Terrain Talks #16. Season Debrief and Svalbard, Norway Prep

What a season! And by that, I mean what a weird season! This is all the more reason to take a minute to reflect and remember some of the events, memories, and lessons learned from it.

I've hit that age of doing this where two things are happening at the same time. I feel like every year I'm saying that the season feels weird or odd or not normal. Maybe that's a nostalgic desire for deeper and more consistently snowy winters, or maybe my memory is getting worse. It's likely the latter, because when I compare this winter to previous winters in terms of snowpack, I'm surprised by how few details I remember from the almost equally bad years of 2024, 2020, and 2019.

That being said, I personally had a great winter. I missed the epic early start in October in the North Cascades while in Antacrtic (equally awesome). November was a bit meh, with a few notable moments. Then came the rains of December, which washed away almost all of the snow and many of our roads. That was rough, for sure, and in many locations, we started at ground zero (literally dry ground) on December 15th. Once access reopened, conditions got pretty good heading into Christmas and through the new year. Then, the somewhat normal drought of mid-January took hold at a potentially record level. Luckily, I dodged most of this in Canada and Japan (sorry, not sorry), and returned from Japan right as it started to snow again. However, that snow fell on a PWL (I almost forgot about this had I not taken this time to reflect on the season!). March came in like a lamb, but the middle of March brought a wild storm with upwards of 3-4 feet of snow in the central and south Cascades, even at low elevation, which closed many roads and access points (again)! Late March and through April have felt drier and warmer than normal, but a few notable storms provided some last gasps of powder skiing if you could take advantage of the timing or go high and north afterwards. It's looking like we'll get our typical early May high pressure, which will likely sap our mid-elevation snowpack even further. We'll see if the volcanoes and high elevation areas hold on into June.

I guess my takeaway is to enjoy the ride of good and bad times, try to have some flexibility built into your schedule (if possible and especially in the PNW), and plan trips or dedicated local days where you go regardless of the conditions. The mindset of a trip is that you are going to make the best of whatever conditions you get. As a guide, that's often the mindset I need to adopt locally when conditions are less than great. And year after year, some of my favorite days are not the memorable storms, but he inbetween days when conditions might be kind of mediocre, but we go, and are often rewarded with a fun day in better-than-expected conditions.

While the PNW had a tough winter, I think it's safe to say that we probably outperformed much of the Western US.

I'm going to drop the video of last night's session in here, and then answer a few specific questions posed to me from people who couldn't attend live. If you have any debrief questions from the season or more broadly, feel free to drop in them in the comments (or via DM) and I'm more than happy to review it and offer advice.