January Jib Trip 2014 Part II Crater Lake, Oregon

[jibmaster]

The original plan for the January break, was to take jibC to Crater Lake. Our excellent adventure of
2012 was going to be re-created, but to make it new for myself and snowblasta, we were planning on
touring around the lake the other way around - counter-clockwise.
As 2014 drew closer, our hopes for Crater Lake evaporated.

Bend had the closest snow, so we made the drive and had a good time, despite the bullet-proof snow.

-----------------------------------

After the ice skating of Broken Top,

we had to come home to drop off jibC. He had to get back to work.

There was a storm brewing anyways. Perfect! Some much needed snow.
We lazily waited out the Oregon storm in the sunny, dry and brown Napa Valley.

With my vacation time dwindling away, we soon got anxious.
Hoping there would be something closer and trying to avoid another 8 hour drive to Bend,
we made some calls and research on the 'net (how did we - or anyone, do this before the internet...)
There appeared to be enough snow for a shorter drive.

We thought about Bailey and Thielsen. McLaughlin maybe...
But, with the Crater still on our minds, we gave it a go.

With not much time left, we opted to head out into the last day of the storm.
Clear weather was on the horizon. Might be just enough time.

The plan was to drive up on Friday, get a motel and wait out the last of the storm on Sat.
The motel I was thinking of - the Rapids Motel at the Crater Lake Junction, was closed.
We soon found out what a useless town Chiloquin really is.
It was getting dark. We found the only other place to stay.
Melita's.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/melitas-motel-and-cafe-chiloquin

What a great find! Seriously. Motel, restaurant, full bar.
Very nice folks.
Perfect location. Just down the road from the Chiloquin exit for Crater Lake and only
three miles north of the KLA-MO-YA Casino


We checked in and headed down to the casino.
Only a few dollars in and I had won $50.
Got some dinner at the casino's restaurant and headed back to Melita's.

Saturday, the storm intensified. We were bored, so we got some breakfast at Melita's and decided to drive up to Park Headquarters to
get our permit. Not much snow on the 97, but the ice fog was making driving tricky.
The snow soon covered the road. Blinding white-out conditions. The Jeep performed flawlessly and
we were soon trudging through the storm to the office.
As we were talking to the Rangers about our trip and signing the paper work, she pulls out
this folder that shows the rules, regulations, dangers, etc.
As she was flipping through the pages, doing her job of informing us, something caught my eye.

"Wait, wait - go back." I said. "To that last picture."
Turns out, a picture from our 2012 trip that snowblasta had taken of me was in there.



Snowblasta noticed that I had credited that picture to myself. Oops!
So, here you go snowblasta -
Photo credit: Mark Chon.
You happy now?!


With the paper work done, we had a leg up on tomorrow.
We drove back down the snowy, road. Still white-out conditions.
Back to Melita's and the casino.

[jibmaster]

The casino did not treat me well. I think snowblasta came out ahead.
Finished up the evening in the bar at Melita's.

Sunday, the storm was still going. About two feet of fresh had fallen the night before -
at the lake. Only 3-4 inches at the motel.
Good old fashioned redneck breakfast at Melita's and we were off.
Another slow drive back up to Crater Lake.
The storm was in it's last throws. Still white-out driving conditions. Puking wet snow at Park Headquarters.

We were planning on using the avalanche bypass route. Which added about 5 miles.
And lot's more vert. The first day.
Lot's of snowshoers heading out. We found a nice ski track that started us off down the road.
Still snowing.
After about 2 hours, the ski track ended. Now the trail-breaking started.
Without the ski track, our time slowed. Considerably.
Another 1.5 hours and we were well into the first part of the avalanche bypass route.
With darkness coming soon, we set up camp.

Wet and tired, we dug down about 3-4 feet to more solid snow for the tents.
The snow that was falling was not dry. Too busy to take pictures, we finally had our
tents set up and spent the next few hours holed up, trying to dry out our gloves.

Deep, unconsolidated snow. Just after sunset, the temps rose. The snow turned to sleet.
We were camped just before an 800 foot descent. Then three miles to return that lost vert to the main route along Rim Drive.
This avy bypass route is going to take longer than I had hoped.
I studied the map all evening.

