Feb 21 Diamondhead (Blewett Pass)
2/15/10
WA Cascades East Slopes Central
2103
1
glenn_b, Lance, and I set off from just North of Blewett Pass for a morning run off Diamondhead. We were hoping for corn, but it turned out to be a little too cool still and we got a very mixed bag of conditions instead. We saw it all; powder, ice, crust, crud... if you didn't like the snow, just go another 20 feet and it changed again.
On the North side of the mountain we encountered a fairly firm surface crust with 2 inches of light fluffy powder underneath, which might be a problem later. More noticeably, almost everything outside of the trees above 4000' had serious hoar frost -- 2 inches deep by the time we got to the top. Depending how the next snow falls this could be bad news.
We dropped down the West face, but as the snow was really firm (and we occasionally cut through to rocks) we traversed back to the North side and made our way down through the trees. It wasn't better snow.
Not perfect conditions, but still a great adventure and a lot of fun!
On the North side of the mountain we encountered a fairly firm surface crust with 2 inches of light fluffy powder underneath, which might be a problem later. More noticeably, almost everything outside of the trees above 4000' had serious hoar frost -- 2 inches deep by the time we got to the top. Depending how the next snow falls this could be bad news.
We dropped down the West face, but as the snow was really firm (and we occasionally cut through to rocks) we traversed back to the North side and made our way down through the trees. It wasn't better snow.
Not perfect conditions, but still a great adventure and a lot of fun!
Nice report. I found about the same conditions last weekend except for the surface hoar. It is a very fun tour when the conditions are good. The lower sections in the trees were challenging for me this time.
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