TR Replies

Yup.... and bruneau is 3 times the vert - but 5 times the drive!!!
Let's see, for a vertical mile you'd need to ski these dunes 35 times....

9/13/04 9:13pm

Sam Avaiusini

One thing is for sure...that sure beats the 10+ hour drive out to Bruneau, ID! There's more vert. to be had in ID, but you can just do a few more laps at the Gorge to get your vertical mile. 8)

9/13/04 7:54am

cascadesfreak

I have heard rumors of other sand dunes somewhere farther east near Hwy 26, but not as high as the dune slope near Vantage...maybe those rumors were referring to the small dunes out in the Potholes Reservoir vicinity; perhaps there are some other worthy "sand stashes" out in the Columbia Basin!? ;)

9/13/04 4:01am

JibberD

That's a beautiful sight! I drive past this area on my way to an account in world famous Royal City and have wondered if skiing the dunes were possible.

Now I know!

9/13/04 2:44am

kam

... I remember sand starting from the top. I must be thinking of another spot or it's just a bad sand year.

no, it's a reasonable sand year. coverage appears to be a bit slim in places, but i was able to ski to the truck..., see ;D

and for those interested, here are more photos....

9/13/04 1:45am

snoslut

I wondered about those sand hills off of 26 the first time I went to Pullman in 94. Going to and from college my friends and I would slide the hill on anything we could find and or drag up. I can recall going down some fun chutes on my skateboard (minus the trucks/wheels). I even dragged my surfboard up there as well as my boogieboard on a number of occasions. There's even some cool dunes to run and jump off of. Fun times. From the pics it appears to have less sand than I remember. I reme...

9/13/04 12:48am

cascadesfreak

Great photos! I had no idea that you could just "skin" up sand. How steeply can you ascend without slipping?

I guess I wasn't paying real close attention to the slope or "skinning" angles...the dune slope is probably at/near its "angle of repose" (approximately 30 degrees); we were unable to ascend straight up the dune without sliding back, but lower angle (maybe 15 degrees??) "switchbacking" across the sl...

9/13/04 12:28am

Charles

I've been absent from these TRs for a bit, sorry for the delay in responding. snoslut, I guess I didn't recognize you from photos - I think Silas and I passed you just before Pebble Creek. And the group of 4 skiing down was probably us, with Pete and Becky.

Paul, Sky, and Corey, I think we saw you, and I should have skied over to find out who it was, but we were trying to stick to the edges of new snow away from the uptrack. Hope to meet you in person another time.

From today's tel...

9/13/04 12:20am

Charles

Great photos! I had no idea that you could just "skin" up sand. How steeply can you ascend without slipping?

9/12/04 11:53pm

philfort

hmm... one year I tried very hard to find out if there was any reasonable sand-skiing in Washington, and concluded there wasn't.... somehow I overlooked this one! I knew there were some dunes around there, but all the pics I could find made it look flat - but that actually looks nice...

9/12/04 10:24pm

kam

Skip ran into one in the bushes, see...

9/12/04 9:56pm

cascadesfreak

You used Snake Skins of course, I presume. ;)

For some reason those rattlers seem to get angry when you try to latch them to your ski bases ;)

yeah, no climbing skins were needed...also, I found gaitors worked quite well for keeping most of the blowing sand out of my ski boots.

Fortunately we didn't find any rattlesnakes in the sagebrush at the bottom of the run ;)

9/12/04 9:18pm

skip

Yeah - we didn't use skins. I use the term skinning loosely here. Now if I didn't need skins for the uphill on snow, that's something I'm interested in...

9/12/04 9:13pm

Sam Avaiusini

In my vast sand skiing experience (one time last October ;)), we found that skins of any type were not at all necessary. In fact, the sand alone creates a very thin film that sticks to your base on the way up and acts as the "glide" surface on the descent.
TR from last year:

9/12/04 8:43pm

Lowell_Skoog

Note the skin track in Kam's recent photos - it was much easier than booting up.

You used Snake Skins of course, I presume. ;)

9/12/04 5:16pm

ron j

Yes.
Very nice.
So did you skin up "skinless"?

9/12/04 4:33pm

Nice job boys!

9/12/04 10:17am

skip

Note the skin track in Kam's recent photos - it was much easier than booting up. I was, however, using too cold a wax; it was great for the ups, but a bit sticky on the downs. Next time I'm going with the 75-F glide wax.

9/12/04 9:53am

kam

Sweet. Although....it doesn't appear that any actual turns are being made.

examples: right turn left turn ;D

9/12/04 9:38am

markharf

Sweet. Although....it doesn't appear that any actual turns are being made.

9/12/04 8:59am

kam

more photos: photo 1">photo 2">photo 3">

i'll post the rest soon... -kam

9/12/04 7:45am

cascadesfreak

You're right again Lowell ;) After skiing we spent the rest of the day sport climbing / camping at Frenchmans Coulee, a mere ~10 minute drive away from the sand slope 8)

9/12/04 7:28am

Lowell_Skoog

Coo! So you can combine sport climbing at Frenchmans Coulee with a little skiing in the afternoon. Who knew?

9/12/04 7:23am

cascadesfreak

It looks like the junction of Routes 26 and 243, just southeast of the I-90 bridge near Vantage. But I don't remember if there is a sand dune there. Am I right?

Oops, maybe I just blew somebody's secret "stash". ;)

;) Yup that's the place; Wanapum Lake (Columbia River) and Routes 26 and 243 are in the photo background beyond Skip and the sand slope. This sand slope (~150 vert. feet) is visible from Interstate 90...

