My goal at the beginning of last season was to ride down a lot of volcanoes. More specifically, I’d set my sights on 15 specific volcanoes and had been obsessively researching lines chronicled by experienced ski mountaineers that hadn’t yet gotten their fair share of interaction with a snowboard.  A lot of the obsessive research centered around Amar Andlakar’s Ski Mountaineer website, famed both for its exhaustive precision and attention to detail. Amar is a physicist based in Seattle with extensive Cascade volcano experience. As you might expect, I was flattered when he began touring with me, and together we had tackled nine of the volcanoes I’d set my sights on. So, Jon and I were off to get lucky #10… a dormant volcano named broken top, merley a few miles from the Mt. Bachelor ski resort. This is a recap a 7 day 6 volcano road trip.

Longer days and more stable weather patterns usher in the season of spring, and with it, the season of touring. To celebrate, and to take advantage of a few days of projected bluebird skies, I called up some friends and went on a few adventures. Throwing my gear into the car (which included a brand new pair of Spark R&D Bindings, which I had been eagerly anticipating the use of—full review to come), I was off!

It's been a fun season so far out here in the Pacific Northwest, with everything from corn snow to over a foot of fresh. The past two months have been full of adventures for me, from mellow tours at home on the flanks of Rainier to excursions into the Canadian Rockies. While all my touring and riding is really just training for touring season, it's been exciting none the less.

It's difficult to describe in words Jason's and my experience in the Olympic Mountains. During our seven-day journey, we hiked, skinned, and climbed through unfrequented terrain near Mt. Olympus. Terrain, that had, at that point, been (as far as we know) completely untouched by the ski- or snowboard-mountaineer. Snapping photos of and skiing down peaks in the area had been a lifelong dream of Jason Hummel's, and I was eager to explore that area as well. So, with little more than a topographical map and a few outdated pictures to guide us, we set off on what would be a journey of a lifetime.

Within the last two weeks, the Cascades received more than 8 feet of snow, creating a snowpack that more resembled mid-winter than pre-December conditions. With the Crystal Mountain opening, on November 11, I really felt like the new season had officially been ushered in. I'm getting really amped up for the upcoming season, one during which I hope to really push the limits of what has and can be done with a snowboard.

It was mid-May and I was tits-deep in touring season. After tackling Mt. Shasta with some good company, Amar and I set our sights on other Nor-Cal and Oregon volcanoes to scoop up and slide upon.

Sleep should have been inevitable as I laid nestled cozily in my sleeping bag atop a thermarest and concrete parking lot, yet the continual sounds of people rustling their gear as they headed off in fifteen minute intervals kept me tossing and turning through the dead of night. As I laid there, half-asleep, my mind kept returning to what was in store for the week ahead of us.I felt fortunate to join Amar Andalkar on one of his Cascadian road trips.  Both mine and Amar's only goals for our California road trip were to climb as many Volcanoes as our legs would allow. With our only constraint being time (9 days), we decided to begin with Mt. Shasta.