By: Jason Tross
So here we are – still holding for Old Man Winter. The forecast reads like a recording telling us our wait time is excessively long due to the high pressure volume over the Pacific Ocean. And the storms keep warming and drying up before tracking north to Canada.
I’m relatively new here to the Pacific Northwest ski scene and not used to seeing grass under the chair lifts the day after Thanksgiving. Everyone tells me it’s the norm and not to worry because one thing Washington, Oregon and BC can count on is cold moisture. One way or another, we’ll be skiing.
That’s the sentiment in every ski town I’ve hit in the months since arriving – Bend, Portland, Olympia, Seattle and Bellingham. “It will come,” they say. Only exception is Whistler Blackcomb, where ‘they’ are skiing. Lifts fired up on schedule Wednesday.
Once the above-mentioned cold precipitation begins falling around the region, I’ll start traveling to these towns to write about the skiers who brave the gloomy gray days and rain in exchange for massive snowfalls and post them here.
In the meantime, it keeps raining and cooling. Snow should be here any day.