2019

Session 1, 2019 update

Ok, this is 3+ weeks late, but you get 3 sessions to scroll thru, so it's super-bonus.

Here's what went down session 1: We trained on the magic mile all week. Palmer was only open Memorial Day Monday, then closed for the next 3 and a half days, while they installed the palmer mid-way station for summer season. We have all new counselors to start the summer, which means no current counselors can drive a bus yet (Need CDL). Leaky pipe underneath the dishwasher that was leaking buckets full of water for months in the basement......was fixed in 15 minutes by plumber. This is the 41st summer of MHSSC. The 2019 snowpack appears to be below average. But confident we'll make it to Labor Day weekend, as per usual.

New camp gas grill.

Jack Reid kicked the soccer ball that landed and got stuck in the big tree at the Hood River marina picnic.

We used a basketball to try to dislodge the soccer ball, but it ended in failure as you can see here.

Then we tried using a football to dislodge the other balls, which also got stuck. But Bill Toney climbed the tree to rescue all 3 balls, which you can watch here.

Here are 3 of our new camp counselors.

Mike Syrovatka "flossing"

That's newbie coach Carson Ruud on the left. He's from Wenatchee, Washington where he coaches for the Mission Ridge Ski Team.

Peter Cimmino:

Random guy shredding down the moguls at mach speed, hitting the jump, then jumping into the GS......he did this all day long......until he started crashing off the jump:

Sweet RV parking job!

This kid was in a ski race group, but wanted to switch to freeski......so he went to the terrain park, and immediately broke his leg.

I bet a 10-year old kid $1 in a game of H-O-R-S-E. After beating him, he ran inside the lodge to get his money. He came out and said "I only have 67 cents......Or can you break a $20?"

Pizza fridge broke.

No 'camper-staff' these first couple of weeks.

Darren needs new skis.

Kris Govertsen and Nolan Trouve stopped by Govy for a short visit. They were in the area for a wedding.

white bus repair. Who's feet are those?

Session 2, 2019 update

Like session 1, we trained on magic mile all week. It's very quiet on the hill this week. Only a few camps were on the mountain. Terry McLeod made his MHSSC summer comeback after a number of years working other camps.

Peter Cimmino and Co. upgrading the skate ramp.

chairlift maintenance

Long-time adult camper, Irene Slisky ripping thru the slalom.

Ravens fly away with a whole sandwich can be seen here.

Foggy weather. Palmer was shut down on Wednesday.

Watching the NBA finals at the Ratskeller on the giant screen.

Simon Marsh got a flat tire on his bike ride to the Hood River picnic. Luckily Bill Toney was there to pick him up in a camp van and take him the rest of the way.

spider!

Session 3, 2019 update

Session 3 feels like the "real" start of camp, as we move up to training on Palmer and the hill starts to get more crowded. Plus the lifts open at 7am. The first 2 weeks, we get an extra hour of sleep with an 8am opening. Former staffer Jeff Holce was back in the fold as a snowboard coach. A counselor, a CIT and an office staffer no longer work at MHSSC. I don't really know the particulars.

Andrea Dahl getting her "juice" on. Yummy and healthy!

yellow cake.....

Diggers!

Alpine crew!

Newbie coach Catherine "Cat" Harnden is the girl in the middle. She coached at Gould.

"Earthing" at camp picnic......google it. Also known as "Grounding". Watch video below if you want to learn more. Earthing dot calm!

Earthing mini-movie

DOWN TO EARTH (short) www.EarthingMovie.com from Big Picture Ranch on Vimeo.

Reid Lambres' 25th birthday! Quarter century. If he does that 3 more times, he'll be 100.

Jeff Holce for the "knockout" win!

Andrea lost her phone. She left it in the fridge.

Campers doing some drywall damage above the pool table. Darn kids!

Andrea Dahl and Patrick Foster summited the mountain over the weekend. Hopefully I'll have some pics to show next update.

