February 20, 2004, Lake Valhalla, Stevens Pass

Pete and I parked at the lower Stevens lot, followed the cabins road, and skinned along on the south side of Nason Creek. It must have rained down to around 4000'; frozen tree drip in the forest, and hard breakable crust in the open (with some surface hoar). Conditions didn't look good for our intended plans, with lots of forest and distance, but the sunny south slope across Nason Creek did, so we skinned up it to Lake Valhalla. At around 4000' I hand tested a ski pole pit. There were two breakable crusts in the top 3", then about a foot of cold, loose snow, then a substantial crust. Under that crust the snow was very airy and crumbly - maybe this is what the reported Jim Hill slide released on? Climbing to 4800', about half way up the surface crusts started thin, and more new snow was on top. The snow was just starting to get wet on top from the bright sun.

We skied across Lake Valhalla to the north end and made a luxurious bench in a little solar oven. We soaked up the sun, ate lunch, and watched small avalanches come down the cliffs and slopes of Lichtenberg Mountain. When we skinned back across the lake, I had some problems with snow caking on my skins due the now very wet surface snow overlying much colder snow. The run back down (south slope) was on never great, but never horrible, snow. The top half, which lacked the surface crusts, was just heavy. Right in the middle was a small section of breakable crust, but then the crust became supportive if skied carefully (or if one didn't weigh too much). We had to put skins on again to make it back to the cabins road. Overall not great skiing, but it was a beautiful day in a beautiful place.