March 27, 2004, Skyline Ridge
3/27/04
WA Stevens Pass
2201
1
With NWAC calling for "considerable" 4k+, but wanting to check out the fresh snow, we figured we'd try and work out a way to stay mostly in the trees and on shallower slopes, and if we had gotten up there and it turned out to be too dicey anywhere off the shallow climb up, we would have said the hell with it and we could have bought a ticket across the street. But it didn't seem quite that out of control. A pit dug just E of the under-construction "Chalet du Cellular" (pretty representative of a slope that had fair amounts of wind transported, maybe a little shallow angle to be 100% representative) showed bout 14 inches of fine grained fresh snow over an inch thick rain crust, and then a whole lot of high water content warm rotten stuff underneath. The top layer went ~5 wrist pulls, and RB4+ as a block. I think that although it's hardly a great bond between the new snow and the crust, up there maybe the temperatures old/new worked out such that there was at least a little cohesion (when I first uncovered that layer I was expecting it was gonna go with just light taps, RB2 or 3, but it proved just a little sturdier than that).
E facing slopes that we skied first got heavy almost immediately after leaving the ridge, and were pretty gloppy by the time we got to within 400vf of the highway. Skis left huge uneven trenches in this stuff. N facing slopes were better. We kind of eased into the N slopes tenuously, what with the specific predictions given by NWAC and all, and the feel of the snow here was definitely slabby. But various attempts to ski cut the breakovers yielded nothing, and we tried out some fun N slopes that were pretty powdery in a thick sort of way. Still, we made it a point to stick to short shots with no terrrain trap issues. (To whomever layed down that track we used to get out fron those N runs, thanks ... this wasn't fun stuff to break trail in). The return run on the S facing slopes was ummm springlike but still pretty fun. I think it snowed pretty much the whole time we were there with some occasionally very strong winds.
E facing slopes that we skied first got heavy almost immediately after leaving the ridge, and were pretty gloppy by the time we got to within 400vf of the highway. Skis left huge uneven trenches in this stuff. N facing slopes were better. We kind of eased into the N slopes tenuously, what with the specific predictions given by NWAC and all, and the feel of the snow here was definitely slabby. But various attempts to ski cut the breakovers yielded nothing, and we tried out some fun N slopes that were pretty powdery in a thick sort of way. Still, we made it a point to stick to short shots with no terrrain trap issues. (To whomever layed down that track we used to get out fron those N runs, thanks ... this wasn't fun stuff to break trail in). The return run on the S facing slopes was ummm springlike but still pretty fun. I think it snowed pretty much the whole time we were there with some occasionally very strong winds.
Landru and I repeated your trip to Skyline ridge today. Bright sunshine was glopping up the south facing open slopes skining up the ridge. But in the shade of the old growth trees on the North side the snow was still good and new snow overnight had nearly filled in your tracks from Sat. A few forays into gentle open slopes revealed wet sticky snow that dragged on the bases. So we stayed deep in the trees. Later skiing out on the south side was far better than expected. Even though the snow made occasional slurping sounds during turns it was suprising enjoyable to ski and these gentler slopes didn't generate any sluffs.
The same could not be said of moonlight bowl. From the top we saw a few ski tracks over in there -- with fairly large slides originating from the tracks. We also spied some 3-4 foot diameter pinwheels in moonlight bowl.
The same could not be said of moonlight bowl. From the top we saw a few ski tracks over in there -- with fairly large slides originating from the tracks. We also spied some 3-4 foot diameter pinwheels in moonlight bowl.
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