May 23, 2004, Silver Peak Basin

It certainly was a great trip.
The snow on all aspects was nicely consolidated.  Surface was softened to "hero corn" consistency.  Coverage was light for May but there's still some great tours left into the basin.
Here's a shot of "snowslut" cleaning up the last line that we skied.
5/25 @ 0957... Picture change time  :) Jerry wrote the report so why shouldn't he get some "thread pic" time?  8)
More pics are at:http://groups.msn.com/WildHeartsSkiing/pictures

It was a great ski and now I also have been taught how to post pictures, so here are a few I took yesterday  8)

http://groups.msn.com/WildHeartsSkiing/pictures

Great pics Ron and Jeanette.  By the way thanx for not making Evan and I wear blind folds. ;D  The fog worked in your favor until our last run when things started to clear up a bit.  The bushwhack out thru the pines made the ride home freshier.  Overall a great trip with lots of surprises. 8)  Except for those loud people that we would occassionally hear from time to time.  That last line definitely completed the day.  My bunions were a little tender from kicking steps in with soft boots.  So Jeanette, the queen bee, have you decided on a name for the chute?

Good work, guys - you were definitely doing a good job of milking the season up there! Nice to have that south facing road head up close the north facing basin, huh?

Sounds like you may have explored the NE lobe of the basin a bit - true? If so, did you ski all the way out that direction? We stuck to the NW lobe last weekend, and from a distance it looked like you could find continuous snow from top to bottom in the NE side but there appeared to be some sketchy potentially rotted out areas (but there also appeared to be some potentially nice lines over there - longer steeper than what you find in the NW lobe).

 So Jeanette, the queen bee, have you decided on a name for the chute?

 ;D  It's a secret  ;D  and thanks worker bee for kickin in the steps.  To bad we had to quit, I was up for tackling another chute, so much to do.

Sounds like you may have explored the NE lobe of the basin a bit - true? If so, did you ski all the way out that direction?

Yeah, Jim, we went up on the NW side (twice, ran in to Randy on the second one) but descended 3 different lines from the center to the far NE side.  We actually knew the area from lots of prior trips, but some of the steeper gladed lines we had in mind were devoid of snow.  Skied out to the clearcut without removing skis, but you're right, it IS a bit of a "treasure hunt" through the woods.

BTW, found a shovel up there.  If anyone lost one up there and can describe it well enough to convince me it's yours, it's yours!

Not mine.

I will explore that NE basin area next time. My "Silver buddy" has always been a bit of an Eyore (sp?) about that way ("it may not go, it looks like cliffs..."), but it sure looks interesting to me. Heck, if the sledders can highmark, we must be able to find some good lines there too!

The shovel looked like it had been buried a while... possibly lost earlier in the year.

The good lines go from all along the north face, especially from the saddle,  and then east.  Your "silver buddy" has good self preservation instincts, however.  We took the same approach on those north facing lines years ago. There ARE cliffs, 2 sets of 'em, and they can sneak up on you.  So a lot of the lines DON'T "go" either because of the cliffs or the fact that some of the areas in the trees just seem to melt out a lot earlier (maybe no compaction from the sun/melt/freeze and avy action?).  So that north face is a really good place to "climb what you ski" or better yet climb and/or rap the various lines in the fall when they're devoid of snow.  A gps comes in handy for marking the cliffs.  Have fun, be safe.

As long as we're on the subject of Silver Peak, here's a good reason to check out the avy blog once in a while (and contribute to it, too!):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tim Kirk reported @ 05/19/2004 11:30 AM PDT

This was reported from a Mountaineers member on a scramble of Silver Peak. His report is posted below:

