January 11, 2004, Lichtenberg Mt

With my friend Sprague in from France and only one day available, we decided to ignore fog and Cascade concrete to tour from our Yodelin cabin up the SW rib of Lichtenberg, just past Stevens Pass.  The fog contributed to some bad routefinding on the lower slopes, where there was a lot of evidence of natural slides from earlier in the week and some dicey traversing between cliff bands.  The snow seemed quite solid after  all the warming; with a very thin crust over deep heavy remnants of the week's dump.  Broke through the clouds at about 2/3 height and had good skinning to the summit ridge with views of Stuart, Nason Ridge, the Chiwaukum and all.  Sorry that the slow trailbreaking didn't allow a lap down to Lichtenwasser, because the north facing snow seemed actually quite nice.  

The ski down was (like the previous report from Mt. Baker) actually much better than expected, except for a crusty, foggy stretch about midway down.  Some spectacular pinwheeling and surface sloughing on the upper steeps where the sun had softened the surface, but again the underlying snow seemed very solid.  Very nice lines all around that will need repeat visits under better conditions.