of Tye with 5 minutes to spare, a good way to start the day.
32 hours in the Mountains is all I get this week, and next weekend is the first weekend I will miss all Season but I might hit up Snoqual some night this week since I haven’t been up there yet this year.
We will see.
Here’s some Caribou for night listening:

Thanks for reading….
Hench.

Flickr

Creeper

The phone’s been ringing all week as the star studded list of motorhomes for this weekends action grows expontentially. This will be the weekend of the Season methinks, besides my annual potluck every March. Get up there and hang out with us, the Lower Lot will be full and the Upper Lot is hosting some of my favorite motorhomes of all time so it is sure to be a solid good time. There is snow falling in them thar hills as well and with chairs Southern Cross and Double Diamond still down, I know of a number of planned hikes into each territory on the hunt for killer freshies.

We are building our team for the 24 hour ride for cancer March event, if you want in on it let me know asap. Basically we ride all damn night and will be posting videos of it all over twitter in a live feed as well as filming for another project thats been coming to life over the past 6 months.

I “built” a facebook group for all of us ski motorhomes up there called Stevens Pass RV Lot and mustered a list of freinds but it still needs your voice: sign up here. There is a much bigger project in the works for this sort of thing but I was anxious to get this off the ground fast so there you go. Everything is public, you can add your own pictures, videos….pretty much anything. Please join.

Dont forget to hang your Northwest Forest Pass in your rig this weekend, people.

I will be up there sometime Saturday night, we are shredding the hell out of things come Sunday: Hiking/trees and trees. Its gonna be really good…..Ive got the stoke!

I rediscovered The Drums this week so here they are with a great jam: Lets Go Surfing.

Colors in the wind

I dropped anchor at Stevens Pass sometime around 7pm Friday night, met by a rowdy and fun RV Lot. Lots of new rigs were already there amongst the old guard and most of them had set up shop thoroughly, with outdoor kitchens and good sized crowds. Once settled, half our local crew went up to ride while the rest of us stayed back to build fires and for my part, settle in for the weekend. We spent the evening catching up around my fire, talking stories and planning Saturdays schedules, eventually  racking out around 1am for the 8am rush. Right before I went to bed I realized I forgot just about all of my food, left it in my pickup down at the drop point where I switch from the truck to the moho. Wasnt sure how that would work out so I shrugged it off and went to sleep, knowing I had just enough for a good breakfast.

Saturday was an epic session, we rode/skied for 8 hours straight all over the hill:  in the trees, on the grooms and everything in between.  Our squad had 4 to 8 skiers in it all day at any given time plus a rider and myself as well, we tore the place up. I saw a bunch of people hiking up Chief Bowl on Saturday afternoon since Double Diamond has been out of service for two weeks, I snapped a few shots but they didnt turn out the way I hoped…not nearly as dramatic as it seemed at the time. I heard today that Double Diamond is out for the season which means we too will end up hiking the bowl at some point this month. Its nice up there, one of my favorite spots. Also flirting with disaster is Brokeback Hogsback chair, still running on auxiliary power after at least 2 weeks.  No one really knows what the deal is with that, but its loud and spews alot of deisel in big black exhaust dumps. We always chuckle when it coughs out its smog like clockwork; one of the leading arguments the Mountain is taking to the Forest Service with the issue of letting us park in the Lower Lot (generator use lot only) is the carbon footprint we may or may not be leaving on the environment, thusly staining an otherwise “green” mountain.  Methinks its called: IRONY. Our alleged footprint pales mightily in comparison to their bootstomp. We did notice the Forest Service patrol truck come through the Lot on Friday night, an encouraging sign to all of us, a reminder that we are their guests, on publicly funded, federal land.  If you park in the Lower Lot, join us in attaching your Northwest Forest Pass in the window of your rig, as a sign of support and gratitude to the Forest Service for letting us use the land. If you dont have one, pick it up at any forest service office or your local REI, they cost 30 bucks and guarantee your passage on to any Forest Service lands including the Lower Lot, a trail-head for the Pacific Crest Trail.

On Saturday afternoon we rode down to the motorhomes, exhausted after a full day of snow….the upper conditions on the tree portions were stellar, but the final couple hundred yards to the moho were just brutal. I decided I wont be playing back there again until it snows next….its just gnarly.  Sitting out front of the rig having a drink, a small crowd began to grow and soon enough we were at it hammers and tongs again with the stories and drinks, success and so called failures of the day. I was walking to another motorhome and I slipped on some ice and took a huge fall but saved my drink, then fell down two more times and lost my drink, just trying to get back on my feet from the first fall. I got a few hearty laughs from nearby observers and asked if I needed a sippy cup from now on, so I wouldnt spill. It was pretty funny, I wish I could see it on film, it was a classic fall.

The day ended with another fire, and probably the earliest finish in the history of that crew; all of us racked out at 9:30 and up again @ 7am for a quick session before most of us rolled out for home. The morning found fast groomers on every chair, it was a perfect sesh.  We were sitting  in the lift line before the mountain opened this morning and I saw an old man in a crazy one piece that no doubt was original; the guy looked like a typical gnarly old ski bum and I smiled at him, seeing dudes like him still out there, haggard and old always make me happy; I wondered where he lived, and if he ate breakfast this morning…he was really lean. About an hour later my buddy and I were sitting in a remote section of the mountain just above a black diamond run that was groomed overnight and we heard the snow scuttle above us, turned and saw the old timer in the one piece come screaming down the snow!! It was insane seeing him dominate the hillside which had nothing but scrobble and really poor snow on it, we waved and yelled him on as he flew past us, probably chuckling at the young bucks sitting above a run. We were in fact, planning a hike on a distant ridge for another day but he wouldnt have known that, regardless we both watched him sail down the steep in awe. Good for you, old man. Here we are, picking lines for a hike just moments before the old scrote blew by.

The weekend was good but short. Lately I have been getting up there late and it really cuts into my time but there’s not much that can be done for now so I will keep on showing up as soon as I can. Next week I wont be up til Saturday around 2am but at least I will be there. About my food mishap this weekend: it was kinda cool not having a ton of food around to munch on; everybody offered me plates and so forth but I enjoyed having nothing but a roll of ritz, some hard candy and summer sausage. It reminded me alot of the early days when all my money went to cheap gear and duct tape; food just didn’t matter much when I was broke, or I just knew people who owned restaurants. Will I forget all my food again? Lets hope to Christ not.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget: if you park in the lower lot, get your Northwest Forest Pass.

Hench.