Session 4, 2019 update

Kind of a rough week, weather wise. On Wednesday, the winds were a bit insane. Only about a dozen of our campers actually made it to the top of Palmer, before Timberline pulled the plug and closed the chairlift. The coaches just had set the courses and we get the text message from Timberline that read: "NO SETTING!!". They had a pretty strong idea that they were about to close for the day as the winds were getting stronger. So we pulled courses and jumped ship. Then Thursday a snow-storm closed the ski area. Timberline doesn't really let us hike anymore on those lifts-closed-bad-weather-days. At least, that's been the trend the last couple of years. So we took the kids on various activities on those 2 days including a trip to OMSI, an indoor mountain bike place (Lumberyard), the Lloyd Center mall, Hood River and the Clackamas water park. Then Friday, with the new snow on the ground, Timberline had a late opening to de-ice the lift towers. Toss in a little fog that day too, and that made it a challenging session. The snow turned to glue-like consistency by 12 noon on Friday. Enough so to make me decide to download the magic mile and save my legs. On the chairlift ride down the mountain with newbie coach Catherine Harnden, we saw some people on the ground, when one of them dropped his pants to take a sh*t! I kid you not! In broad daylight, right under the magic mile chairlift, this guy is taking a dump. No effort to hike off to the side or find a big rock to hide behind. *Sorry, no photo! hahahahha. And speaking of bodily functions, one of our CIT's urinated on a competing camps' van in the Timberline parking lot a week ago Friday (session 3)....and got caught! He had to write 3 apology letters. No, I'm not naming names. I don't know if I've ever mentioned poop and pee in a staff update, so this is groundbreaking material.

Enjoy some pics and some former staff updates at the end....

Last weekend, Patrick Foster and Andrea Dahl summited Mt Hood! Pics provided by Patrick (P-Fo)

Scotty Veenis in the house! He's here a couple weeks coaching for Ligety camp.

Sarah Schleper! If you don't know her story, you should google her. She's competed in FIVE Winter Olympics, starting with the 1998 games in Nagano, Japan. She had retired from the U.S. ski team a number of years ago before making a comeback with team Mexico. And she plans on racing another Olympics! She's up at Hood every summer, coaching with Erich Sailer ski camp.

This was her historic final world cup slalom in 2011 for the U.S. ski team wearing nothing but a dress and some shin guards.....and that famous start-gate ROAR!!

Starting to thin out at the bottom of the mile canyon. Skiing all the way to the parking lot might not last much longer unless the groomers push more snow down there.

This was super-wind day, waiting for Palmer to open.

8,000 mph wind:

This was the total number of campers that made it up both chairlifts before they closed on the wind day.

Nice scenery on the secret timberline access road. *not really a secret.

camp picnic random local kid on a bike NO HANDS!!

This was Friday magic mile canyon, waiting for Palmer to get de-iced.

Lots of new snow buried all our stuff.

Kim Jong Yun!!! Kim worked at camp like 15 or so years ago. He's living in Olympia, Washington now. Kim made a guest appearance on the hill on Friday.

Monday.....So I’m making my way to get on the magic mile chairlift this morning, there’s a coach in front of me struggling with his lift ticket in his hand. Lift Op Duncan says to the coach, “you have to have your lift ticket attached.” He’s still struggling with his skis, backpack, ticket. Duncan says to him “can you move off to the side and let Robin through.” It was 2-time Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety...hahahaaha! *this photo was from like 5 years ago.

Thursday morning Timberline webcam.

Now, some former staffer pics and stuff!

Julie Janus and Peter Bowden ran into each other on the Squaw Valley tram! They hadn't seen each other in about 25 years. *They look the same 25+ years later! #fountainofyouth

Jaime DuPratt got married a few days ago!!!!! Congrats Jaime!

Spencer Raymond got married last month!!! way to go Spencer!

Speaking of Spencer, he's got some job opportunities he wanted me to pass on. If any of these offers interest you, contact me and I'll forward to Spencer:

There are some upcoming high school coaching positions open in Portland/Mt Hood this winter. All paid positions. Various days/wk commitments. If you’re looking for a “desk job” Skanska is hiring a ton in Portland, where former camper/staffer Spencer Raymond works. If you have any type of construction/engineering/architecture background or degree Robo can get you in touch. Thanks! ~Spencer

