Feb 16; Sky 5482', Tye 5476, Martin 5645' Traverse

Have donb and Randy come from the west to meet Jake and I from the east.  Complete the car shuttle.  Start with some map-geeking to establish peaks with 400+ feet of prominence.  Take the goal to come up with a trip to satisfy the peakbaggers of the group, add the desire for a good tour, throw in the hopes of some good snow on a few NE,N,and NW aspects, and WOW what a trip one can come up with!  Put some icy fog (with 200 foot visibility) routefinding to it, a short steep boot climb moment over a knife-edgy ridge, and then some Great snow after all that, and who could be any happier.   (Thanks to whoever kicked in the bomber steps by the way.)

This was an absolutely fun find that is a bit hard to cough up.  But, hey, folks already seem to know their way around this area and some of our skiing actually had already been picked over the last few days.
But the important info to convey here is how great the snow is at the moment in the Stevens country.  Stay off the sun effected aspects and there is lots of deep light snow to be found.  At times one is cutting through a soft crust about 6 to 10  inches down but it really doesn't even throw the skis much.  Except when you are tired from 4 days in a row on the snow!
On the only NW 35 degree aspect that gave us concern we dug a couple of hasty hand pits.  None of the new snow seemed to move on the soft crust despite the thin layer of roller bearing snow atop the crust.  The new snow was not slab cohesive and the shear quality on the crust (Q2-3) was much poorer than we expected.

No better way to bag three peaks of prominence!
Accuracy note:  Martin 5627' is actually a lower Benchmark without prominence but the adjacent higher 5645' isn't officially named.  I believe the Northwest Peakbaggers Asylum refers to the prominent 5645' as "Spinnaker".

Other note: there were highmarking snowmobile tracks ruining the slopes below 5645' well within the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness.

OK, one other note that may stir up a bit of controversy.  This is only said to hopefully increase some understanding.  On one run 50 feet wide, 35 degrees, and lined with trees on each margin, I couldn't understand why anyone would put their skin track right up through it, switchbacking at each tree margin for the entire width and height of it.  I'm not being snobish or excessively critical here.  It's just that even with our poor visibility we saw more comfortable options taking advantage of the natural contours of the terrain, reducing need for switchbacks, and even never approaching that 35 degree steepness.  It did, however make us a bit more comfortable with avy assessment since there were plenty of opportunities for the snow to break free in a slab between the switchbacks.  I just saw that some map study may have simply saved some effort, added some interesting touring to the climbing, and certainly conserved some slope for more skiing.  Food for thought, not intended to offend.  I know I can sometimes bozo a skin track route myself pretty badly and get remarks from my partners!  And I certainly never give anyone a hard time for the symmetry or layout of their turns because there really isn't an alternative to one's (myself included) ability.  With a skin track though there may be an alternate.  I am constantly learning the art of the good skin track, considering the gear and ability of the group, the lay of the land, the map, and the desire for consistent and not excessive gradient, all the while reducing the number of switchbacks.  It is like engineering a good hiking trail sometimes.  And I am already a hippocrate here because on Humpback we at times simply stopped considering slope conservation because the skinning was just so darn difficult!  And I certainly didn't think anyone was going to repeat the ski the next day! 
Thanks for indulging me folks, just trying to increase some understanding while reevaluating my own decisions in the process....

Gentlemen, thanks for yet another memorable mountain day, good tour, good turns, good company, and beautiful lay of the land!

If Randy posts some pics on NWHikers I'll add a link.

John