During a typical season, I usually travel a little bit, but for the most part, I tour here in my home range– The Cascades.
The Cascades offer a more stable snowpack than other areas, as well as a longer lasting seasonal snowpack. Plus, when the seasonal snowpack melts, there’s always glaicer riding.
I often sit at my house in Seattle or in Greenwater, Washington (that’s right near Crystal Mountain) and think about where might be a good place to get out and go touring, and the first place I always look is to the weather forecasts.
Whether it’s spring touring with perfect corn or powder hunting midwinter, there is a lot of planning that goes into a good backcountry trip. While I maintain a list of places I’d like to go and lines that are asking for a slayin’, I ALWAYS plan my trip around the weather. I can’t emphasize this enough.
If you were to ignore this very important step, and venture unawares into an area where the avi conditions are terrible or it looks like it’s gonna rain, you’re almost guaranteed to have a trip that’s somewhere between dangerous and unenjoyable, so appropriate planning is absolutely crucial.
For weather-based trip area planning, this is a breakdown of my process for here in the Cascades.