VERTFEST, 2012!

I'd have to say that the best part of what I do is the opportunity to interact with like-minded individuals from all walks of life, from all over.  And although I'm more accustomed to attending both regional and national climbing events on behalf of my sponsors, I had the good fortune--Thank you, SCARPA!--to attend my first-ever ski festival this past weekend in Washington.  Vertfest, founded in 2007, is the largest gathering of Sidecountry and Backcountry skiers and snowboarders in the Pacific Northwest.  This year's event, hosted by Alpental Ski area at Snoqualmie Pass, boasted its biggest turn-out yet, with more competitors in Saturday's randonee race and more Sunday clinic participants than ever before--a testament to the strength of the region's off-piste community, as well as to their commitment to NWAC, the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center, the primary beneficiary of the funds raised throughout the weekend.
The highlight of this year's event was, no doubt, the snow.  The precip began in earnest as we drove along the 90 towards Snoqualmie Pass Friday afternoon and it never stopped; though Alpental reported totals of 24" by Saturday morning and an additional 14" overnight into Sunday, I can attest to finding much, much more in backcountry terrain adjacent to the ski area boundary--so much more, in fact, that I opted out of Saturday's race in order to assess conditions for my Sunday clinic.  In retrospect, though I regret skipping out on what would have been my very first randonee race experience, my decision to scout the terrain ahead of the clinic turned out to be a wise one.  On Saturday's tour, we discovered quite a few debris piles--most likely the result of the previous night's natural cycle--in and about the same zone where I'd planned to lead my clinic participants.
Despite missing out on Vertfest's "main event," it was Sunday's clinic that I had really been looking forward to.  I chose to focus on backcountry trouble-shooting, calling my clinic, "Lighter, Faster and More Fun."  The idea was to provide a forum in which beginner to intermediate ski tourers could address many of the issues we've all suffered through, especially early on in our backcountry careers--everything from how to dress, what to pack--versus what to leave behind--as well as techniques, such as how to execute a kick-turn and how to remove one's skins with skis on.

 Here's the SCARPA booth at Vertfest early Sunday morning--the calm before the storm of demos!

Here's my clinic, with Molly, Cody, Teresa and Jeff--ready to slay over three feet of fresh POW!

 Molly and Jeff, makin' it look easy on the up-track.  Check out just how much snow fell!

 Molly near the top of the headwall, with Jeff close behind...  It would be Molly's very first real powder day!

 Almost there!  Here's the crew adding a couple hundred extra verts to our tour--the turns were pretty phenomenal!

Finally, we're at the top, no worse for the wear...  These guys did great; we even squeezed in another lap, with energy to spare!
In homage to SCARPA's Italian heritage--as well as that of SkiTRAB--we lunched on Italian Salami and  cheese--you gotta eat well in the mountains if you're looking to cover ground!