NEWEST blog posts
There are many ski tours I do once and while I enjoy them I do not have the desire to repeat them. There are also a small handful of tours that I could do again and again, year after year. Ruth Mountain is one of the latter. The view from the summit is one of my favorite views in all of Washington and the ~3,000’ ski down Ruth’s face is one of the most enjoyable lines I’ve experienced in the backcountry. So last weekend, Alex, Sander, and I set out to ski Ruth in a day. I already had two successful ski summits under my belt, one time in a whiteout with Alex that I am reluctant to even count, and a second time last year with my friend Andrew. I was excited for Sander and Alex to ski Ruth for the first time in—fingers crossed—good conditions.
In early 2018, just after completing my AIARE 1 course I bought the “Backcountry Ski & Snowboard Washington” book and began leafing through the pages and dog-earring tours that looked like fun and adventurous objectives. One tour that immediately stood out to me was Silver Star. It looked wildly scenic and it seemed fun to be able to ski a prominent peak of Washington Pass, but I knew it would take awhile for me to gain the skills and practice necessary to successfully ski it. Plus the timing and conditions would need to align. It was a tall order, but this past weekend everything fell into place and Alex, our friend Sander, and I skied 1,500’+ of spring powder from the Silver Star Col!
Over Labor Day weekend Alex and I ventured to the moody coast of southeast Alaska and enjoyed a long weekend cruising through the waters of Auke Bay and the Tracy Arm in search of whales and glaciers. Much to our delight, we found plenty of both.