Dec 18, 2008, Hyak

Tim, Rachel, and I decided to brave Seattle traffic and check out Snoqualmie Pass. We were able to drive 30-45 mph most of the way. We had the good fortune to arrive at Hyak about 20 minutes behind Monika, who proceeded to break trail all the way up Hyak for us. Big thanks, Monika. 24-30" of new snow, very light as expected. There was too much snow to maintain any downhill momentum and we sometimes resorted to making every every other turn in the skin track to maintain speed. Face shots available whenever you had enough speed. Snow from last weekend covered up some of the brush. We would often break through the new snow and collapse the old snow and bushes to form a hole that was 4 feet deep and hard to get out of.

Great snow, but too much of it. It will get better as the run is tracked out some. I imagine the base is still too low density for any reasonable backcountry skiing.