Monday dawned sunny and warm. The tents were soaking wet. Leaving our tent pits involved deep post-holing.
Waist deep.
My map studying the night before and our slow travel through the unconsolidated snow left doubts.
My vacation was running out. Only three days to complete the circumnavigation...
The tents kept us dry, but were now soaked with water.
5 extra miles, 5 extra pounds, extra vert...

Standing around Monday morning, contemplating our situation




That makes two more photo credits for you snowblasta!

[Baaahb]

Nice TR...so far....sounds like some slugfest fun but waking up to blue skies after a good snowfall..out in the wilds...is awesome.

[jibmaster]

Monday morning was absolutely beautiful. We packed up camp in silence.
The tents were extra heavy with all the water.
Gloves still wet.
But, it's going to be nice and sunny.
Clumping.
Do I have enough wax?
Time.
Need
More
Time.
800 feet down, then 3 miles to regain the vert -
puts us at mile 7 on the main route - then 28 more miles.
3 days 'till time's up.
10 miles/day.
Sun, clumping.
Where the Hull is my wax?!
Oh, there it is...








I didn't want to bring it up, but we had discussed it before.
Luckily, snowblasta was in agreement.

With heads hung low, we sadly bailed.
We realized how lucky we had gotten two years ago with the conditions.
The weather had been cold and cloudy the whole time on old, consolidated snow.
No sun, until the last day.

We thought about using Monday to go in one more day and head back, but that meant we
would have to climb back up the 800 ft. hill.
Um, no thanx. There was another way to save the last few days...

The new snow was so deep and loose, if we had fallen off the ski track yesterday, it would have been a 30 minute extraction
process. The poles were sinking well over half way-and I have huge powder baskets.
The trail breaking was only boot deep, but it was very sticky snow.
We agreed that the conditions were vastly different than two years ago.
We only had three days left. Making 10 miles/day for the next three days was not looking so good.
No coasting down hills.
Not enough wax.

The gorgeous day soon cheered us up and we put tons of wax on our skis and headed back.

Snowblasta enjoying the view of Mt. Thielsen








We took a break about halfway back to add more wax. The stuff doesn't last long.
Making sure to cover every inch of the ski. Top and bottom.
If the tip and top had no wax - or when the wax wore off - the ski simply turned into a bulldozer.
The snow would pile up ahead of the ski about 6-8 inches and then start piling up
on top of the ski.
Heavy!
Like an idiot, I was using the bang your ski with your ski pole trick.
That sort of-kinda helped. For a few times, until my ski pole broke.
One wack too many and 6 inches above the tip snapped off and went flying into the woods.
Damn! That's right - carbon poles. I knew that...!


Of course this would have happened further in anyways...
A bit of duck tape and a zip tie seemed to get it going again.
Then the clumping started again, but we were close.
A little bit of speed on the last downhill, now that we are on the well used ski track.
20 minutes before returning to Park Headquarters, my MacGyver ski pole broke again.
No sign of the zip tie.
Cheese and Rice, man! What the Hull?!

Oh, wait! We're almost there! Beer!
I furiously one-poled it back to the Jeep.

[jibmaster]

The road was finally open to the Rim. We drove up to get a view of the lake.
No way we are leaving without at least seeing it.

Looking across to Mt. Scott.




Wizard Island>Llao Rock>Mt. Thielsen

[jibmaster]

Some shots of the ski runs that drop down to Park Headquarters from Castle Crest and Garfield Peak

From Rim Village


Farther down the same ridge

[jibmaster]

We sheepishly turned in our backcountry permit had headed back to Melita's and the casino.

KLO-MO-YA punished me. I ate 'till it hurt and then back to the motel.

The next day, we slept in and schemed up one more ski day before we had to head back.
We took the afternoon to drive down to Klamath Falls. We needed a Sno-Park permit.
A shout out to KBS
Klamath Board Sports

http://klamathboardsports.com/kbs.htm

They were very nice and had our Sno-Park permit.