Session 5, 2019 update

Shit-Show Weather Week! But no ski days lost.......sort of. Tuesday, the fog rolled in. Wednesday, we could hear Thunder off in the distance for at least 30 minutes before Timberline decided to shut the place down. Usually they freak out at the first sign of a Thunderstorm, but this time they waited a bit. Unfortunately, all the kids backpacks were at the top, all the courses were set and they stopped loading anyone on the chairlift, including coaches. Luckily, we had just enough man power to pull courses and drag kids backpacks down the hill to mid-station, where most of the kids hung out at mid-station palmer until they got their bags. Camp picnic was one of the wettest picnics in camp history. The thunderstorm went on all afternoon. As you can see in some pics below, we used aluminum foil and garbage can lids on the grills to keep the rain off the burgers. Thursday got a late start as they had to de-ice the chairs as it snowed quite a bit the night before. The line at the bottom of the magic mile was pretty insane as we waited for them to open. Only about half our campers ended up making it up that day....someone apparently spread a rumor that the lifts were closed, so many kids just hung out in the Wy'East day lodge all day. And as the morning progressed, another snow-storm rolled in and then Palmer had some kind of mechanical break-down, so for the 2nd consectutive day, they closed Palmer, with all the kids backpacks stranded at the top, all the courses still set, etc. Pretty much a shit-show on consectutive days. LONG lift lines this week. On Monday, I was talking to Roger Bay in the Timberline upper parking lot, when all of a sudden, I saw cash blowing across the parking lot. I yelled "that's my money" to a handful of ski racers walking toward the lift. Roger helped me grab two $1 bills and one of the racers managed to grab the one $20 bill. He was going to give it to me, but I told him that's not really my money. Then he said he'd go buy some Huckleberry shakes in Govy. I tipped the lift ops the $2 I ended up with....Have you ever tipped a lift operator? They were overjoyed.

time lapse magic mile download

someone got creative with stickers in the back of one of the busses.

Reid Lambres and Luke Allen aborted their Summit climb on Tuesday, due to thick fog.

No more skiing all the way to the parking lot unless you are into rock skiing.

Terry McLeod got these Hart mogul skis for Darren Owen at the thrift store for $2.50 plus 15 cents sales tax. $2.65 total. #sponsoredbyterry

We had lots of fog this week.

Unicorns are real!

Kids bringing down backpacks when they closed the chairlift.

Gate recovery by Darren as we were short handed when the lift closed mid-day.

Lily Rezai in her lightning pose.

It hailed HARD in Welches on picnic day. There were INCHES of hail on the ground mid-afternoon.

Rain day picnic.

Huge lift line Thursday morning with the late opening.

dogs and cats living together...

Abandoned car at the new secret cliff-jumping place.

That's former mhssc coach, Matt Underhill, on the right. He's famous for oversleeping while in sitting position on the couch in Govy with a bowl of cereal in his lap and not waking up in time to go on the hill to coach his group. Like 15 years ago. Doh!

During Wednesday's thunderstorm, we had stashed a bundle of gates in the mogul lane because the chairlift was closed....the snow-storm that night buried them and weren't found until Friday morning by Will Gregorak.

*photo credit Catherine Harnden

A little thin on the magic mile.

Session 6, 2019 update

4th of July week. Mike Annett and Bill Toney put on our annual MHSSC 4th of July firework display for the campers up on the soccer field. Nobody caught on fire. That's Mike Annett's silhouette in this bad-ass photo. After the camp firework show, some random Govy peeps had Govy exploding with it's own firework display. Luckily things quieted down around 11pm.

Do you think he's doing a front flip? Or back flip?

skateboarding park crew, cruising down main street Govy

Firework time!!

Grand finale was not that grand

I celebrated my 54th birthday on Tuesday. We tried out the Summit Cafe for dinner, which is now owned by Timberline. Check out their new menu. I'd eat there again.

And here's a flashback to birthday party circa 1993. I was 28. *photos courtesy of Mike King. We're you even born in 1993?

Check out what one of the campers put on his camp application......what he wants to learn at camp: "How to get high".....hahhahaha

Mike Annett got a list from the fine people at Wildwood Park, about our last picnic there.....*There was no actual proof that the people pooping in the urinal or drinking beer in the shelter was kids from our camp.

Multiple days of fog this week.....or at least partial days of fog in and out.

Spooky lift ride downloading magic mile:

newbie alpine coach, Carl Noble, from Rowmark.

Yeah, not much substance to this weeks' staff update.

Session 7, 2019 update

Half way point of summer. 7 weeks down, 7 to go. We had lots of fog this week. The hot summer weather really hasn't happened this year....yet. Tuesday was super misting hard in the morning. Enough so, to scare a camp or two from training. Wednesday, the fog was so thick that they put Palmer on standby after the coaches were already on the hill and courses were set. Kids were held back. "They" were going to wait until 9am to make the final decision. 4 minutes to 9am, the skies sort of cleared, and the lifts opened up. The rest of the day was foggy in and out. Still a productive day overall. The picnic was in Oak Grove (near Hood River) as Wildwood park was reserved by somebody else.

Hug a friend. *Photo was taken before Will Gregorak did a snot-rocket that hit Andrea Dahl in the face (by accident)

Mike hired some contractors to fix the drywall mess above the pool table. Below are before and after pics.

K-staffer Luke Allen took a spill riding on 'cross-town' trail on Monday afternoon, and came out a little bloody.

salt monkey repair. The ultimate set of tools....#spicolisdad

How not-to-carry your skis.

Carl Noble took a spill in the GS and scrapped himself up pretty good.

Yellow Jackets setting up shop at Parham.

fog fog fog fog fog.....where is summer?

Kevin McDevitt (the tall guy). Former mhssc coach from late 80's and the 90's.

What coaches do during "stand-by"

ski pole brain challenge.

I don't know how to rotate pictures in dreamweaver.

This girl from the mogul group had super sore shins, so she packed her boots full of snow to deal with the pain.

gates, everywhere gates!

Counselor Alliy Hansen came up short off a jump in the terrain park.....face to knee!

Where are YOU from? Photo credit Duncan, the lift op.

Vintage magic mile.

Session 8, 2019 update

Summer '19 is looking more like October so far this year. Monday lifts shut down around 11am. Wednesday, we got up there, it was HEAVY mist, wind, fog. Everybody got soaked....lifts went on standby, and then officially closed shortly after 9:30am. Thursday, late opening due to visibility but then skies cleared and we got up there for a half day. Friday was nice...until the last hour or so, when the fog rolled in.

Coaches.

Counselors and Counselors-in-training

strike a pose.

A Fish out of water

Coaches Will Gregorak, Jake Benda, and Carl Noble.....all riding solo. #elbowroom

I personally have never been to volcano cones. Heard it's good. Bucket list.

Forecast said "partly sunny". Cha' right.

Former staffers Lindsay Strange and Marcus Caston, hiding from the elements inside the Palmer salt shack. #partybeach

We had a yellow jacket infestation over at Parham. The landlord apparently called ghostbusters to get rid of them.

How many total years have these 4 gentlemen worked at MHSSC? Take a guess before scrolling down to see the answer.

At the picnic, $1 went to coach Catherine Harnden for guessing 104 years......the actual answer was 108 years. Pretty good guess for a rookie coach.

Mike 41 years. Robin 34 years. Darren 21 years. Bill a dozen years.

During one of the "stand-by" days, Terry McLeod took his Timberline camp campers into the Wy'East day lodge Kids Club room for some trivia and pictionary fun.

Snow has melted off the Palmer bottom ramp. Thinking they are done pushing snow down there.

Happy birthday to Merumo Ishimaru on Thursday! She shreds! I think she turned 16.

The 3 main lift ops on the magic mile. The guy in the middle (Chad) collected cans and bottles from Timberline and turned them in for big bucks (10 cents apiece). As in $10k big bucks! He bought an electric car with the monies.

Timberline is close to launching their new mountain bike trail system. This is the opening gate, right there by bruno's chairlift.

Yummy and healthy beet juice, made by Andrea Dahl! Beets, carrots, ginger, oranges.....I forget what else was in the recipe. But it was delish.

Kid going full 'lord-of-the-flies" in the basement. Photo by Catherine Harnden

On the way back from field sports in Parkdale on Monday afternoon, bus #25 needed some TLC (coolent). Sasha Karaptrova to the rescue.

The man, the myth....

An "Emily question" to wrap this up:

Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire; after saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be?

Session 9, 2019 update

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone.

Former coach, Mike Foley, made a guest appearance at the picnic on Wednesday.

Cat...

Picnic knockout w/commentary from Peter Cimmino.

Tuning in the secret Margaret basement.

Salt Monkey malfunction

Grant Wilson showed up this week.

We had a coaches banana ice cream party on Thursday. Ingredients: frozen bananas and frozen strawberries. Syrovatka melted down some hershey bars for chocolate topping.

Starting to look like August in some spots.

Former staffer, Nicole Cordingley was on the hill last week. She's coaching for Sugar Bowl now.

The girl in the middle is Charlotte, the daughter of 80's k-staffer Nancy Schmeler!

Pavement shred.

Coaches' group shot is getting more and more challenging. What should we do next week?

Session 10, 2019 update

Skiing in August is a thing. How lucky are we to be able to slide around on a big chunk of snow in late summer. Make August great again.

Butterflies.....*this was leftover from session 9

photo by Andrea Dahl:

Catherine Harnden feeding the birds at camp

The story goes that his mom bought a GS suit for her son on Ebay, but it was like 2 sizes to big. You also gotta love the helmet/sunglasses look.

