May 9, 2009, Crystal Southback

All of the recent new snow accumulation dissuaded us from tackling any of the routes on our various 'lists' and instead led us to the more familiar terrain in the vicinity of Threeway peak and the King near Crystal Mountain.  There was, however, a not-so-brief hesitation while leaving Seattle at 6am under nice blue skies that almost induced a U-turn north to other ambitions, but we ended up sticking with the plan and continuing south, where Sergio and I met up with snoslut and Jason at the usual spot. 

We skinned up to Silver Basin on firm snow, figuring that we could start with some of the various chutes on the lookers left of Threeway and work our way out towards the King and more exposed and committing terrain as stability allowed.  We had the hope of finishing the day with a final run down the north side of the King into Avalanche Basin.   

The skin up to the ridge was pretty crusty from all of the debris that had released from the trees, rocks, and cornices, but not too bad.  Once on the ridge we traversed towards 3way, where the rock pinnacles forced us off the ridge into annoying steep sidehills.  snoslut and Jason didn't really like the look of the traverse and (wisely) found their own spot to drop in and continued on their own adventure.  Sergio and I pushed through to the last knob east of 3way and transitioned.  We rode back down the ridge on nice creamy snow and then cut left into one of the chutes we had scoped while skinning.  The top couple of turns were in good settled powder, but the debris in the lower portion was still pretty firm.  Verdict: that run was way too short and crappy for the effort!  Time to move on.



The sun was beckoning us towards Silver Saddle, so we quickly traversed across the big open slopes to the knoll at the bottom of the main pitch.  There were two tracks from the day before, but still plenty of room for smooth debris-free turns.  Great views of the volcanos and what looked like a large avalanche in the vicinity of the corridor on the Emmons route.  The ride down was excellent in very carve-able, bouncy spring chowder.


(photo by Sergio)



We did another run into Silver Basin closer to the King that was a little steeper than the first and a little more committing since there was a lack of an easy escape route.  We talked about the options (keep your speed) and where the little islands of safety were.  I dropped in first and some extremely slow moving wet sluffs followed me down eventually, but nothing else. 

(photo by Sergio)
 


We skinned back up under increasing clouds, and this time we continued to the summit of the King to get a look down the north side.  I've never done any of those runs, so I was excited to check them out.  Sergio led the way down the main shot off of the summit.  His jumping traverse across the top of the slope released most of the new snow, as expected, but it just broke up and sluffed down through the choke, leaving a soft base behind that was a little variable, but pretty nice for steep jump turns at the top and smooth enough for carving turns down lower where the slope angle moderated a bit.  A cool run and a little spicy on this day.

(photo by Sergio)

(photo by Sergio)

The lower slopes on the exit through the resort were, as you can imagine, incrediby heavy, but there were enough other tracks to stay in to maintain glide. 

Always a treat to ride "powder"!  ;D