Same situation here in my neck of the woods. I can't recall a winter like this in my 64 years on this earth. Little to no snow over the holidays, grass still visible. Still in recovery mod from surgery, so no flying for me in the near future, so not a big deal, but definitely won't be any skiplanes needed any time soon. Doesn't hurt my feelings at all, no way I could get out and run the tractor to clear the driveway.

WWhunter wrote:Same situation here in my neck of the woods. I can't recall a winter like this in my 64 years on this earth. Little to no snow over the holidays, grass still visible. Still in recovery mod from surgery, so no flying for me in the near future, so not a big deal, but definitely won't be any skiplanes needed any time soon. Doesn't hurt my feelings at all, no way I could get out and run the tractor to clear the driveway.

1980 was pretty close we have a picture of wife and I with another couple having a barbecue and a couple beers New Year’s Day on the front lawn. The photo looked like it was shot in June not Jan 1st. Usually cussing old man winter by now not this year. Usually 2 feet of ice on the lakes by now also but on December 31st there was still open water in a few spots. The geese finally left so maybe they know something. Just be patient it will snow.

High noon on Dec 23 down on Yellowknife Bay

Very nice! Well things are a little better here, still working on the dreaded house project and looks like we have snow on the way. Still not enough natural to do anything fun but we are finally getting some decent snowmaking weather. I work part time in the winter for the race dept. at the ski area. Coached for years, but the last 6 or 8 I have been working race crew. I enjoy it, good schedule and no parents to deal with… we have some decent events coming up and are behind getting the hill ready. In a typical year they will make snow on the whole trail and the groomers will do their thing. We will then go up and net it. This trail takes roughly 320 sections of net. Temps have been marginal for snowmaking so we have been netting as the mt crew works on the trail. We have about 25% of it done and this morning we took up another 80 rolls and got them staged. We have a couple of racks we made that fit on the blade. Each rack holds 40ish rolls. Now it’s on to sheet rock…


One of the piles of snow to get pushed out and a rack of B-net


Rack on the groomer blade


One of the benefits of being on the hill early are the sunrises.



Pete

motoadve wrote:Enjoying the PNW

Photos like this make me happy my 185 hasn’t sold!

It was a perfect day to take the cub out in northern MN. It was my first time on skis as well

Have actually had some winter fun the last couple of weeks. Finally enough snow to use the skis. A couple of photos from the back 40.





Flew to Utah to take a look at a friend’s Citabria he is selling. Got a handshake deal on the plane, and should fly it home in the spring.. photos when it’s a done deal. Did get a few mornings of skiing in while we were there as a nice bonus.



And finally a little snowshoe action when we got back home.



Hopefully more good winter action to come.

Pete

Flying around in circles, looking at snow, testing the snow and then landing on snow. Lotsa fun!

It was great afternoon to take one of my boys up today. We even saw a coyote when we were waiting for things to warm up before our run up. I think we may have even seen Zzz out skiing on the lake.

Story and photos of recovering the Cessna from the frozen lake here https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front ... ter-crash/

tcj wrote:Story and photos of recovering the Cessna from the frozen lake here https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front ... ter-crash/

Is the airplane being lifted by the netting wrapped around each outboard wing?
Or is the netting just to keep the ailerons from flapping around, and maybe to spoil lift?

JeffE85 wrote:It was great afternoon to take one of my boys up today. We even saw a coyote when we were waiting for things to warm up before our run up. I think we may have even seen Zzz out skiing on the lake.

Nice, Jeff! I skied on the lake a little on Saturday but the snow was super cruddy so I didn't last long. Sunday we took the kids to the Ridge. Glad to see you're having fun in the Citabria.

tcj wrote:Story and photos of recovering the Cessna from the frozen lake here https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front ... ter-crash/

Wow, we drove by there three days last week and there were a few people ice fishing. No snowmobiles or four wheelers. Both my wife and I thought the ice looked pretty sketchy. There was a significant amount of open water in several places.

Pete

My winter action:
[googlevideo]https://photos.app.goo.gl/AgxKQtu9jmkWLo119[/googlevideo]

My wife and I took a drive up White Pass and around Rimrock (Tieton Reservoir) and Clear Lake west of Yakima a couple days ago. On the way back home we stopped at the Oak Creek Elk feeding station.


Island in Clear Lake


Looking west across Clear Lake and the Goat Rocks Wilderness


Ridge reflected in Rimrock Lake


Kloochman Rock from the White pass Highway


Divide Ridge


The visitor's center at Oak Creek has a lot of taxidermy mounts


The Kittitas Bull


Big Cougar


Bears


If you start a forest fire I'll claw your ass


The Herd


Hob Knobbers


Big Bull


The Big Guy eats first

tcj wrote: My wife and I took a drive up White Pass and around Rimrock (Tieton Reservoir) and Clear Lake west of Yakima a couple days ago. On the way back home we stopped at the Oak Creek Elk feeding station.

I drove down there many years ago with my favorite uncle, who was a big elk hunter.
We saw lots of elk & a few mulies.
Unfortunately we didn't know about the visitor's center, or else it was closed.
He would have enjoyed seeing all those mounts.

FWIW he has (or had) a Roosevelt elk in the B&C book, 296-6/8 points.
They even had a picture in there of him packing out the head.
And he was a B&C scorer for several years.

Well, technically it’s winter even though it’s currently raining right now, so this thread should be revived. We did have some very nice weather earlier in the week. Got some ski flying in and me, mrs Burns and the Cattle dog got out for our first snowshoe of the season.



Pete

Not any snow at lower elevations in the PNW, but lots of rain and not many hours of daylight. When the skies do clear, it's easy to see that the surrounding mountains are getting lots of snow.

hotrod180 wrote:

tcj wrote:Story and photos of recovering the Cessna from the frozen lake here https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front ... ter-crash/

Is the airplane being lifted by the netting wrapped around each outboard wing?
Or is the netting just to keep the ailerons from flapping around, and maybe to spoil lift?

The lift rigging is attached to the lifting rings or to the inboard spar attach points. Hopefully, they're using a spreader bar, but hard to tell from the photos.

Cargo netting (or similar) is ALWAYS used on these deals to prevent the wing from creating lift from the helicopter's downwash. If that wing starts lifting, things get REALLY bad really fast......followed by the pilot punching the pickle button.

Interesting, not that many K Max helicopters around....

MTV