Hungry once again, we were looking for a break from our redneck diet.
If you're ever in Klamath Falls, you need to eat at the
Thai Orchid Cafe

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g51935-d1101460-Reviews-Thai_Orchid_Cafe-Klamath_Falls_Oregon.html

Damn, that was good!
With our permit in hand and feeling better with some real food in our bellies - guess what?

...back to Melita's and the casino!
you probably knew that already...

Didn't stay long at the casino, still losing money.
So we got some food to go at Melita's and kicked back and enjoyed some movies.

[jibmaster]

It's now Wednesday. Time to drive home. We had discussed heading further north to Diamond Lake,
but McLaughlin was 'on the way'.
Sort of.

Our attempt at an 'alpine-ish' start got us to Lake of the Woods around 9am.
Whatever, man.
I was more interested in renewing my memory of the place and checking out the approach in winter.
I've been there many times, but only in spring/early summer.
It was good to soak in my memories of Pelican Butte and McLaughlin.
And all those damn bears!

No large furry beasts this time. The woods were quiet.

I turned in to the road with the sign to Four Mile Lake. NF-3661.
The snow was plowed just enough for a small parking spot. Right next to highway 140.
Didn't feel right to park the Jeep there.
So we drove to the next road. NF-3650. The TH for the Pacific Crest Trail.
This was a large parking lot off the highway that was all plowed.
Perfect.

We skied right, over to the road.
It felt good to stretch the legs.
Two hours later, we were at the TH.



Extra duck tape and triple zip-tied, my MacGyver poles made it!



The road was fun to ski down. Sorry for the lack of pics of McLaughlin.
I had missed one awesome picture opportunity just south of Chiloquin on the drive down,
but the rest of the drive we were buried in the ice fog.
No views through the trees except this one.

[jibmaster]

Crater Lake is a very powerful place. I love being there. I will be back.

With the severe lack of snow here in Cali, I was lucky just to be IN the snow in the first place.
The timing and length of the storm, however much needed, was not good.
If we had been in the same situation with much more time at our disposal, we would have kept going.
The original plan was for a ski tour. Been trying to use my January free time for more of that lately.
So, the 'not getting any turns' didn't really bother us. Plenty of time for that on any two days off in a row.
Don't get much opportunity for a lengthy vacation.
Skinning, touring, turns - it's all skiing to me.


Shasta on the way home

[aqua toque]

Awesome TR! Thanks for sharing.

Just one question. What is a jib?

Is it new?

[jibmaster]

Awesome TR! Thanks for sharing.

Just one question. What is a jib?

Is it new?

Remember when snowboarding was just getting started? Back in the day, before terrain parks. My friends and I would watch them from the lift. They would build a kicker and ride down, go off the jump and then hike back up to do it again. All day.
They were simply having fun.
So - my friends and I started to call our outdoor sports (mt. biking, skiing, kayaking, rock climbing) jibbing.
We weren't at work, we were having fun.

So one day-about 15 years ago, my buddy calls me up and asks if I had done any jibbing on my weekend. I told him that I had gone skiing, kayaking and mt. biking. He says, "Damn dude! You're always jibbing. You're like the...jib...master!

And it stuck.

Too this day, the word 'jib' in all it's forms is stuck in our vocabulary. It can be used as a verb, noun or adjective.
My jibbing partners got usernames using the word jib.
One of the original Coastal Crest Snow Patrol members, Eric, is sirjibalot. As apposed to Sir Lancelot.
Another friend got the name jibC. His last name is Cooper. Like gypsy. The wandering jibber.
Someone else, who is a doctor, got named Dr.jib.

Then I ran out of names using the word jib. So, they had a choice if they were going to be named in my TR's.
I asked if they wanted to me to use their real names or a username.
Their choice.
So, Mark is snowblasta, James is janzalo.

Does that help?!
Get your jib on!

[Baaahb]

You're using liquid/paste wax? Do you find any brand is better than the others?

Crater Lake is special. Nice snow in the pics, but real thin for that place.

[jibmaster]

Using a spreadable wax. The texture of semi-firm butter. I like the hard wax chunks to rub onto my skins.
Not sure if there is a different product that would work better.