![]() It was a swirl of street partying, where merriment was paramount and zest for life led us around the circuit. S, where Queen Ida reigned royal, her Zydeco Band driving us all to our feet and beyond.īetween each stop we passed hundreds of fellow music hounds, exchanging greetings and getting quick updates on who was hot and who was not. We danced, drank, laughed then walked to the Mark Antony Hotel, where In Flight was laying it down. When he finally started driving his guitar we all started hovering over and orbiting the dance floor. Robert Cray was the draw that night, but he was late, a normal occurrence for him. S Back Porch operated there for years serving Texas slow-smoked barbecue. Later that night we walked down to Brooklyn, a blues club located in the current location of the Ashland Creek Bar and Grill (a.k.a. We were young, we liked music, food and drink. We table-hopped, swapped stories, gossiped, flirted, laughed, hugged and generally felt warm and welcome. Oeuvres, cocktails and the wide-ranging conversations as cliques and groupings dissolved into convivial residents of the then-social experiment called Ashland. S, there to wind down from the week with hors d& on a Friday in 1979 as scores of us met at Jazmin& If you’re in the are and the weather is fine, I can’t recommend it enough.It was 5 p.m. We skinned 1-2 miles away and had complete solitude all day. One thing worth knowing about this area is that almost nobody else is skiing it, and the folks who are aren’t going far from the parking lot. (USFS map from CalTopo) Taylor tried to talk me out of skiing from the true summit of Mt Ashland, but it added a bit of spice to the otherwise meadow-skippy day. Mt Ashland is the peak that begins the rightmost ski line. A map of the area with some of the runs that we skied marked. In this valley, “if you can see it, you can ski it”, and everything falls more or less into the 20-30 degree range that we were looking for. The road leads around behind the ski area and into a large bowl which houses a seemingly unused winter shelter. ![]() Some of the ridge lines host blackish granitic rock piles that collect rime in a typically Oregon way.Įverything that we skied is accessible from the summer road which leaves the Mt Ashland ski area parking lot to the Southeast. I was initially skeptical of skiing in the Southern Oregon backcountry driving in the valley surrounded by spring flowers, you’d never guess that snow existed within the Siskiyou mountains, let alone skiable, wintry snow. Here, Mt Shasta rises in the distance behind Taylor.Ĭonditions were really superb, with recent snowfall of 1-2 feet which had consolidated into some really fluffy pow on a soft base. Though the Siskiyou range is not very high, it has amazing views of the Southern Oregon cascades. Taylor had toured near Mt Ashland before (she’s from Southern Oregon), and said that there was a lot of mellow terrain to be had, so we ventured out under blue skies with the goal of staying out of avalanche terrain. I found a few good turns here and there in some of the lightest snow the PNW has to offer. We cursed bad fortune and looked for alternate ideas. ![]() Unfortunately, with a busy week last week, Tay forgot to move her shovel and probe from her race pack to her touring pack, so on Friday evening we discovered that we didn’t have the right kit to go ahead as planned. This weekend, Taylor and I headed South along I-5 to Southern Oregon aiming to sample the Southern Oregon backcountry and ski a smaller cascades volcano, Mt McLoughlin. Taylor on the skintrack, with untouched Southern Oregon backcountry gold behind her.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |