The morning began, for me, at 7a.m. Once my alarm went off I got dressed and drove to The Grind. After I ordered and received my two Raspberry Redbull spritzers I headed back home. Delivered Noe her spritzer and cooked myself some breakfast. After breakfast we started gearing up and packing the car. We left the house about 9a.m. and Noe, Spenser, and myself met up with Bri of Granite AK in the EC parking lot. We began our hike sometime near 9:45a.m. and it started pretty mellow. Well, honestly the whole hike was pretty mellow in comparison to what I am used to hiking to snowboard. The first few hundred yards was just wet ground, not much snow until we got a little past the Black Bear chairlift. Once we hit snow we were very optimistic. There was not much at first, but it was good snow. It was wet, but not the really heavy wet that we all are not fond of. About two hours of hiking we made it to the Eagles Nest which sits at the top of the Ptarmigan chair. There we ate lunch and planned out where we were going to drop in. Spenser had a "secret spot" he wanted to take us to where he had been earlier in the week. After a little more hiking and tree climbing/dodging we were above our lines and preparing to drop. We were all very anxious, even more so because Spenser had mentioned how there was close to another foot since he was last there. Spenser dropped, then Bri, Noe, then myself. After our first run, Spenser, Bri, and myself all found something we wanted to hit, so we hiked up a little again. Hit our little hits and continued on. The ladies made their trek down the road a bit and Spenser and I hiked back to the Nest where we left our bags. The two of us hiked up a little more and made our drop down below the lift a little and cut over to meet up with the girls on the road. The snow was awesome, the company was awesome, having another day to ride was awesome. The only thing the day was lacking was visibility, but even with the low clouds/fog/whatever it was, we all had a great time.
For more photos and a short video edit of the trip, you can check out Spenser's blog here.
Eagle Crest trail map
Spenser and Bri gearing up for the hike
Quick portrait of Spenser
Noe ready for the hike up
Chair 100 of the Black Bear
Bri and Spenser on the hike up
Noe almost to the top
The Eagles Nest
Bri doing her post-hike stretching
The group of us eating lunch and stretching inside the Eagles Nest
dope dude
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