Yes, I realize that President's Day Weekend was more than a month ago. I am now just getting around to describing that wonderful trip.
Last year our friends Paul and Laurie invited us to join their entourage that stays at the Mazama Country Inn for the weekend and hires North Cascade Mountain Guides to lead them on a day trip for some fun eastside backcountry skiing. Yes, we happily accepted!
The drive over to Mazama in the winter is a long journey since North Cascades Pass closes for the winter. The journey is necessarily 2 hours longer because the winter route goes over Stevens Pass, then north up Hwy 97 then back west on Hwy 20 to Mazama. The drive is pretty but I wouldn't want to do it in the dark during a snow storm. We took Friday off and left during the day.
Mazama Country Inn is unique because it's like a large-scale bed and breakfast. Breakfast and dinner are served family style and you can either sit with the group you came with or choose to sit with a menagerie of strangers and get to know other cool people who enjoy staying there.
The Inn has a capacity of about 60, I think. Mixing and matching during meals and between activities is fun. The weekend we were stayed, groups who like to cross country ski (Mazama is well known for its network of groomed cross country ski trails) and a yoga workshop was also going on. Some people were doing both. Our group of 8 was the only group who were backcountry skiing although one fellow who had recently retired from a metropolitan fire department was heliskiing one day. Heliskiing is where a helicopter flies skiers up to the top of a ridge, the skiers ski down, the helicopter flies the skiers back up. Repeat until you can't move, the helicopter has to go in because of flight time limits, darkness, weather, etc. It's very expensive but untracked ski runs are guaranteed.
Our guided trip was on Sunday so we had Saturday to goof around. About half of our group of eight opted to cross country ski. Randy, Laurie, Leigh, and I decided to attempt a backcountry ski up nearby Sandy Butte. The elevation was low so the snow had a crunchy crust on it. Going up was fine but coming back down was, er, exciting. We had a great time and felt warmed up for tomorrow's ski tour with the guide.
We arranged to have breakfast ready a little early for our group so we could meet the guides at 0800. The Inn staff also put out lunch stuff so everyone can pack their own lunches for the day. The staff is very accomodating for "special" people, like me who have food sensitivities. They prepared wheat-, dairy-, almond-, and corn- free dishes for me and provided gluten-free bread and cookies for lunches. It was really great. I think I gained 40 pounds that weekend.
The guides were ready for all 8 of us and took us through a short avalanche rescue scenario before we got into cars to drive to the end of the plowed road. At that point we took snowmobiles 8 miles up the closed highway to the bottom of Delancey Ridge. Larry, our main guide, set a nice upward track to a place where we could enjoy a long ski down without going all the way to the bottom. Then we skinned back up even higher before skiing all the way down. It was a great day with a fun group. Randy and I made our reservations for next year at the Inn already.
Here are the pictures! And here are more pictures that I forgot to post!