Dead Confederate, a Georgia alternative rock band, is taking a break from its West Coast swing to hit the slopes at Stevens Pass on Friday.

The band will play in the base area at noon. They play in Seattle on Thursday afternoon and perform in Sacramento on Saturday.

Dead Confederate’s most popular song is “The Rat.”

The group’s performance is part of an all-day promotion at the state’s second most popular ski area.

The promotion includes 2-for-1 lift tickets according to Stevenspass.com.

To get the lift ticket deal you must bring an empty Vitaminwater bottle to the ski area. The ski area opens at 9 a.m. An adult lift ticket is $62.

Jon Knechtel and Ron Strickland are anxiously watching the political maneuvering around S. 22, the omnibus public lands management bill awaiting a vote in the House.

If approved and signed by President Obama, the legislation would add the Pacific Northwest Trail to the National Scenic Trail system. Approved by the Senate on Jan. 15, the bill awaits final action by the House.

The 1,200-mile trail crosses three national parks and seven national forests as it runs from the Chief Mountain border crossing just east of Glacier National Park in Montana to the Pacific Ocean at Cape Alava on the Olympic Peninsula.

Knechtel is directly involved as the director of trail management and acting executive director of the Pacific Northwest Trail Association. Strickland began the push to create the trail more than 40 years ago.

“I’m keeping crossed every part of my body that’s possible to cross,” Knechtel said from the association's office in Sedro-Woolley.

“I like to say not if but when, but I’ve been saying that for decades,” Strickland said from his home in Bedford, Mass.

A vote may come as soon as Monday, Strickland said.

The legislation contains about 160 items regarding programs and activities in the interior and agriculture departments. Both men fear Republican efforts to add amendments will be successful. If the House passes the legislation with amendments, it would have to go to a House-Senate conference committee to work out differences.

“If that happens it goes back to committee and a lot of these things will die,” Knechtel said.

Strickland became enamored with hiking the region in the summer of 1968 when he hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Snoqualmie Pass to the Canadian border. Two years later he hiked east to west across the state’s northern tier.

“That got me going on the idea of doing an Appalachian Trail-like course, of developing a trail from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean,” Strickland said. “I thought it would be a showcase of what was once the Oregon Territory.”

In 1984 he wrote a guidebook about the trail -- some of which still follows roads -- and did another in 2001.

Knechtel joined the association’s board in 2001 and went to work for the group in 2003. He has been active in developing the group’s volunteer and education programs. Last year, members, volunteers and students donated 21,000 hours of work to association projects.

“I know the association will be OK because of our volunteer projects,” he said. “But if this goes through, we’ll be really busy.”

Click here to learn more about the Pacific Northwest Trail and the assciation.