I managed to beat Carl Noble in a game of H-O-R-S-E for a buck. #liketakingcandyfromababy

Palmer was on stand-by on Thursday morning due to chairlift malfunction.

Roger Bay lead a small crew over to ski bowl for go-carts a couple times last week. Sorry, no actual photos of the go-carting.

Bottom of Palmer....

Sasha Karepatrova taking her talents to the race course on Friday. You can usually find her in the terrain park.

time lapse on Friday morning

Friday, we got some heavy mist for about an hour. Other than that, a nice weather week.

I had a major toothache a week or so ago. Pain score: "8 or 9". Was planning an emergency trip to the dentist office. Instead, I did some indoor 'earthing' and 3 days later the pain was reduced to a 1 or 2. What the heck is 'earthing'? *watch 3 minute video below.

The Earthing Movie Trailer - www.EarthingMovie.com from Big Picture Ranch on Vimeo.

That is all. Have a nice day.

oh wait.......Here's a flashback to the coaches training video from a decade ago (VHS quality!)

Session 11, 2019 update

It was crazy HOT this week on the snowfield. Mike Annett made his first appearance on the mountain on Friday. He's still got that old school MHSSC baseball cap and glacier glasses. The snow is a little sketchy in spots. There are chunks of ice scattered about, like the ice that come out of the coke machine at camp. Hard to carve turns in that stuff. Hard to even side-slip in that stuff.

A salt bag was sliding down the glacier at high speed on Tuesday morning. Mike Syrovatka gets on the radio to me "SALT BAG ROBO"......3 of us were prepping the mogul jump site and barely got out of the way of the runaway salt bag. It would have taken out Makalu Arnold if we didn't get the heads up. The salt bag hits the big jump, did some nice rotations in the air, and kept sliding down the mountain. There were people below us that heard us screaming "salt bag" and got out of the way before it hit the mid-way road and exploded in the terrain park area below (no people down there).

On Friday, Carl Noble, came over to camp to challenge me in another game of H-O-R-S-E.....silly boy. Where's my dollar?

So hot, I had to hide under an umbrella to escape the sun.

melting away.....3 more weeks.

bunny.....in Govy.

Catherine Harnden

Bill Toney

There was a threat of thunderstorms on Thursday, but most of the big scary clouds stayed to the east of us.

Lower west Palmer finally closed this week.

Backing up a big yellow bus is challenging....but counselor Jordan Misaros nailed it, backing it up to hook up the rafting trailer.

snow road from the new public terrain park, just below the race lanes.

Mogul lane

Camper love. Or are they wrestling?......not sure what was going on there.

In August of 2002, Kees Nederhand skied into the rocks during a warm-up run and died on the mountain. He was 14. One of his sisters, traveled to Mt Hood this past winter to visit the memorial at lift tower #8.

Former staffer, Willy Johnson, made a surprise visit to camp on Friday. Robert Johnson (no relation) gave him a Cubs bottle of wine, as both boys are from Chicago.

These were some lost-and-found eye glasses, found at the top of Palmer by the TV's. We took turns trying them on.

And since there's just not much material in this weeks' camp update, I'll share some short concert videos I recorded on my iPhone from Tuesday night at the Oregon Zoo. You 80's staffers will probably appreciate the 3 bands a little more than the younger folk.

Berlin:"Take my Breath Away" (Top Gun)

OMD: "If you leave" (Pretty in Pink)

The B-52's: Love Shack

;

And it was Peter Cimmino's birthday on Friday. He's twenty-something.....

Session 12, 2019 FACULTY update

Instead of the "staff update", we'll call it the "faculty update" this week in honor of Carl Noble....that's what HE calls it.

Timberline opened their much anticipated lift-served mountain bike park on August 12. There are 3 levels of trails on the lower mountain: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Terry McLeod lead the afternoon activity on Thursday with 5 campers plus office guy Schuyler Sanders helping out. Fees are somewhat expensive for bike rentals and use of the park.

007

Last weekend.....lightning struck a tree about a half mile from the camp lodge just off of highway 26

From Sasha Karapetrova: "Lightening strike across the road. One fire was near the base of the tree the other at the crown. Took almost a week to finish the project. They waited for the crown of the tree to fall then brought in a helicopter. Bill Toney said they should have chopped it down and it was "amateur hour".

A few days later, we see this very loud helicopter, dropping water on the smoldering tree.

Late 80's counselor, Ara Papazian, trained with us this week. He rips!