9/12/04 7:05am

Lowell_Skoog

It looks like the junction of Routes 26 and 243, just southeast of the I-90 bridge near Vantage. But I don't remember if there is a sand dune there. Am I right?

Oops, maybe I just blew somebody's secret "stash". ;)

9/12/04 6:49am

Pete A

where is that? I've been dying to try sand skiing. I figured that ones options were limited to the Oregon Coast dunes around Florence or the Bruneau (sp?) Dunes out in Idaho...
very cool!

9/7/04 12:47pm

kam

Paul:

hands down. you guys got WAY more turns than i; i counted a total of 11 that day. but i would have been satisfied with just one turn ;D. say, i'm looking for a September patch, one that is way up, say 7k. want to go get beat up?

-kam

9/7/04 5:31am

Paul Belitz

Hey man, my August turns were sweet! Now your August turns were.....something else.....

9/7/04 5:23am

powscraper

I'm willing to wager that it was more fun than your August turns!!
;) ;)

Pic here for those who haven't seen it!

haha, yeah... because our August turns were clearly better... how come nobody took any photos of the radness?

9/7/04 5:02am

Schmitz

wow, i really need my licence!

9/7/04 4:53am

Paul Belitz

Paul: nice photo. the snow looks creamy and tasty...

-kam

I'm willing to wager that it was more fun than your August turns!!
;) ;)

Pic here for those who haven't seen it!

9/7/04 3:42am

kam

Paul: nice photo. the snow looks creamy and tasty...

-kam

9/7/04 2:49am

jimjar

Paul, good to hear you decided to keep heading up. It was worth the climb. What a change from last year when I broke an 11 month streak due to bad snow conditions in September. Happy to say that after this ride I have my first full year of turns under my belt. It's all down hill from this point on. Right?

9/7/04 1:21am

powscraper

Stop it, I'm going to cry man, am I the only skier/snowboarder I know who wasn't at Muir yesterday? Strep throat's a bitch.

9/7/04 1:11am

alpentalcorey

I had a great day up there too, and sorry to say I completely missed you guys. Sky said he thought he saw Charles but I must have had my head down. Saw the 2 snowboarders who must have been jimjar & snoslut, didn't see Pete either.

I'm wondering if I might ski again in September as well! That was great!

9/6/04 8:59pm

Paul Belitz

;D

I was with Sky and Corey. I think Corey was skinning. And yes, after 5 hours and 30 minutes, I did make it to Muir; thanks for the encouragement. You guys were so right, the snow was incredible for the upper part, and quite good on the lower part.

9/6/04 7:37pm

Pete A

I wasn't in Washington yet in '97, so for me Monday's trip to Muir was the best September skiing I've had.
Figure there's no need for yet another trip report on the same stretch of snow that everyone else is skiing, but it was great finally meeting Mr.Turns-All-Year (Charles) up at camp muir, hope to run into you and Silas again this coming season.

9/6/04 8:59am

Charles

Silas and I went today (Monday, 9/6), and I was thinking exactly the same thing about Sept. skiing. That was the best since my first ÊSept. of consecutive months - 1997. I went in mid to late Sept, and I remember new snow from several storms covering everything down to below Pebble Creek, with skiing quality comparable to today's between 9 and 10K - fantastic. If this keeps up I might have to ski again in September!

Great photo, Amar!

9/6/04 7:39am

silaswild

September 5, 2004, Muir Snowfield

Turd still not cleaned up by NPS, bear was seen in the basin below on Monday 330PM by ~200 spectators.

9/6/04 7:24am

silaswild

Leftovers were fine Sept 6 also. Silky corn first 1000', much better snow than August the next 1500'. Blue sky, no wind, tough day to beat at Muir.

9/5/04 7:46am

wolfs

Yeah that was me in yellow. The big turd was on the Alta Vista trail not the main Skyline, which I prefer as a descent at the very bottom because it sees about 10% of the traffic of Skyline.

9/4/04 8:36pm

ema

A friend and I had a later start. We saw our descending first skier at about 11:00. Was that Wolfs in the yellow t-shirt? We broke out of the cloud deck at about 8,000 feet. Conditions were fine until the gusts kicked in at about 8,800 feet. We were doing the four point stance for several of these blasts. I am sure that most of these were in the 40-50 mph range and one must have approached 70. (It sure keeps the idlers away.) The wind was quickly redepositing...

9/4/04 7:40pm

Al_Pental

Greetings All:

I'm a first time caller, longtime listener. However, yesterday's turns at Muir prompted an awakening from my heretofore mute state. The turns were, in short, PRIMO. Not in the September please God I'm jonesing- let it be winter soon I'll take any turns sense. In the real sense. As in, it was the real deal, no shi**, nice turns and "smooth like butta..."

So we enjoyed the cold mist on our faces on the way up, savoring it for what it was, r...

9/4/04 10:09am

markharf

Hey Wolfs, I saw you skiing down around 11:00 just before I got to the windy zone on the way up. You definitely timed it right. Leaving Camp Muir around noon, I hit a solid wall of fog around 8200 ft. and had to pick my way carefully down after that. That first 1900 feet was probably the nicest September skiing I've seen in four or five years. Definitely worth dropping whatever you're doing and heading up there.

But...if you were the one headed down early, what happened to prgsmall? ...

9/4/04 10:00am

Jeff Huber