January 21, 2004, Spring Skiing, Granite Mountain

Yesterday, the 21st, I ventured out to Snoqualmie Pass with some new friends from telemarktalk.com.  We had planned to ski on Mt Margaret, but due to the weather (cold, foggy), we decided instead to ski laps at Summit East.  However, upon arriving there, we met three skiers just returning from what we proposed to do.  "Way too icey" was there assesment.  So intead of suffering through the ice, we decided to head out of the fog into the sunshine to Granite Mountain.  Immediately upon arriving, we were greeted with Sunshine and warmer temperatures.

After hiking up the trail around 2.5 miles, we put on skins and skinned up the gully to the right of the trail.  The snow pack was very much consolidated corn snow, the sun was shining...  It was a typical spring day in the Cascades... in January!  When we reached our turn around time (2:00PM), we had not yet reached the summit, but had a hoot skiing out ~1000 vf down the gully.  At lower elevations, the corn was already starting to firm up.  

All in all a very enjoyable day!