1-2-10, heather ridge
1/2/10
WA Stevens Pass
1548
1
The short... whoomph whoomph whoomph, but not much was moving. Even spots that had seen a herd of skinners would still whoomph on our final climb out.Covered many aspects, some seemed safer, some not, but the whoomphing was on all them. Sub terrainian sound waves and pit tests did not instill confidence, but no real avi activy was noted. Travel was not hard, and mostly in powder. Decents where very fun. Photos are not from today.
Went up to Heather ridge with JimG again today. Toured over skyline lake to check out the diving board. Looks like a fun jump, but yet again I just stood at the edge and stared into the shark tooth filled pool below me.
Scooted around through boulder land and over to the funner chutes. A ski cut got the top of big funner to slide. Noy very big, only the top 6-8"s new snow slid, and only the very top. It's slough ran, but caused no stepdown. Dropped a small cornice into, an agressive ski cut, and then rode little funner into moonlight.
From there we headed west over to Baldy. Touring up the ridge has some fun moments. We scoped every possible line, decided many weren't safe for us today, and then went back to drop the usually avi prone bald face. The fact that it had already slid a few days ago, and the lower then usuall wind loading was nice. Up to this point we hadn't seen any body since we left the S&P highway, but it turns out someone followed our skin track up, and tested the slope for us.
At the bottom we stopped and cooked up some cheesy mash potatoes. I bet 20 people skinned past us. As we started slimbing, it was kind of ammusing to see the criss cross sets of skin tracks that people had been laying in every direction. As we crossed over the center of skyline, we got one more big goodbye whoomph from the entire lake.
Went up to Heather ridge with JimG again today. Toured over skyline lake to check out the diving board. Looks like a fun jump, but yet again I just stood at the edge and stared into the shark tooth filled pool below me.
Scooted around through boulder land and over to the funner chutes. A ski cut got the top of big funner to slide. Noy very big, only the top 6-8"s new snow slid, and only the very top. It's slough ran, but caused no stepdown. Dropped a small cornice into, an agressive ski cut, and then rode little funner into moonlight.
From there we headed west over to Baldy. Touring up the ridge has some fun moments. We scoped every possible line, decided many weren't safe for us today, and then went back to drop the usually avi prone bald face. The fact that it had already slid a few days ago, and the lower then usuall wind loading was nice. Up to this point we hadn't seen any body since we left the S&P highway, but it turns out someone followed our skin track up, and tested the slope for us.
At the bottom we stopped and cooked up some cheesy mash potatoes. I bet 20 people skinned past us. As we started slimbing, it was kind of ammusing to see the criss cross sets of skin tracks that people had been laying in every direction. As we crossed over the center of skyline, we got one more big goodbye whoomph from the entire lake.