Who:anyone 16 and older! (under 18 will need parent signature)
What: On Campus Rail Jam -the biggest in Washington
When: October 25, 2009
Time: Registration starts at 9:00 am
Competition starts at 12:00pm
Where: Eastern Washington University, JFK Field
Sponsors include: K2 skis, Mountain Goat Outfitters, NWK, Bataleon
Info: This year we will be holding "Best Trick" contest in addition to the Open Jam. There will be Men and Women's open competition categories.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
EPIC Wear
EPIC now has t-shirts. Help represent us to the school and the inland empire by sporting our logo. Starting at $10. $5 for trip participants upon payment for the trip!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Trip Leader Taining
Having grown up in small mining town on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies I have always been somewhat skeptical of the talk I here about the Mountains of the Inland Northwest. After a big storm, the slopes of Mt Spokane make for a fun afternoon skiing or riding, but the prefix of “Mt.” on Mt. Spokane always seemed generous no matter the elevation. I just assumed what most transplants do: that all the “mountains” in the Inland Northwest were similar to Mt. Spokane. Thus, I concluded, if one wanted to see real mountains, similar to the mountains of my youth, one needed to travel east to the Rockies or west to the North Cascades or the Olympics. Little did I realize that as close as 2 hours away lie the Selkirk mountain range comprise some of the most beautiful and wild mountains I have encountered in a long time.
Driving north out of Spokane, one gradually leaves behind the suburban sprawl and enters a countryside dotted with lakes and relatively thick with luxuriant forest. The road passes though the Newport, WA before entering Priest River, ID. From Priest River the road jogs north through increasingly dense forest, and prime moose country to Priest Lake. Here we turned off and drove north, traveling on primitive roads along the east side of the lake until eventually parking on a steep switch backed logging road. Stepping out of the car, I stretched and looked around and was immediately awe struck by the granite slopes of the Selkirk mountains. Looking in all directions the eye takes in exposed granite, huge swaths of gray and black rock, seemingly unflawed coursing down from the heights to disappear in the temperate rainforest that blanket the slopes of the west side of this range. We shouldered our packs and began hiking up the creek bed we had come to explore.
Winding our way through the second growth forests that blanket the western slopes of the range proved to be a challenge in patience and physical stamina. There were countless downed logs, impassable thickets of alders, walls of stinging nettles not to mention the minefield of devil’s club that we were required to navigate. The beauty surrounding us mitigated the physical challenge and lulled the pain. All around us stood second growth fir and cedar trees, interspersed by truly ancient and enormous cedar trees that had somehow escaped the timber companies of the 20th century. The forest floor was littered with huckleberry and raspberry bushes, as well as the less friendly nettles and devil’s club. Along the creek was recent evidence of wildlife, including numerous moose tracks, the depression from where a herd of elk had bedded down for an evening, and a bear print on a sandbar that could have only come from a Grizzly.
The easiest, and perhaps safest way for us to travel was to simply walk up the creek bed, climbing over boulders and scrambling around logjams. When we had the occasion to cross an avalanche path that traveled all the way to the stream, we were blessed with views of the Granite domes and peaks that were reminiscent of the High Sierra of California. As we climbed higher, the granite topography became more prevalent and the creek bed began to course across exposed sections of the granite domes, creating wide, coursing waterways that pooled in deep refreshing cisterns. Reminding one of the upper reaches of Nevada Falls in Yosemite National Park.
Our goal was Kent Lake, located high in a cirque on the Selkirk crest. The last half-mile or so to the lake crossed a flat, boggy area where we often found ourselves knee deep or more in sucking mud. Because of this, and the lateness of the day, we were forced to turn around without reaching Kent Lake. I will be returning to this area in a couple of weeks with a group of new trip leader trainees. I am already looking forward to the challenge of crossing the boggy area that prevented us from seeing and exploring more of this truly beautiful and unknown area.
Driving north out of Spokane, one gradually leaves behind the suburban sprawl and enters a countryside dotted with lakes and relatively thick with luxuriant forest. The road passes though the Newport, WA before entering Priest River, ID. From Priest River the road jogs north through increasingly dense forest, and prime moose country to Priest Lake. Here we turned off and drove north, traveling on primitive roads along the east side of the lake until eventually parking on a steep switch backed logging road. Stepping out of the car, I stretched and looked around and was immediately awe struck by the granite slopes of the Selkirk mountains. Looking in all directions the eye takes in exposed granite, huge swaths of gray and black rock, seemingly unflawed coursing down from the heights to disappear in the temperate rainforest that blanket the slopes of the west side of this range. We shouldered our packs and began hiking up the creek bed we had come to explore.
Winding our way through the second growth forests that blanket the western slopes of the range proved to be a challenge in patience and physical stamina. There were countless downed logs, impassable thickets of alders, walls of stinging nettles not to mention the minefield of devil’s club that we were required to navigate. The beauty surrounding us mitigated the physical challenge and lulled the pain. All around us stood second growth fir and cedar trees, interspersed by truly ancient and enormous cedar trees that had somehow escaped the timber companies of the 20th century. The forest floor was littered with huckleberry and raspberry bushes, as well as the less friendly nettles and devil’s club. Along the creek was recent evidence of wildlife, including numerous moose tracks, the depression from where a herd of elk had bedded down for an evening, and a bear print on a sandbar that could have only come from a Grizzly.
The easiest, and perhaps safest way for us to travel was to simply walk up the creek bed, climbing over boulders and scrambling around logjams. When we had the occasion to cross an avalanche path that traveled all the way to the stream, we were blessed with views of the Granite domes and peaks that were reminiscent of the High Sierra of California. As we climbed higher, the granite topography became more prevalent and the creek bed began to course across exposed sections of the granite domes, creating wide, coursing waterways that pooled in deep refreshing cisterns. Reminding one of the upper reaches of Nevada Falls in Yosemite National Park.
Our goal was Kent Lake, located high in a cirque on the Selkirk crest. The last half-mile or so to the lake crossed a flat, boggy area where we often found ourselves knee deep or more in sucking mud. Because of this, and the lateness of the day, we were forced to turn around without reaching Kent Lake. I will be returning to this area in a couple of weeks with a group of new trip leader trainees. I am already looking forward to the challenge of crossing the boggy area that prevented us from seeing and exploring more of this truly beautiful and unknown area.
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