In march I took a trip out west to ski with my brother and a few friends. My friend Adam and I flew from Pittsburgh to Seattle where my brother picked us up. From there we drove up to Revelstoke, BC. The drive was pretty incredible as we drove through the Canadian Rockies. We were excited to ski Revelstoke because it has the highest vertical drop in north America at 5,620 ft. When we arived it was raining at the base, but we knew this meant fresh powder in the alpine. We skied two days at Revelstoke.
The first day we hiked a few hundred feet to get to the summit for some fresh tracks. Unfortunately it was too foggy to drop into the steepest runs (without getting into trouble). We did have an incredible run down the front side of the mountain in fresh powder. The layout of Revelstoke required a lot of bootpacking and traversing.
Overall Revelstoke was pretty awesome and we enjoyed two days of fresh powder and expensive canadian food. The final 5,620 ft vertical runs at the end of the day definately got your legs burning. After the second day of skiing we left around 3 PM and drove 8 hours to Whitefish, MT to meet my brothers friends. Whitefish is known for great terrain, powder, and serious fog; however, we did not have any fog during our stay. I enjoyed Whitefish more than revelstoke primarily because it was easier to access the terrain and the terrain was more variable. Even though it only snowed significanly on our first day there, we were still finding patches of fresh powder on day three.
I skied on the Aftermaths every day of this trip and they performed well in all conditions. They handled both the powder and the rain packed groomers at Revelstoke as well as the constantly varying terrain at whitefish. We even did a bit of tourning (alpine) while we were at Whitefish. We had planned to ski another day at Whitefish and then return to Seattle where we were going backcountry skiing on Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately my Nana passed away and we had to cut the trip short to be with family. This turn of events was still a blessing as we got to spend time with family that we would not have otherwise seen for a long time. A video of our ski trip can be found at the link below.
I have been busy this summer building a new deck on my house and have not worked on a new pair of skis. However, I still have plans to build a pair before winter if I can. I also have plans to build a new sander to help with processing the skis. I am again getting excited for ski season because a family trip has been planned for Beaver Creek, CO. I skied Beaver Creek when I was 14; which was 14 years ago.
