April 24-25, 2004, Snowfield Pk/Neve Glacier

Freshies, crust, corn, wind slab, and glop -- all in one ski run down one of the most spectacular glaciers in Washington!
Forrest, Kurt, Gordy, and I got a not-so-crack-of-dawn start from Newhalem on Saturday morning.  We followed the standard approach via Pyramid Lake trail continuing up the ridge to 5800' to the base of the NE face of Pyramid.  The "scary traverse" to the base of the Colonial Glacier was in pretty good shape around noon due to cooler temperatures and partial cloud cover.
We camped on the Colonial-Neve Col at 6800.  After a late afternoon nap we put our skis back on and traversed point 7505, the peak on the east side of the col.  The east side of 7505 was unbreakable/breakable sun crust.  Small price to pay, however, for the freshies on the north-facing slope of the Colonial Glacier running down from the col between Colonial Peak and 7505!
The next morning we got a crack of 9 start (no use in starting before the sun hits camp, right?) across and up the Neve Glacier. We skinned up to 8000', dropped the skis, and booted up the obvious snow tongue straight up the middle of the north face of Snowfield Peak to the ridge line at about 8250'.  The last 100' were a scramble up rock on the W ridge and a snow ramp on the S face.  Bluebird weather with endless views made for a wonderful lunch break.
The fresh snow on the N face was somewhat wind slabbed, but quite skiable. Retracing our uptracks to avoid the few open crevasses, we had great turns for 1400 vf back down to the flats at 6600'.
The ski out was sunny and hot.  The "scary traverse" was completely rotted out by the sun, so we wasted no time getting past it.  A very satisfying weekend!