The New Yawka in Arizona Thread.

Yeah it's the bottom of a slide. All the debris tends to clog at the bottom and at choke points. I guess it's also where Avy debris tends to build up so those areas tend to have better cover than other areas. Others with more experience could probably could chime in.

There's a pretty impressive pile in Avalanche Pass from one of the slides up there. Travel on the slide is forbidden in winter because a slide would endanger people on the hiking trail. I've hiked in the summer though and it's a bit of an adventure getting to the slide scrambling over the 15 foot high mess of blowdown.

What a week it's been. We didn't get the amounts they did to the north but it still has been really freaking good!

Christmas day provided optimal shredding but it was very cold riding the slow Agassiz lift up the mountain.



The sun sets over the Arizona Snowbowl.



Every Christmas through New Years week Phoenix invades to experience a white Christmas holiday. They visit with good intentions and are nice enough but my god, they are fish out of water in anything snow related.

It's starting to shape up around here! :)







More to come.....

Holy cow. These are some amazing shots! Where in AZ is this?   How long is your season? This really does look amazing.

JasonWx wrote

You got me sold..
That's a good looking pooch..

I am finally checking thread out. I am with you! I might in in AZ for a week in March.

Thanks Skiray!

Since we got snowmaking a few years ago the season is a typical one that runs from November to April. The ski area averages 250 inches a season but on average only 1 out of five is really good. On big ElNino years we can see between 350 to even 500 inches up high. this year so far looks like it might turn out to be a big one. When it does snow it goes big, we just got around 70-75 inches this past week. Town got about 30 inches.

Showed the kids - they want to go there..  

Big year indeed I think for there.

Skiray wrote

Showed the kids - they want to go there..  

Big year indeed I think for there.

It would be a cool place to visit if you combined it with the San Jauns and the Grand Canyon. You could even throw in Sedona if you wanted to go hiking or mountain biking. Telluride is only 5 hours away.

Making a trip here just to ski the Snowbowl might not be the best idea imo. The snow is hit or miss and the ski area isn't very big. Most of the pics posted are of the back country that is accessed off the main lift but the access isn't easy and not exactly user friendly.

Flagstaff and northern Arizona in general is incredible though and as I mentioned it could be combined with a trip to the San Juans. Telluride, Durango, and Silverton are all worth your time. The big ditch is pretty cool too. I guess they call it one of the worlds 7 wonders or something, it might be worth a visit! :)

The Ditch.











The guy up in the right of this photo is legendary Flag local Brian Dirker. You might recognize him from the movie Into The Wild. He was the hippie guy that lived with his wife in the motorhome. His company specializes in taking film crews into the canyon for shoots. He was on the river with Sean Penn and Eddie Vedder and they asked him to be part of the film.

Which one is you? And are you a photographer by trade? This is great work.

Skiray wrote

Which one is you? And are you a photographer by trade? This is great work.

No, I'm a student right now and a 40 year old ski bum still trying to figure out what I want to be doing when I "grow up". :)

Yesterday day was one of my top 5 days in the Arizona backcountry. This place is so good when it's on.

Since patrol was doing avalanche work in the upper bowl we started our day from the top of the new chair to access the Inner Basin. This is the view looking across Arizona.


Gearing up for the days first climb.






Looking down our first line for the day, Heck Yeah. She hasn't looked this sexy for 5 years now. We ended up doing two laps in this area before heading back towards the ski area.

Man - as it is pouring here at our house!

Damn, that is freakin' gorgeous Raisin'

What time do you start this hike up? Also, are you shooting with a variable ND?  

Skiray wrote

What time do you start this hike up? Also, are you shooting with a variable ND?

We start on first chair often with ski patrol but on the pics from Saturday we left at probably 8:45 ish. I don't know what a variable ND is. These pics are taken from my phone.

Adk Jeff wrote

Damn, that is freakin' gorgeous Raisin'

Thanks Jeff! It's been real good.

Dude. Those are some photos from your phone. As Vader said "Impressive, MOST impressive".

I have two friends in AZ now there for the cycling - one skis and they were saying how the traffic to the mountains was like hours long due to all the snow.  Also, you saw that I plugged you in that Unofficial Networks thread :) when they mentioned the Snowbowl.

Anyway, in London now. Just landed and flying from here to the Alps is like 80-100 bucks round trip! Keep shooting with that phone.

One from yesterday morning, day 28 for the season. We climbed up to the ridge but turned back from touring, the winds up top were ridiculous and it was cold! There was a lot of rapid snow transport forming some scary slabs. We made the best of the day though and skied around in bounds for a while.

digging it.