March 30, Phantom and Alpy Trees
3/15/09
2260
2
We bailed on our ambitious Mt Snoqualmie/Slot idea in favor of what turned out to be better skiing anyways in the Alpental BC.
A quick pit a short ways above the Phantom showed easy sheers (STV Q1/CT11 Q1 at 22 cm and STC/CT11 Q1/2 at 34cm) just above a pretty obvious hard layer. Both failure layers seemed to have some grauppel and a few small facets. Even more interesting was how variable the snow was - some wind hammered areas, but also many pockets of wind deposited snow. Also, lots of fresh, and still soft, avy debris in the S1/2 class, probably from yesterday (seemed to have a few inches of new snow on it).
So much for ambition. We descended, moved up and across the valley and found decent powder the timber below Pineapple Basin. It was worth a couple laps.
Also, it was snowing from about 8A onward. If the snow settles down, Alpy could be pretty good.
A quick pit a short ways above the Phantom showed easy sheers (STV Q1/CT11 Q1 at 22 cm and STC/CT11 Q1/2 at 34cm) just above a pretty obvious hard layer. Both failure layers seemed to have some grauppel and a few small facets. Even more interesting was how variable the snow was - some wind hammered areas, but also many pockets of wind deposited snow. Also, lots of fresh, and still soft, avy debris in the S1/2 class, probably from yesterday (seemed to have a few inches of new snow on it).
So much for ambition. We descended, moved up and across the valley and found decent powder the timber below Pineapple Basin. It was worth a couple laps.
Also, it was snowing from about 8A onward. If the snow settles down, Alpy could be pretty good.
Phantom. Is that the new (c. 1990's) avy path starting between Cave Ridge (N Pass) and the 1st false summit (S) of Snoq. Mtn?
Sounds right. Its the big huge slide path that ends across the street from the Alpy base. Pretty impressive feature.
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