-----------------------

I just thought I would share a scary story from yesterday.
My father and I were up doing silver peak yesterday as a scramble. For those of you who are familiar with this peak, we left the trail around 3,400' and bushwacked up towards the summit ridge that you can catch at 4,800'. We hit snow that was mostly in the colls around 4,000'. The snow was very consolidated, covered with pine needles, in the shade and our boot treads would stick in 2" with great purchase. After 300' or so of climbing
we decided it was steep enough to get axes out, put crampons on and throw our helmets on (more because we had them than any great danger) and then continued up. The snow was 45 degrees in most places and even as steep as 50 degrees for short sections.
At the 4,700' level I was climbing up, my father was 30 yards behind me. I looked up the coll and saw a large splash of snow above about 50 yards. I was surprised and my first thought was that my dog had slipped on the snow and was falling but then in an instant I realized that this was an avalanche. I yelled "avalanche! avalanche!" "Run to your right" and turned to see that my dad was running as I was. I ran 15 feet off of the snow I was on onto dirt ground and in some trees and my back foot was hit by a basketball size chunk of ice in an instant. I could not see my dad so I started yelling for him and he quickly said he was OK. He had hid behind a tree and was smacked in the head with a large chunk of snow/ice, cutting the bridge of his nose and breaking his sunglasses. He was lucky we put helmets on 15 minutes prior.

I learned some interesting lessons from this that I thought I would share with the group. The snow that came down did not leave much debris at all on the snow we were hiking on. The trees around us all had snow smeared on them where the avy came through and hit the trunks. We hiked up further to see the origin of this and what we found was interesting. About 75 yards up the hill from where we were, at the top of the coll, the snow steepened to 55 degrees and ended at the base of some rock. A slab, triangular in shape and 15" thick, 30' long and 15' wide had broken loose and slid. The slab had been resting on very wet moss-covered rock . This was the very top of the coll and just got too wet and heavy to support its weight on such a slippery surface. It was 9.30 a.m., about 40 degrees and in the shade.

I don't think this would have buried us, but we could have been badly injured. It happened very fast. All within 5 seconds. It did not make much noise. It was sending beach ball size chunks of snow going by me like a speeding car.
BEWARE! This seemed like very stable snow. It was covered with pine needles and even suncupping in spots.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll definitely be thinking of this sort of thing when booting up steep pitches even in the summer from now on.

Thank you for the report, Ron.  Do you think this refers to the West slopes that are above Lake Annette and the Lake Annette trail?  Sounds like it does.  Having skiied the west slope several times, as I know many other TAY posters have, this certainly gives pause.  I am not sure I have seen too many or any 45-50 degree areas on the west face, because I am pretty sure I don't ski anything nearly that steep!  It could be that towards the south aspects of that west slope, kind of directly below the summit and above the lake, some slopes might approach that steepness.  However I am guessing that in the main the slope is 30-35 degrees...still perfect for slides.  

I remember a couple of years ago ascending into Silver peak basin via the East lobe...June...significant waterfall/cliff action was experienced but we "made it".  With good snow cover the central upper East lobe is a beautiful miniature bowl into bowl set of drops...short, but pleasing.  I have never tried to drop it the whole way to upper Ollalie however.

... Do you think this refers to the West slopes that are above Lake Annette and the Lake Annette trail?  Sounds like it does.

I think you may be right.  When they said they "left the trail at 3400" I was thinking they might have gone up from the Twin Lakes side, as the parking on the Ollalie side is like at 3800. I've seen climber types go in from the road switchback east of twin lakes. But your theory makes more sense; it would be much easier to "leave the trail at 3400" and "pick up the ridge at 4800" on the Annette Lake side. So I guess that slab release was probably on that west facing aspect.

... I remember a couple of years ago ascending into Silver peak basin via the East lobe...June...significant waterfall/cliff action was experienced but we "made it". With good snow cover the central upper East lobe is a beautiful miniature bowl into bowl set of drops...short, but pleasing. I have never tried to drop it the whole way to upper Ollalie however.

I, too have climbed that waterfall below the east bowl in the summer.  Got soaked, too, as I recall; logged extra torture points for that one.  As I recall this (http://groups.msn.com/WildHeartsSkiing/strh92902.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=667) pic was taken a bit west of the waterfall you mention.  It's nonetheless a good way to find the lines that "go" (or at least that's our excuse for getting all muddy  ;) ) We tend to prefer climbing it from the west end now.  Some of our pics from this trip were taken in that bottom bowl you mention. We Have skied out from the east end through the forest to the clear cut lots of times tho. It usually works ok. Worst case is you go back to skins or load up.