December 31, 2003, Cave Ridge, Commonwealth Basin

The past four weekends I've been up with Isaac, my 3 1/2 year old, at the Washington Alpine Club cabin sledding, eating snow, building snow people, drinking cocoa and generally trying to let him learn how fun snow is.  But with the amazing light snow we've been receiving I was able to take a day off from work and do some backcountry finally.

Dot Berg and I left the WAC cabin (across the Alpental road from the Sahale Ski Club) and skinned up into the basin following snow shoe tracks from the previous weekend. Since neither of us had been out this year backcountry we set modest goals and headed up to the col below Guye Peak and Cave Ridge. Eventually we left the track and headed up wallowing in 3' of light powder. Navigating by memory rather than by map we headed up too soon and ended up on the left side of the large gully rather than the right. This side has small cliff bands that keep forcing you right which is blocked by gully. We eventually got up to the col altho it took us way too long.

The snow was amazingly stable, especially for a lee slope. We didn't dig a pit but we cut some very steep snow pillows and saw no instability whatever.

We ate lunch, deskinned and enjoyed lovely turns through thickish timber. Skiing back down was very enjoyable as we set the track that Silas mentioned in his trip from Jan 1st.

There were many "notes to self":
1. reglue skins
2. replace 20 year old Leki Extreme poles
3. replace 3 year old duct tape on poles (see note 1)
4. bring some kick wax to help out on small uphills on descent out.

Overall a very enjoyable outing...