Sometimes you forget why. The other day I was reminded. Below is a photographic journey into the central Washington Cascades for a day of backcountry skiing.

View photos at SmugMug

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The first ski tour of the year is always filled with a bit of anxiety. Like any other adventure, you’re constantly doing a mental checklist of gear on the drive, despite making the effort beforehand (even the night before!) that everything you need is in good working condition and ready to go. I laid all my backcountry gear on the floor, taking note of what I had, and didn’t have.

Let the games begin

Due to relatively little amounts of snow, the destination for our first ski tour was, wherelese, Mt Rainier. With sunny skies predicted and about half a foot of fresh snow, our expectations weren’t all that high but instead hopeful. Arriving at the Paradise parking lot around 9:00 am, we were quite pleased to see most of the ground covered in fresh snow, with the possibility of skinning from the car looking high.

Before I really had time to think about it, our small group began the skin up towards Camp Muir. No matter how many times I ski on or around Rainier (which is a lot) I am always blown away by how beautiful a mountain it is.

Taking very few rest stops, I found myself quickly gasping for air and the legs tired as I attempted to photograph “The Mountain” while keeping up with my buds. Soon I fell into a rhythm though and the Muir snowfield unfolded into a massive powder field. This was going to be good I thought…

My legs kept trying to tell me this was the first ski tour of the year, while my brain was just too enthusiastic about the current conditions (which are rarely that good towards Muir Camp at 10,000 ft) and the fact that despite a very slow start to the ski season here in the NW, we were looking at about 3000 – 4000 ft of very good turns.

And very good turns we did have. So enjoyable they were, we opted for two. Sooner or later though we had to listen to our tired bodies and so the adventure back to car began. A bit of walking here, some survival skiing there and our first day of backcountry was deemed a success.

There are a lot of folks in Washington who tire of hearing Mt Rainier stories, myself (sometimes) included. But on this day, the first turns of the year, it just didn’t matter.

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Just wanted to post a quick update about a sister-site I’m in the process of developing. The website, dubbed, creatively, www.backcountryskiphotos.com, is something I’m working on for displaying backcountry ski photos from myself as well as others. There are also links and videos about avalanche education, stories etc. Furthermore, I’ll be offering the option to download digital copies of all the ski photos that appear on the site, as well as professional prints.

As much as I love mountain biking, sea kayaking and hiking, backcountry skiing is truly a passion of mine. So please, check it out!  Don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed below or Subscribe by email

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