May 29-30, 2004, Chinook Pass

Due to inclement weather, what was originally planned as a 3 day overnighter trip to Dewey Lake and the surrounding slopes, became 2 separate trips to Chinook Pass. Brenda and I arrived at Chinook Pass on Sat to spitting snow, flat light and a couple of inches of new over firm but wet base. We headed over to the northeast bowl and did several runs from the saddle. Easy sliding of the top couple of inches, along with very large and potentially painful snowballs, kept us off anything long and steep. Snow was surprisingly nice €“ wet new over the old, but not to much to make it to heavy to turn, and not too sticky. We ended the day with a lower tree run, descending from wet snowy conditions to full on rain. Arrived back at the car very wet, but glad we came. Went for a repeat on Sun with similar conditions and similar trip. Dodging large snow balls was more of a problem than the sliding top layer that we had on Sat. Much dryer conditions than Sat, and even some clearing later in the afternoon.