November 21, 2009, Cowboy Mountain
11/21/09
WA Stevens Pass
2507
4
North side parking lot at Stevens was full at 10am, so we got funneled to the massive lots on the other side. Too lazy to cross the street, we decided to ski Cowboy. Nice soft boottop powder the first 500' then heavier lower. We found alder thickets and open streams at 4000' so descended no lower. Some sluffs could be started easily in wind affected areas but did not seem worrisome to us. We stayed close to trees just in case. In the trees, the new snow cover was thin atop a crunchy crust. Surprisingly calm day with little precip.
Well what skis did you use?
Apparently Silas' boots are bigger than mine. Fine day with fine friends, new and old.
Alas, the better skiing photos from the day were slightly out of focus. I've salvaged them about as best I can.
Also of note - I caused a 10'x10' windlip near the top of the ridgeline to fail as a soft slab about 10-18" down on the uppermost crust layer. Tiny windslab evident along the ridgeline, nothing but sluffs everywhere else. Got a test slope to fail at an easy hop 18" down on a crust in a forest clearing at ~4500'.
More large snow ghosts than I've seen in a long time. Snow ghost failure took trivial to moderate effort with a ski pole, but it was always energetic.
Alas, the better skiing photos from the day were slightly out of focus. I've salvaged them about as best I can.
Also of note - I caused a 10'x10' windlip near the top of the ridgeline to fail as a soft slab about 10-18" down on the uppermost crust layer. Tiny windslab evident along the ridgeline, nothing but sluffs everywhere else. Got a test slope to fail at an easy hop 18" down on a crust in a forest clearing at ~4500'.
More large snow ghosts than I've seen in a long time. Snow ghost failure took trivial to moderate effort with a ski pole, but it was always energetic.
author=Marcus link=topic=14563.msg60923#msg60923 date=1258861291]
Well what skis did you use?
my skis(voelkl mountain) were narrower in their widest dimension (104mm) than Charlie's (g3 el hombre) at their narrowest (105mm)!!
Happy to see good coverage so early. Still nervous to bring out my pristine Bows. May try the used Manaslus tomorrow. Then the Bows at Baker soon for comparison?
Giddy up, Silas. Pac NW sounds like the place to be, although we had fun with Kam and Allyson yesterday in our backyard. Holly
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