Mission Ridge uphill in jeopardy

I lived in Wenatchee during the fall/winter of 2001-02, I remember looking forward to a solo skin up the ski area after work for exercise. I did it quite often & would have to agree that to lose that opportunity (for those locals, particularly) would in fact be tragic.

3-1-12 update to the Mission Ridge uphill saga.

The guy who got in trouble wrote an article and posted it in Wenatchee Outdoors.

It is here: www.justgetout.net/Wenatchee/23303

Hopefully the area is satisfied. I've been uphill many times since the incident and had no problems. Yesterday as I headed up, I met a patrol who was on the hill with the ski team (which trains by snowmobile when the area is closed - how cool is that?). I told the patrol what I was doing and he advised me to "be careful, there is a lot of new snow". I've decided to be more vocal when I see people breaking the rules. I'm hopeful that this will be forgiven and forgotten and the only change will be more rigorous peer enforcement of the uphill policy.

I'm curious why skinning in this resort is so desirable. I've never had any urge to tour in a resort, in fact the idea seems repugnant to me. Why not use the access road to gain the requisite elevation to begin your tour and then skin outside the resort boundary?

I'm curious why skinning in this resort is so desirable.  I've never had any urge to tour in a resort, in fact the idea seems repugnant to me.   Why not use the access road to gain the requisite elevation to begin your tour and then skin outside the resort boundary?

That's what I usually do. Some people like to do it just for exercise and skin up and ski down the groomed runs. Some people do it because it's "safer" than skiing a natural snowpack. It's a 20 minute drive or less from anywhere in Wenatchee, so it's convenient. Occasionally when there is a lot of new snow I'll skin/ski right on or near the resort boundary, but not on days when the resort will be open for business. I don't get it either, but different strokes.

 Why not use the access road to gain the requisite elevation to begin your tour and then skin outside the resort boundary?

Aside from easy after work exercise and the fun of mindless uphill, here is one good reason:

Directly outside the resort boundary to both the east and the west are good areas for touring and skiing.  Stemilt basin to the east and Clara Lakes area to the west.  Last weekend I toured from the ski area into Stemilt, and had snow machines high mark my line, just below me, as I de-skinned. 

Tonight I made a lap through the Clara lakes area.  This has been good skiing so far this year, but now the snow machines are in there too.  There are tracks over both lakes and up and down all the good skiing slopes and some of the scary slopes too.  Pretty ugly.  The best local skiing right now is either at Mission Peak or Bowl 4, both in the ski area basin but where there are low skier visits and no snow machine traffic.

First photo is the parking lot that Clara has become, Second is the same spot last week, pre-snow machine traffic, and the third is from the Stemilt incident.  Like I said, track made as we prepared to ski the slope.  Amazing.