Wayne, taking a load off. Does anyone know Wayne's last name? Or is he just so famous, he just goes by Wayne? Like Cher....and Oprah.....and McLovin.

Patrick Foster

Session 12 was declared "nice camp" in honor of Terry McLeod, who invented nice camp years ago.

Part of "nice camp" was banana-strawberry ice cream with chocolate topping. Banana ice cream with magic-shell style chocolate topping recipe-video can be seen here. The girl in the video is very attractive....which will increase the likelihood that you might actually click the link.

Oscar Weary

Former staffer, Lyndsay Strange.

This 36 year old camper, Benjamin Alexander McBean, is trying to get his points down to 140, so he can compete for Jamaica in the next winter Olympics. He's never raced before. He started the session on twin tips, but by the end of the week, he was flying down the mountain on some nice race skis.

new socks at ski hat for Andrea Dahl.

Only 10 more days on snow left in summer '19.....time flies when you are having fun.

Session 13, 2019 Staff update

We started the session with only 7 campers and added 2 more later in the week, for a total of 9. So it was a mellow week. Three of of snowboard staffers hitting the mogul jump.

Hungry chipmunk, hunting for a snack on Monday morning:

On Monday, I went bungee jumping over at ski bowl. Also did a 5-minute round of go-carts (first time ever) and 2 rides down the Alpine Slide. Totally unplanned adventure. I recommend all 3 of those activities! Ski Bowl is like a mini disney-land these days. They also have ziplines, mini-golf, summer tube-hill, horseback riding, etc. It's a bit expensive, unless you know an employee there who will treat you!

Bill Toney and Mike measuring the distance from ground to roof, so they will know if the rented manlift will be tall enough for roof repairs this September.

The calm before the storm on Wednesday.

Some rain and fog were part of Wednesday on the hill. Lifts closed at noon due to low visibility.

Picnic was in Hood River. Robert cooked up some steaks. Mike Foley made a guest appearance this week.

Making the juice.....

All the trees in Hood River lean toward the east due to the frequent high winds coming out of the west.

Some camper girl climbed this tree at the picnic and threw her iphone down to the ground to show off the durabioity of her protective case.

Clean up your poo!

Picnic workout video from one of the freeski camper girls:

Mogul jumps look pretty dirty first thing every morning after significant daily meltage. Is 'meltage' a real word? doubt it.

But after lots of shoveling and raking, they look like this:

Bill Toney, Darren Owen, and I mini-road-tripped to Warm Springs to the Indian Head Casino. Bill Toney made enough $$ to cover his dinner. Darren and I weren't as lucky.

Amazing sunset on the drive home from the casino. Pics by Darren.

Hood-to-coast 2019 on Friday. Govy was stop-and-go traffic at 5am.

Notice the taco girl.

Hood-to-Coast vans creatively decorated.

Sasha Karapetrova doing rafting inventory.

And then there was this:

Oh, and I forgot to include these classic clips from session 12:

And how to cook your picnic burger coaching tip:

Adult camp this coming week to wrap up another excellent summer on the Hood.

Session 14, 2019 Staff update

It's over! We had almost 30 adult campers to wrap up the summer; the majority of those were skiing moguls with Darren. Only 3 women in the camp this year.

Jonathan Rosenstrach spinning off one of the mogul jumps.

The lonely walk to the chairlift. It was pretty much a ghost town on the mountain the final week. There was one or two people training in lane 2 with a coach.....plus our camp hogging the rest of the lanes west of the moguls. And about a dozen snowboarders shredding the makeshift halfpipes east of the mogul lane.

Creativity ruled the mogul jump site. Many of these guys wearing cowboy hats.

Peter Cimmino didn't have any adult snowboard campers to coach, but he stuck around to shred.

The snowpack hung in there pretty well, despite a below average snowpack to begin the summer. All the cool weather in July played a factor.

There's something on your face Syrovatka....

The weather turned to sh*t on Thursday. There was an intense lightning storm, starting around 3am, that went on for about an hour and a half. Then things calmed down enough by the time we went up on the mountain. After setting the course and a handful of the campers made it up to Palmer for a run or two, the lightning returned and we were told to drop everything and leave the hill immediately. So we did. We left the GS course in place. Overnight, the snowcat driver did their best to groom around the gates.

Salt guy, Brandon, watching for lightning.

Rainbow!

We were able to download the magic mile, despite the lightning that was quickly approaching from the south. Then it rained like cats and dogs, as you can see in the pic below.