Graham Gephart Photography & Writing Blog

Even when you want to be the most easy-going parents, it’s easy to get caught up in how tough it sometimes seems to get everything together, into the car, and lately, to the destination without a meltdown. Car rides haven’t been particularly liked by Thea, but we had it all working right this weekend for a run out to the mountains. First trip for her, and she slept all the way out there. The rushing water proved relaxing for everyone, letting us hang on the river, do some reading outside, and enjoy a bit of fishing. I wandered the banks for a while hooking a bunch of small-medium cutthroats and rainbows, but Lulu gets the award for hooking a trout with Thea in the moby-wrap on her chest! Still got that cast down…

It might just be my favorite month, for reasons that have nothing to do with basketball.

It’s called the perfect crime. Up at 4:00am for the 4:45 park & ride meetup. Ten inches of new snow at the Pass is the cut-off to make it worth it. Okay, maybe it’s really eight. There’s just enough time to make two laps at Hyak. The first lap requires a headlamp, and at the bottom, we usually see the next wave on their way up. The second lap goes all the way back to the car, and with a quick transition, we’re headed down by 7:59. I can pull into the office by 9:00 sharp, change into work clothes – skiing accomplished, no schedules changed, hardly anyone even knows. When someone asks if you’re headed out skiing, there’s a certain satisfaction of telling them you’re already getting back.

Nick embracing the dawn approach.

Quick and simple, but the season is off and running. With high snow line over the last few weeks, expectations were pretty low driving to Crystal Mountain with Nick. There was almost no snow at the base, but a quick gondola ride brought us up into mid-winter. With sunshine, 9″ of new snow, and good coverage up high, it sure didn’t take long to exceed expectations.

Day 1. Check. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Thanks to my wonderful wife for two tickets to the Seattle Sounders FC vs Portland Timbers soccer match-up for our anniversary. The Sounders (our MLS team) have been setting attendance records for a few years, and last night they set a new record – drawing a huge 66,000 fans to a regular season match-up for a regional rivalry. The Timbers fans were out in force as well, and the crowd energy was really high – standing, jumping, chants, streamers, drum section, more.

The ubiquitous Sounders FC scarves – an awesome fan piece that you see all over Seattle when the team plays. The team was handing out the Sounders gloves to fans this night too, making for a pretty complete sea of green and blue.

Green streamers launched from the upper deck of the Hawk’s Nest. Packed crowd, awesome night.

The Sounders went up pretty comfortably in the first half, and held off a few late pushes by the Timbers for a 3-0 win. On a crisp fall evening in Seattle, it was a pretty awesome sight.

Just as the winter was slow to start for Seattle, it seems the summer is feeling the same way. After a month of June Gloom and extended skiing, the the skies went clear right on cue for July 4th. Since we ended the ski season on July 8th, it’s been nothing but biking, bbqing, and hanging with friends. The fishing will start to pick up soon, and soon the snow will be melted enough for high alpine backpacking. But for now, nothing signals the start of the summer like this pick…

Nick soaking in the summer slackline on Greenlake. BBQ and summer chill time in full effect.

There will be so much more to post from this trip, but Lulu and I just wrapped up two weeks of travel and skiing through Europe for a well-deserved vacation after an action-packed year. To spend 13 of 14 days outside in the mountains was like feeling the layers of stress peel off, one at a time. All we wanted to do… explore European mountain towns, ski and climb until we couldn’t any more, and eat as much delicious food as possible.

Landing in Geneva, we set off on a week of skiing around the classic resorts of the Alps, in Chamonix, Verbier, and Zermatt, then moved eastward into Italy for a week of backcountry skiing in the Ortler Alps, all in the company of a rotating cast of friends that joined us for different sections.

So much more to come, so for now, the clouds at dusk playing on the rugged peaks above Chamonix…

More to come from this with a bigger celebration in September for my sister and Jamal, but we were so happy to be able to make it back to Boston over the weekend to share their wedding day with them in Dorchester, MA. There aren’t two happier people today in all of the world, and we are so thrilled to see you two together with Kera and to welcome Jamal into the family. Best wishes for a healthy, happy, and long-lived marriage!

Sometimes the most rewarding lines are the elusive ones right in your back yard. A couple years ago, I had a short piece published in Powder Magazine’s Morpheme essays on the value of those local roadside attractions. It was just after arriving in Seattle, and while it was written with a few Tahoe places in mind, there was one Washington line that definitely came to symbolize the piece. After looking at the North Couloir on McClellan Butte for 5 years, every trip up and down Snoqualmie Pass, the conditions, weather, and group came together to give me a crack at skiing.

Day breaks early on a Friday morning in March over Snoqualmie Pass, Washington. With a redeye Friday night back to Boston for my little sister’s wedding, and our ski trip to Europe only a week away, this was the last chance to get out locally for a really long stretch. Conditions turned out to be perfect… recent snow over the past couple days to low elevations, but with a relatively stable interface between the new and the old layers.

After a couple false starts to the morning – digging out a stranger’s car at the trailhead and mistakenly climbing part of the wrong chute – we traversed our way into the heart of the north couloir. About as relaxing as coming into the barrel of a gun, the chute climbs steeply, with sheer walls on both sides.

We switched to bootpacking as the snow got deeper and the slope got steeper. It was a wallow, and our pace slowed past the original turnaround point to get into the office before 9:00am. It would be a late night working to catch up, but the line was in incredible condition. A few more minutes later, and we topped out at the upper reaches of the open slab, looking down on a powdery heaven below us. Steep, direct, and filled to the brim with light powder, the line was far better than I ever could have imagined. How good? I’ll let Eben’s first turns do the talking…

The winter roadshow started this week. After a dry winter so far, I boarded a plane Monday morning for Salt Lake City, and soon Denver, where snow has been sparse. Like clockwork, the PNW wound up square in the sights of a big line of winter storms that have started to deliver the mid-winter powder cycle.

This is the busy stretch, both for personal life and work. My ski season goes on pause for a month or so here, while I travel with my team to tradeshows in SLC and Denver, introducing new 2012-2013 products from my brands, then continues through grassroots events that we have built up, like the Tubbs Romp to Stomp Out Breast Cancer Snowshoe Series. It’s a long stretch, and always hard to get in the relaxation, skiing, home chores and everything else I want to get done in the week or weekend before leaving. This year was no different, but the weekend was at least a success, with a wonderfully slow Saturday followed up by a great day of skiing at Alpental on Sunday.

The big snows weren’t forecast until later in the week, but Lulu, Chris and I made the best out of 7″ of new on Sunday. With firm boilerplate under the new snow, especially on steeper rollovers, the lines of the day were the ones that snaked through Alpental’s myriad gullies and hard to access areas. Once the backcountry gates opened, the snow got deeper and deeper, with another 4-5″ snowing on us over the course of the day.

I couldn’t have imagined a better way to wrap up at home before the long roadtrip. While packing late at Sunday night was a challenge (I almost forgot to pack pants, seriously), the feeling of a good powder day will stay with me for this stretch. Hard to capture all in words, but below is a quick pic I snapped of Lulu, making a couple steep turns in the Alpental BC before dropping into a thigh-deep gully.

I hope my WA friends get out in all the new snow over these next couple days and enjoy it for me. More travel photos from the tradeshows to come soon…