Spring Eastern Washington Sled Trip

This year’s sled and shred trip got pushed out to the spring riding season. Nikki was stuck working an on-site project, leaving me home alone for weeks-on-end with Sloan. When the project ended, I got the green-light to travel and started hunting snow forecasts. John, Kelso and I pooled energy to make a quick strike mission come together, venturing Northeast into the east slopes of the Washington Cascades. We had four days of riding through both sides of a very spring like weather system.

Exiting Portland the third weekend in March, we started with a homebase hit on Adams where Dre joined us for some sled laps. The temps were cool and fresh snow ranged in the 4-8 inch range, with fun wind deposits making for some deeper turns. Solid sled lapping and powder flying overhead started the trip off on a good foot.

Exploring Deeper in Washington

As Portlanders, our homebase backcountry riding is in southwest Washington, so it’s a treat to explore different terrain deeper north into Washington state. The mission at hand was to take some hard earned terrain knowledge that was gained on a trip a decade earlier and to cash in for some fresh snowboarding turns.

The trip resulted in a very satisfying mix of adventuring on sleds, sled lapping smaller runs and touring bigger lines. For the second half of the trip, we stayed at a rental cottage overlooking the lake and southern end of the range. The view from the house and hot tube added the icing on the cake for a long weekend of mountain adventure.