Portland, OR (March 26, 2010) -- Another dry spell was sweeping the northwest: flowers were blooming, grass was greening, I was finding myself glaring at every person in Portland walking around in shorts and t-shirts. I kept busy doing some work and cruising groomers. Then I got a text from Byron Bagwell saying that California's was expecting a moderate storm. I dropped everything, charged the batteries, and waxed the stick, because we were going, going, back, back to cali, cali.

We hit Medford, OR where we were received a warm welcome from Shellie and Rita at Jack's Board House. We rallied up to Mt. Ashland in the morning; a mom and pop hill for sure with fun natural features, good trees, and a bit of fog. But, we found some fun stashes while splitting some sidecountry.

With word of a local freeride comp by Mt. Shasta, CA, we got in the truck and showed up in a backwoods parking lot at 6 a.m. Throttles twisting, exhaust hazing, we talked to some locals and learned it was a 45 minute sled one way, but there was good touring up a road on Shasta. The sky was clearing, so we waited for an hour a two and decided to bust up to Shasta. Knife edge ridges, sick spines, bowls and trees, Shasta's lower basin contained snow and fun time radness.

After an amazing day, we ate and checked the weather: Tahoe was looking warm, and of course, ironically Baker was gonna get it from the north. That decided it: back on the road for an all day drive to Baker. There we met Rob Hutton, Shawn Freyer and Mr. Sky Rizzo. Five rad days, two inbounds--the first good inbounds days in some time--then three sweet days hiking the arm. Robbi set off a 150 ft. wide, 30-inch deep slide, third guy down, Byron watching from the valley, me looking through my lens, and rode away unscathed. Thankfully, Rob's okay. It's easy to get too comfortable out there--you never know.

Spring isn't here yet--Nuclear Winter has just begun.

Riders:

1, 2, 3, 5: Byron Bagwell

4: Shawn Freyer

Vitamin P with a side of splitboardology from Arbor Collective on Vimeo.