June 4, 2011, Mission Ridge

I had too much to do this weekend to accept the great offer of lodging and fun company for the weekend up in Mazama, but HAD to get out at least one day. We decided to drive out into the desert where there wasn't a scrap of snow to be seen and see what we could ski. Turned out pretty well, despite some skepticism as we drove through Wenatchee. We got on snow right at the ski area base, and were able to skin with just a few skinnable dirt/grass/gravel stretches by going up chak chak (sp?) to castle to skookum to the microwave tower where we hung out for quite a while summit lizardng among the massive amount of ladybugs. They bite, by the way!

Snow was great - true fast and firm corn - on the runs from there down to midway so most of us yo-yo'd a bit before we retraced our route back to the car late in the afternoon. The melt had opened some more stretches of walking on skis and one spot where we needed to remove skis.

There's something cool about approaching a rollover on a ski trail and seeing nothing but green and brown landscape beyond the little apron of snow right before you. It made touring among the lift apparatus and radio towers be a fine tradeoff.

Off to those chores and such now...