June 4, 2011, Summit West

Believe me, this was a major milestone to be able to tour at The Summit.

It's been about: 5 months since I was touring, 4 months since riding my skis at a ski area and 3 months since my second spinal surgery.  I've been riding the roller coaster of depression reading about the great ski season.  Finally, the spine seems better but the the rest of the body is in sad shape.  My goal was to skin about a 100 yards before my tingling leg nerves and poor cardio required Jill to dial 911. 

I actually skinned up under the quad to the upper flat about 650 vf.  It was a slow pace and my lungs weren't happy but I made it.  The coverage is still quite good and you can ski from the western parking lot to the top of the Wildside lift.  The descent around 9:30am was consolidated corn with an inch of cream on top.  The steeper pitches had a rather smooth surface while the flat terrain had sun cups of varying depths.  I was tempted to try another run but we had to get to North Bend to watch our Sherpa trainees play baseball. 

We drove by Summit Central and East and it appeared that Summit West had the best coverage at the lower elevations. I was the only person skiing at  West during our short visit.  I knew there would be quite a crowd at Alpental.  It was rather ironic that my last day skiing was on February 16 after teaching an AT class at Summit West.  It sure feels great to be back on skis.

Yahoo - that was the best 650 vf that I've skied in a long time. ;)