NEXT

Sweet summer tracks on Sahale Mountain, above Cascade Pass, North Cascades National Park.

conditions | personal pages | print magazines | online magazines | ski areas | medicine | gear

permits:

From November 15 to April 30 you need a sno-park permit to park at official state sno-park sites in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, or risk a ticket. (In Oregon, that includes all the ski areas around Mt Hood.) A permit from one state is good at the other two. If you park at an un-official spot on a hiway, you risk getting towed or having your car buried by a snow plow. It requires some judgment.

The three states have fine websites with clickable maps of where their sno-park locations are, how to get permits, and lots of detailed and helpful info: Washington, Oregon, and Idaho

And here are links to info for all the other outdoor parking permits.

conditions:
1. atmos.washington.edu/data/aval.cgi has the current avalanche data for western Washington and Oregon, from Mt.Baker to Crater Lake.
   
2. The same info can also be found, in HTML this time, plus other resources, at nwac.us, the Northwest Avalanche Center.
3. North American (and international) avalanche info is found at avalanche.org.
4. Try UMich Weather's nationwide pages WeatherCams and Ski Weather.
5. wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel, backcountry telemetry at the National Water & Climate Center, might be useful.
6. Lowell Skoog has a comprehensive page of links for the Pacific NW, to reports, maps, forecasts, webcams, and more.
7. i90.atmos.washington.edu/roadview/i90 is a very useful clickable map giving air and ground temps, weather, conditions, etc, for I-90 from Seattle over Snoqualmie Pass to Ellensburg. It also links to the same kind of image map for I-5, US-101, and US-2 over Stevens Pass.
8. skiwashington.com offers the usual reports, links, and more, plus Larry Schick's Powder Watch.
   
   personal pages:
9. turns-all-year.com is Turns-All-Year Backcountry Telemark Skiing in the Pacific Northwest, a very nicely put-together site.
10. skisickness.com Sky Sjue's stunning ski descents (and climbs, too, naturally) of the great peaks of the Pacific Northwest.
11. mtnphil.com is Phil Fortier's "Skiing and climbing stories from the Pacific Northwest," including his take on the Enigma Couloir.
12. skimountaineer.com is Amar Andalkar's "Ski Mountaineering and Climbing Site," with the usual trip reports, plus a couple of online guidebooks, including the comprehensive Skiing the Cascade Volcanoes.
13. wildsnow.com is Lou Dawson's Backcountry Skiing blog.
14. staff.washington.edu/gregm: Greg's Climbing and Skiing Webpage, Illustrated, including his page on the Enigma Couloir.
15. Dr. Telemark has a bunch of streaming movies -- plus a lot more
16. pbase.com/nolock is John Scurlock's stunning aerial photography site, that really deserves its own category. He has provided a tremendous resource and a fine public service.
    
    print magazines:
17. Couloir has now merged with Backcountry, at backcountrymagazine.com.
18. powdermag.com: Powder
19. freeskier.com: Freeskier
    
    online magazines:
20. freeheels.com is an online magazine for Northwest US backcountry skiers
21. telemarktips.com offers news, videos, gear reviews, stories, and "the most active tele...discussion board on the web."
22. And for a bow to internationalismus, here are two mostly in German: telemark-online.de inlcuding their links page, and telemark.ch, from Switzerland with videos
    
    ski areas:
    Gotta get those turns in....
    Washington:
    skiWashington.com links to them all very nicely, plus webcams, Powder Watch, and Snow Report
23. But for a direct shot to the Washington Cascade ski area home pages, here are
    Snoqualmie Pass, Stevens Pass, Crystal Mountain, Mount Baker, Mission Ridge, and White Pass.
24. For eastern Washington, go to Mount Spokane, 49Degrees North, and Bluewood.
    Oregon:
    skiOregon.org pretty much has it all,
25. but if you want, you can go directly to the Cascade areas of
    Mt Bachelor, Mt Hood Meadows, Mt Hood Skibowl, Timberline, Hoodoo, and Willamette Pass.
26. or take a look at eastern Oregon's fine little powder area of Anthony Lakes.
    Idaho:
    Idaho Winter has conditions and links for more than a dozen areas, deals, and more,
27. or you can go directly to Schweitzer, Silver Mountain, Sun Valley, Tamarack or Grand Targhee.
    Wyoming:
    It's hard to find one good website for this state, but try onthesnow.com/wyoming/profile.html,
28. but look at Jackson Hole, and for Grand Targhee, it's just above, in Idaho. (That is how to get there.)
    British Columbia:
29. Take a look at bcSkiing.com, which lists over thirty areas. Better yet,
30. in the B.C. coast range, go (of course) to Whistler-Blackcomb;
31. in the Okanogan Valley area enjoy the sun at Big White, Silver Star, or Apex Mountain;
32. a little further east, try Rossland's prices and powder at Red Resort;
33. and on the B.C. side of the Rockies, you'll find Fernie, Panorama, Kimberly, and Kicking Horse.
    
    And for completeness sake, here are SkiMontana and skiUtah.com, both very good sites.
    
    medicine:
34. faculty.washington.edu/mtuggy/telepag1.htm is your tele-injury website
35. and ski-injury.com/nordic.htm
    
    gear, mostly used:
36. offpistemag.com has good gear reviews, but they seem to have dropped their used gear page.
37. mtntravelers.com/deals.cfm, in Rutland, Vermont
38. geartrade.com/browse/116: "Buy theirs. Sell yours."
39. telemarkski.com is an online store out of Colorado.
40. For all those great pics, steves-digicams.com has good reviews, and look at zdnet.com/special/filters/sc/camera/, the Digital Camera SuperCenter.
41. In addition to these few, see Outdoor gear, my main gear page. And of course, check out your local ski swap.